Friday Fern #3

Here's my Japanese holly fern, Cyrtomium fortunei. It's been munched by something in a couple of places, but considering it looked almost dead a few months ago, I'm really impressed with it.


So it's perhaps a little bit deciduous, and maybe I need to give it a severe "haircut" in spring like I did with the Asplenium scolopendrium I showed you last week. It looks in good condition now, but I have a long way to go before it looks as good as the one in the I Dream, I Seek My Garden show garden at Chelsea (which is that massive clump next to the pillars):

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Well, it's not rained since yesterday afternoon, but I have a feeling it might start tipping it down this evening. And probably all weekend. It's because I suggested to my brother (who's staying with us this weekend, along with his fiancée, her brother and his girlfriend) that we have a barbecue on Sunday. There. Jinxed it. Now you're all going to have rain too because I mentioned the B-word.

The Gunnera manicata is loving this. It and the horsetails are in not-so-well-drained pots underneath the bit where our gutter overflows. So I hardly have to remember to water them as they're sitting in a bog all the time. The ferns look great too. But with the exception of the Dicksonia I have visions of my (greatly anthropomorphised) antipodean plants sitting in our British springtime weather saying to themselves "What the XXXX is this?".

But the Gunnera is almost growing before my eyes! As I said in response to The Inelegant Gardener, it's going wooooooop! It'll soon be the biggest thing in the garden (which, to be fair, is kind of the point of a Gunnera).

How to draw the balance though? I love not having to lug watering can after watering can outside and down the steps (cast iron drainpipes mean no water butts for me), but I also love being able to actually sit out and enjoy my garden! Can I put in a request for rain only between the hours of 11pm and 6am?

Repost 22 June 2007: Is This A Ginkgo?

A year (nearly) on, I know exactly what this is, but find it really interesting to look back and see how clueless I was about plants. I'm sure in a year's time I'll look back on posts I made now and be amazed at how clueless I am at the moment about plants...

Outside Osterley tube station there's a weird tree. It's paler than the other trees along the A4 - a sort of lime green. It was only this week that I noticed the leaves:

Yes, I actually picked a leaf, brought it home and photographed it - on some very fetching Tesco kitchen roll in fact. It looks like a Ginkgo. Are there any botanists out there who could confirm this? I've had a look at some of the photos online and it looks very similar - the leaves certainly resemble those on my maidenhair fern, and as the Ginkgo is also called the maidenhair tree, that makes sense. But they do not bifurcate, which is what makes me wonder. The veins are definitely radiating though.

Repost 16 June 2007: Sweden Has A Wollemi Pine Too

Just a quickie:

Saw this article while trawling the interwebs: The Swedes Get A Jurassic Tree. It's great to see the Wollemi love being spread.

One quote from this really struck me - it wasn't anything I'd thought about before:

"It is estimated to be about 200 million years old, from earth's Jurassic Period, so it was around even before the Australian continent was formed."

Australia, India and Antarctica broke away from Africa and South America 165 million years ago, and Australia had separated from Antarctica and the other continents by 45 million years ago.

Isn't plate tectonics wonderful?

Repost 11 June 2007: Wollemi Droop - With Photos!

More reposts of the Wollemi pine. I can't believe it used to be small enough for just the dark green cane to be sufficient for it. Now it's approaching the height of the bamboo canes I've had to use in recent months.

On the left is my very droopy Wollemi Pine yesterday evening, at about 6pm. On the right is my rather perky Wollemi Pine at 7.30am today. According to Tony Kirkham of RBG Kew, "the tree seems to stick two fingers up to convention", so I guess this is just my tree's way of flipping me the bird.

I'll keep an eye on it.

Chelsea Haul

Okay. Photo-heavy post here as I have a horrible headache that won't ease up. Here's the haul from the Chelsea Sell-Off (it's really blurry because I was taking photos in awful light yesterday). First up, this was from the LK Bennett garden and I haven't a scoobies what it is but the lovely gentlemen just picked up a handful and gave it to me with the fern:


Blurry "Lilac Wings" lavender from Isle Of Wight Lavender (it's not Mesozoic but it makes bees happy):


Blechnum novae zelandiae from Burncoose Nurseries:


And sheltering under it a delightful little painted fern (I assume) from the LK Bennett garden:


Either it's a variegated Asplenium scolopendrium or it's really quite poorly, from the Children's Society Garden, with a Zantedeschia from City of Durban:


This is the best photo I have of the very frilly other fern from Burncoose Nurseries:



The bargain Banksia "Birthday Candles", from which I've taken some cuttings (hey, they might take!):


This has to be an Athyrium nipponicum (would be nice if it was an "Ursula's Red" as the little ones I have don't seem too happy):



And a very VERY blurry Polystichum minutum from Desert To Jungle:



Sorry for the appalling photos. If any of you can identify anything beyond what I've managed I'll be really grateful. I can't match anything up with the plant lists at the moment!

I Survived

I made it there and back in one piece. I drove in to park at work, near the Ritz, then hopped on the tube. Everyone who was coming out of the Flower Show looked at me with my wheelbarrow and laughed. Everyone going in to the Flower Show looked enviously at me... We had to queue until 3:30pm. There was a false start, which was a little frustrating, but when we were in a very nice steward on the turnstile helped me lift the wheelbarrow over.

Spotted: James Alexander-Sinclair walking past me within 10 seconds of me getting through the gate, muttering something about a wheelbarrow. Were you off to get your own, James?

I worried that I was going to be really disappointed, because I hadn't done my research very well. The Encephalartos horridus from City of Durban was just the leaves, and all the proteas at Kirstenbosch were cut flowers. Then half the stand at Desert To Jungle had been sold already (I was told the "T Rex" had been sold within two hours of the show opening though, so I don't feel too bad).

But then the longer I was there, after the bell was rung, the more bargains I saw. Basically as everyone went for the big blousy flowers, the ferns were exposed. So I have half a dozen of the little buggers. The smaller show gardens were excellent places to stop for a bargain, and I didn't pay more than £10 for anything. The show gardens were also pretty happy to give away free plants with any purchase!

Wish "Tempest In A Teacup" had been giving away plants though.

So I left, less than £100 out of pocket, and managed to walk to Sloane Square. Halfway up the road there was a guy taking photos of people with their purchases, and he asked me to pose. I obliged, although I have no clue where this will end up - he wasn't overly keen to answer that question. I figure, though, that it's probably some kind of art exhibit. Because if he's taking photos of sweaty, baggy-jeans-wearing, cowboy-hat-donning, sulky women with wheelbarrows for his own personal pleasure then he is to be pitied...

At Sloane Square, however, I couldn't face trying to get Birnam Wood onto the District Line, so I hopped in a black cab with the nicest cabbie ever (who got a very big tip when he dropped me off at the office).

I'm knackered, so potting up will have to wait for tomorrow (I did water everything well when I got home though). And photos will follow. Now I have an appointment with a large Baileys and the Eurovision Song Contest...

Friday Fern #2

This week I am mostly posting photos of Asplenium scolopendrium. So common it grows everywhere in the UK - I've seen it on the side of Winnats Pass in Derbyshire, clinging on for dear life to the limestone cliffs, and today walking back from lunch with Hubster I saw it growing out of a basement wall on a street in the heart of Mayfair.


So this was the fern nearly three months ago. I didn't cut it back for winter and then regretted it, because it went really brown and crusty.



So when I did cut it back I got all this lovely new growth.



And now it looks gorgeous. There's still a bit of a furry coating to the fronds, but they'll get all waxy soon enough. I've put down some bull semen slug barrier gel, as the fronds were getting munched. Think I stopped the little blighters in their tracks.

These ferns are also known as the Hart's Tongue fern, and my mum calls them the Mother-In-Law's Tongue. I know there's another plant called Mother-In-Law's Tongue, so I'm unsure whether this is a genuine alternative name for the plant or whether my mum - well, let's not go there...

So a more conventional Friday Fern. And three photos for the price of one.

So Chelsea Then!

Right. I'm a mean, mean blogger, making you wait nearly 48 hours... Slide show is at the end of the post, with all my photos, even the naff blurry ones. It was great. Not as crowded as I thought it would be (the benefit of RHS membership no doubt), although there were still a few little old ladies with improbably sharp elbows and oversized backpacks. We did the courtyard gardens first, via a circuitous route (as for the second year running I decided to live dangerously and not buy the programme...). My favourite courtyard garden? The Simmons & Simmons "Journey To Work" garden. Black wood for the office walls made the enormous Asplenium nidus really stand out:



And I was delighted to see pots (albeit really smart polished stainless steel pots rather than my crumbly Homebase terracotta) feature in a garden. Moving on to the show gardens (via the shopping - they're definitely making the most of people at the bottom of the economic foodchain), I enjoyed the Marshalls garden, proving that kids don't just want a big lawn to play football on in their garden. Cleve West's Bupa garden was easy on the eye - more suited to a communal garden I think, and I liked the thought that had gone into each individual aspect of it.

The Cancer Research UK garden was gorgeous - full of beautiful lush tree ferns - definitely one of my absolute favourites:



A Cadogan Garden took the trend for planting palm trees and other exotics to the extreme with several towering (and flowering) Trachycarpus fortunei.



My top urban garden was the Tempest In A Teapot. It made good use of a tiny space, raising up beds to put ferns and other exotics in. Gave me inspiration for when I'm eventually able to buy a house and plant everything properly. It's lovely to see ferns coming back in fashion!


Into the Pavilion, and it seemed that everyone had pretty much cleared out. We had no problem getting to any of the stands, and had good chats with Knoll Gardens and Kirstenbosch, and a lovely lady at a stand (the name of which escapes me), who was so helpful when Cliff fell in love with the Calamagrostis x acutifolia "Overdam". But the best bit? Seeing the Encephalartos horridus (aka Big Blue Evil On A Stick) at the ?Durban City Council stand:



If I could have one wish for this year, it would be to bag that tomorrow. But it won't happen even if it is for sale. I'm sure to lose out to a little old lady with sharpened elbows.

Pimms was £9.00 for a large measure (is there any other size???) so we contented ourselves with a pint of chavvy Strongbow instead, which we guzzled as we were politely but firmly herded out at 8:00pm on the dot. The other workmates seemed appalled that we hadn't really looked at the cut flowers, but neither of us are really into big displays of flowers. The palms, ferns, bamboos and cycads were plenty for us. And I'm still buzzing about it today!

To Monty - Get Well Soon

A few weeks ago on Gardeners' World it was announced that Monty Don would not be presenting for six weeks. Carol Klein took over, ably assisted by Joe Swift, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one to wonder what the reason for Monty's absence was.

Well, I was sad to read that he suffered a minor stroke and has stood down from presenting, it would seem permanently. I am sorry to hear this - it was a bolt out of the blue for us viewers so I should think even more of a horrible shock for Monty and his family. I wish him all the best for a speedy recovery.

Of course, this leaves the producers with the need to choose a new lead presenter, and sadly this is not the first time they've had to suddenly find a new presenter. Twelve years ago Geoff Hamilton died suddenly. That was very sad too - even though I was only 16 (and I gather on a Friday night I should have been out on a street corner sniffing glue and knocking back a two litre bottle of White Lightning) I loved watching Gardeners' World, and Geoff first got me interested in gardening, in tandem with my own grandfather and his prize-winning rose garden (and the sweet peas, and the ponds, and the kitchen garden over the road, and the tennis court, and the field of rabid, man-eating geese).

So for me, there's only one person who can take on such a role - the woman who, along with her doppelganger, my own mother, has reawakened my enthusiasm for gardening. The presenter who makes me smile back at her, who makes me think that maybe I can grow vegetables and that they won't taste like poo, that I can put all my lovely exotic plants in containers, that I can take cuttings and propagate them and have hundreds of new plants ready to give away to friends.

Carol Klein gets my vote. She is friendly, down to earth, loves the plants with every fibre of her being, and has something in her personality that makes one want to get out of the armchair and go and plant something. Just like Geoff Hamilton did. And that has to be the most important quality in a gardening presenter!

PS - Chelsea was awesome. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow but thought this was more important.

Fifteen Minutes...

...Until I'm out of work like a bat out of hell and across the park to the District Line. I have my camera, my sunglasses, spare batteries for said camera, and an emergency supply of cash for Pimms courtesy of the Hubster.

Seriously, the knowledge that I am off to the Chelsea Flower Show any minute now is the only thing that's got me through the absolute bowel movement of a day I've had so far.

Well, that and the tangy gummy dinosaurs Hubster included in his lunchtime Red Cross aid parcel.

Back In Fashion

I've been watching the start of the BBC's coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. What Alan Titchmarsh and Joe Swift both seem to be agreed on is that green is back. Foliage is cool again and being used as a colour in gardens rather than as a background to supposedly more interesting flower colours.



This probably comes as no surprise to the members of the Hardy Tropicals forum or the British Pteridological Society, but it's nice to have the Powers That Be say so. It's a bit like finding out that baggy jeans and black jumpers are back in fashion courtesy of London Fashion Week.

My garden has always been predominantly green, based mainly on plants that were around before flowers were "invented". I've incorporated a pink Camellia, a yellow Hamamelis and several red or pink proteas. At some point in the next decade or so I also expect creamy pink flowers on my Magnolia.



But the flowers, and the odd vivid blue accent (the pots, the furniture, the hanging lanterns I need to wash out for this year) are incidental to the greens, ranging through blue-greens (Juniperus squamata), dark emerald greens (Araucaria araucana), the pale green flush of new growth (Matteuccia struthiopteris) and the lemony green of Cupressus macrocarpa. I also have the reddish green new fronds of Dryopteris erythrosora peeking out of their older green foliage.

The new growth is well on its way, and I'm looking forward to seeing the leaves and fronds overflowing in their pots by the end of the season. I'm going to have plenty to divide to give me even more green. It's nice to be one of the cool kids again!

Tree-Hugging Hippie Crap

After a couple of comments I made on Tai Haku's post about the captive Wollemi pine I started thinking, which is never a good thing.



I mentioned that I liked to touch the plants I see, to feel the bark and the leaves. I walk around my garden running my fingers through the ferns, stroking the conifer needles and rubbing the herbs. And of course it wouldn't be an evening in the garden without impaling my calf on one of José's spikes. But what I actually do, to the embarrassment of Hubster and any friends who happen to be in the vicinity, is to hug trees.

I don't do it to feel at one with the tree. And in the grounds of stately homes and botanical gardens I'm unlikely to need to do so to prevent the tree being cut down. And I don't do it to embarrass anyone with me, although Hubster and my friend Sarah, who have both been with me and photographed me doing so, may disagree. I do it to get a feel for the size of the thing. By putting my chin to the bark and looking up the tree I get a view that is impossible to recreate any other way. Hugging Sequoiadendron is also a unique experience because the bark is squishy.

Geologists all get taught that the best way of telling the difference between a mudstone and a siltstone in the field is to nibble a bit, because the tongue is very sensitive to subtle differences in grain size. All geologists have done it, some still do it, hardly any of them will admit to it in polite company. And I suspect it's similar with gardeners and tree-hugging.

Come on - how many of you will admit to it?

Mistress Of My Domain

You might have noticed that you're being redirected from http://abiggerpot.blogspot.com to http://www.abiggerpot.com. Having had some PayPal credit left in my account from an unpleasant eBay experience (yeah, had to threaten to sue the seller for libel - not nice) I thought I'd treat myself to the proper domain. Blogger is ace and automatically redirects all the links so none of you need to do anything.

Watch me get delusions of grandeur now.

Going, Going, Gone!

In exactly a week's time, I will probably be subjecting myself to the Chelsea Sell-Off. I have Wednesday evening tickets, but as an RHS member I'm entitled to return to the Chelsea Flower Show on the Saturday afternoon to join in the chaos.



I have never been before, but I gather it is total carnage, and that delicate, refined, pashmina-wearing ladies of a certain age are transformed into sharp-elbowed WWE wrestlers upon the chime of a bell. I've seen lots of advice springing up. Old clothes are a given, as are sensible shoes. It never occurred to me to dress otherwise! If it's as much of a rugby scrum as I read it is, then I may consider strapping my ribs too. In fact, it's a shame Hubster doesn't have his old American football padding anymore because that would be ideal.

To ensure that I don't spend a fortune, I plan to take my largest pink tubtrug, an over-the-shoulder bag containing my budget (no more than £100 and probably, especially when Hubster reads this, considerably less) and my trusty brown field hat (in case of sun/rain).

Other than this, however, I am totally clueless. I suppose I'll be going round asking sellers on Wednesday whether they'll be taking part in the sell-off. Who will I be interested in talking to? Anyone selling ferns, cycads, palms, you know the sort of thing. But (as long as they're selling) I want to make a bee-line for Kirstenbosch.

Now I know for a fact that a few Chelsea regulars read this blog. So, my questions are:

1. Given that I'm only showing up on Saturday for the sell-off, do they let us in at 4pm on the dot or a little bit beforehand?
   
2. If it's 4pm on the dot, how early do I need to camp out to be sure I'm at the front of the baying mob and can get a sprint on to the Grand Pavilion?
   
3. If I'm only allowed in at 4pm and I'm competing against people who have been there all day and can leisurely amble up to the stands of interest, is there actually any bloody point or will all the good stuff have gone before I can get there?
   
4. What are the prices like? I paid just shy of £20 for a Leucospermum in a 3 litre pot (if that) with five flowers on it at Akamba - what's the same plant likely to cost me at the sell-off?

Any other tips for the sell-off virgin? Would it help if I took José Cuervo with me to the sell-off to help me get through the crowds quickly? No one argues with a fast-moving young woman carrying an Agave...

Friday Fern #1

Thought I'd try to post a picture of one of my ferns (which are my favourite group of plants) once a week or so. I have a few pictures in stock, but I'll start off with my favourite ground fern of the moment, my Matteuccia struthiopteris.



I took this photo to show what a gorgeous shade of apple green the fronds are when they come up. I love this about my deciduous ferns - the new green colour looks amazing against the darker green of the tree ferns, conifers and palms.

Water, Water All Around - And Plenty For My Plants To Drink!

Just overnight, the weather turned. We were told to expect thunderstorms overnight and cooler, wetter conditions for the next few days. I don't mind that at all, although it would be nice to be able to carry on sitting outside in the garden. At the moment a full garden's watering is taking four watering cans' worth. Ferns take one, vegetables plus Gunnera take one, palms and other non-protea angiosperms take one and the proteas, Bastard, Agave and Wollemia take one. Everything in the growhouse gets done with a small watering can on an ad hoc basis.

This works out really well. Having grouped everything thus, I know Group I (ferns) needs doing once, sometimes twice a day. Group II (vegetables) no more than once a day even in hot weather. Group III (palms and friends) is okay once every other day or two. And Group IV needs doing once a week at most. Of course nothing is so formulaic in gardening, and of course I check the soil to see if I need to deviate from this, but it's good to be able to stagger things a little, and it means I'm never tempted to overwater something.

Interesting times over on the other blog, hence the lack of pretty pictures and tales of my battles with the animal kingdom. But to make up for it, above is the only actual dinosaur in the garden. He's guarding the Leucospermum, Asplenium trichomanes and the Ursula's Red. My mum bought him for me, and has promised me another when I next see her!

Guerilla Gardening Thwarted

As you probably know, we rent our flat, which is why everything is in pots. But I felt the urge to do something meaningful with the front garden. We have a big drive, grass in front of each house and flower beds either side of the steps to the front door on our side of the building and between our lounge and bedroom window. Last year no one touched it, until around July I suddenly realised we had sweet peas that could probably do with a helping hand. Some were too tangled up to do anything with them, and I cut them down. Others I was able to cane up.

This year I thought I'd sow some seeds. It's a lovely old building and I hoped that some butterfly-friendly cottage garden flowers would help assuage my guilt at having absolutely nothing for the little insects to feed on in the back garden. I weeded, hoed, watered and sowed. And the moment I got seedlings up? Yup, you guessed it, the groundsmen came along and hoed them all out.

The groundsmen haven't gone anywhere near the beds until this year. Why now? I am quite sure the property managers wouldn't give a monkeys as to whether there are lovely flowers out in the front, so there's absolutely no point in getting in touch with them and asking them to call off the groundsmen.



So what to do now? I am loath to spend money on more seeds, especially if they're going to be rooted up and killed off (I reckon of the 2000 seeds I sowed I'll only have 100 or so survive, even if I can hold off the hoeing!), but it's the least expensive thing to do. I thought it would be a cheap and cheerful way of brightening up the place - the plants were only annuals after all. I'm tempted to invest in a few perennials I wouldn't mind growing myself, bastardising them for cuttings and then putting stronger plants in the border, but that's going to take me a long time and won't help this summer.

I could divide the alpines and put a few in. They're in full flower at the moment, which might dissuade the groundsmen. I could put netting down, not to stop birds or squirrels, but to at least make them stop and think before they hoe. I certainly have plans involving a load of cheap winter bulbs, which I am sure Tesco will oblige with in due course.

I got some poppy seeds in a magazine last night - they'll never get rid of them. But what more can I do without spending more than £5? If I get hold of more seeds, on the basis that the groundsmen were round yesterday, will the seedlings have enough time to take hold (especially if I put netting down) before they come back to mow the lawn and make the front garden look barren and lifeless?

Staring Down An Agave

José Cuervo, the new Agave tequilana. It drew blood for the first time about a week ago, right in my calf. Bled surprisingly profusely. But no itchy rashes or anything - I must have a non-irritant version!

I Iz In Ur Gardun Eatin Ur Angeeospurmz

But haha - they have been thwarted by the Inpenetrable Barrier Of Bull Semen. No snail trails on Camellia, Hamamelis or Magnolia. Boo-yeaaah!

*does the Dance of Victory over Phylum Mollusca*

Scarlet Ribbons For Her Hair

Here's a lazy photo of my Leucospermum "Scarlet Ribbons" in the late afternoon sun yesterday, for your viewing pleasure. I have a new flower forming, two weeks after I bought it, so hey - I haven't killed it yet!

The War On Molluscs

Well the bran was rubbish. I thought they were giving it a wide berth, but two of the little buggers made it across (I was sitting out watching them with a torch). So I had to kill them. I thoroughly sluiced through the Magnolia and Hamamelis this afternoon, and as all the invertebrates came to the surface (I didn't know woodlice could swim!) I picked off the slugs, chucked them in a pot and threw table salt on them. I felt a tiny bit bad watching them writhe in agony before dying in a mound of froth, but then they were trying to eat my plants.



So I'm trying a different tactic. Tesco have loads of organic pest control stuff, so I thought I'd try their organic bull semen slug barrier gel. Seriously, the stuff looks gross. I don't know what's in it, but I bet bovine ejaculate figured in its manufacture somewhere.



So that's round the base of the Magnolia, Hamamelis, Camellia and Asplenium scolopendrium, the only ones that seem to have been at all nibbled. A big dollop right round the base of each one. And if I find any live slugs, they'll either get chucked in the compost heap (if I'm feeling benevolent) or given a salt bath (if I'm not).



I potted up the Gunnera I swapped on Thursday, fed all the plants (organic N:P:K 5:2:5 fertiliser and a good helping of PalmBooster), sowed the five sunflower seeds from the Gardeners' World seed trial I'm doing. And I took a load of photos of my plants from odd angles. I'll share some of these over the next week.

Pest Control

As you know, I found vine weevils last weekend. But I haven't seen any more since. What I have seen, however, is at least two slugs on the Magnolia. So I'm starting to wonder whether the damage is from vine weevils or slugs:



I need to wait until the end of the month to buy nematodes (understandably, but sadly, slugs and vine weevils are predated by different species) as I'm now skint. So I thought I'd try some other natural controls. I saw a tip on a gardening show a few weeks ago advising the application of bran around the base of a plant to avoid slug attack. In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?



So I dug out the packet of nice expensive organic wheat bran I bought when Paul was going through his I-want-muesli-but-not-with-raisins phase (oh yes, I made him muesli from scratch...), and chucked a load around the base of the Magnolia. And I tried the Hamamelis too. I trimmed off the really chewed leaves, which at least means if the unchewed leaves get damaged it'll be easier to notice (and I'll be able to confirm that it's either vine weevils or flying slugs).

Watching Gardeners' World this evening and found out about an anti-slug garlic wash - two garlic bulbs crushed and boiled in two pints of water, strained and topped back up to two pints, then a tablespoon added to a gallon of water. Of course, what I'd really like to do is come up with a combined, completely pesticide-free preventative spray, but a) it's probably been tried and it hasn't worked, and b) I'm in danger of seasoning rather than protecting my plants!

Repost 10 June 2007: Wollemi Droop

Here's one from only a day later than my last repost, showing a loss of confidence (albeit briefly) in my abilities as a gardener. There's something about spending nearly £100 on a single plant that focusses the mind on its survival over and above all the other plantbabies...

I'm doing a bit of a Darren Naish here and posting about something I'm going to post about, just to whet your appetite.

But anyway, I want to get some photos of the Wollemi Pine showing it drooping and not drooping. Mainly because I think it's cool. I've got one of him drooping today, and I watered him at about 8pm, but by the time he was starting to spring up again it was a bit too dark.

I really could do with an experienced WP grower on hand - I've googled as much as I can, and it seems to be fine for the branches to droop, but I'd like the reassurance. Don't want to kill my tree.

Damnit, and I was so happy and confident in my gardening skills yesterday - why the sudden crisis of faith?

I'm Going To Chelsea!

I've bought the tickets!! My workmate Cliff and I are going, and we snagged two of the really cheap after-work members-only tickets.

*bounce*bounce*bounce*bounce*bounce*

This is going to be soooooooooooo much fun!

My Growhouse

I think I'm going to need a bigger growhouse.

And that photo was taken over the weekend, before I potted up the Agave pups and therefore had to move most of my kit out of the bottom two shelves. It's a mixture of exotics, vegetables and "other". So, what do I have in there?

6 x tomatillo "Purple de Milpa"
4 x Soleirolia soleirolii (think they're going off though - should have put them in a bigger pot earlier on)
2 x Canna species - one is C. indica, can't remember what the other is
1 x Echeveria species
5 x random succulent cuttings (must ask Chris what they actually are)
3 x chili pepper "Demon Red"
9 x broccoli "Purple Sprouting"
5 x Begonia (some variety or other - they were free)
1 x Metasequoia glyptostroboides which hasn't died yet!
6 x Agave tequilana - 3 have already been promised to others
2 x Matteuccia struthiopteris - both promised to others
1 x Selaginella lepidophylla - currently curled up

I still have some tomatoes, more chili peppers and all sorts of flowers I can sow. Hubster thinks I should try to focus my attention on propagation, division and seeds, so I might have loads to do again very shortly!

Repost 9 June 2007: Here He Is

This was the first photo any of my readers saw of the Wollemi pine, a couple of weeks after I'd bought it. He seems so tiny in that photo - he must have put on a good six inches of growth, possibly more. I can't wait for it to warm up enough for the "polar caps" to disappear and for him to start putting on his summer growth spurt. Go Matildus!

Finally got round to transferring the cameraphone picture I took to my computer. This was my Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) when I'd just potted him up in Aunty Bee Bee's old pot on 26 May. Last weekend I got some terracotta "feet" to stand the pot on and help with drainage.

I've since had to put a cane in to guide the tree, as the very top started to droop a little. I'm pretty sure it's okay now. Occasionally the entire branches droop, but I've been told this is natural. They perk up in the morning and early evening, and if they're still droopy in the evening then I've learned that's the time to water him. The very tips of each leaf are brown, but this is also normal. I regularly check each leaf in case it's going yellow or brown. I think I'm doing okay with him, as he's been potted up for two weeks and hasn't died or been eaten by squirrels yet!

The Dicksonia is doing well too. A frequent hosing of the rhizomes and a regular dose of my home-made anti-squirrel spray has done the trick. I have one fully extended frond (it's mahoosive!), two partially extended ones and one baby about to unfurl. I've trimmed off all the old growth, and it's looking good. And I have a little maidenhair fern (Adiantum raddianum "Fragrans"). Homebase sold it as a houseplant, but I reckon it's good for outside for the summer at least.

The Jurassic garden is taking shape!

Julia's Fractals

The latent mathmo in me loves ferns for more than just their delicate nature, ease of care and ability to spread to fill almost any space. I'm a big fan of fractals ("a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole"). I'm especially taken with Julia fractals:



And fractals are around in nature - the head of a romanesco broccoli (or indeed any other kind of broccoli or cauliflower), the branches of a tree, feathers - and of course fern fronds.



Ferns are not exact fractals, but the individual leaves do resemble the fronds as a whole. I love my shuttlecock fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris, and it's chucking out runners pretty quickly. I hacked one off to give to a friend three weeks ago, and a forumer has just mentioned that he'd love one. So it looks like it's in with the secateurs again tonight! Fortunately, shuttlecocks are pretty sturdy, and while I should probably have taken all the runners off in one go (if I was going to), it shouldn't hurt it at this stage. Nothing a good dose of mycorrhizal fungi won't fix anyway.

Sitting outside contemplating my ferns, I was reminded of two variations on a rhyme I was taught at university:

Big whorls have little whorls that feed on their velocity,
And little whorls have lesser whorls and so on to viscosity.

and its inspiration:

Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

I wonder if there's a version about fronds. I'm no poet, otherwise I'd try to come up with one myself.

Oh Boy, You Exist Out Here Too??

Hubster and I went to Richmond today to the cinema, and as we had a little time before the film started we walked along the river for a bit. He spotted them first - I was too busy talking about how if we went to the Hampton Court Flower Show I could treat myself to a boat ride there from Richmond...



The leaves were the first feature I noticed, and they're pretty distinctive. Unless I am really mistaken (and I don't think I am as Sequoia and Sequoiodendron are evergreen, and the leaves didn't look like Taxodium), that's a very large and healthy Metasequoia glyptostroboides! I am quite sure the other good residents of south-west London thought I was insane getting all excited stroking a tree, but it mattered to me.

They have a beautiful shape to them. I wonder how long they've been there, and whether the London Borough of Richmond-Upon-Thames realise how big they're going to get. Unless they're in pots in the ground these guys are capable of reaching 45m in height. I hope that if there is a lack of foresight on the Borough's part it doesn't mean in 10-15 years they're going to be chopped down.

Hubster absolutely hates being used as a convenient 6'3" scale bar, but he was good enough to oblige so I could show you the size. I'd be very happy if mine grew to that height in a pot and stayed like that. I shall have to go back in the autumn to see the leaves turning brown and dropping off. I will take photos.

Potting Up Agave tequilana

I could put it off no further. Well, I did a little, because I decided that plain old terracotta just would not do, and that a blue glazed pot was in order. And you can't go to the garden centre on a bank holiday weekend without going to the DIY store too (why do people decide that a large, crowded warehouse with thousands of sharp, pointy, lethal tools, equipment and fixtures is a great place for their feral toddlers to run around?). And then if you're going to the garden centre you may as well stop off at the supermarket as you have to go past it anyway.

So, fortified by two chocolate-iced-with-sprinkles doughnuts, I donned two pairs of gardening gloves (the Hubster's thick ones over my own pink ones) and attempted to take the Agave out of its little plastic pot. Easier said than done, because it was trying desperately to shove a pup out of one of the drainage holes. And I don't know what I was more scared of - getting spiked most heinously or snapping the agave at the base of the stem.



But I managed to get it out and was relieved to see a really good root system. And SIX pups, including the two that have already been promised to HTUK members. As some of them were trying to grow down I thought it best to remove them, even though some of them aren't quite coloured up yet. I won't offer them up until they've established themselves in a pot though (or at least grown a bit).



Then it was a matter of potting it up. When I planted the proteas yesterday I cut the compost with half as much silver sand, so I used the same mix with a few handfuls of grit thrown in. That didn't pose too many issues, as I held up the lower spikes with one hand and shoved compost in with the other. It's not an ideal method (I prefer to be able to put compost in from above rather than from the side) and despite lining it up perfectly before potting, it's now slightly off-centre. Hubster said it would be fine and would right itself as it grew, but it's unlikely to hop 3cm into the middle of the pot!



So that's last weekend's loot finally into the garden. I think most pots are going to stay where they are now. It all looks so pretty! But it started spitting with rain as I finished and took the photograph, so I couldn't sit outside with my celebratory margarita and enjoy it (I'd probably have been looking over my shoulder for vine weevils...). Maybe tomorrow night.



The brick wall is bothering me though. A friend suggested some climbers, but I really have enough plants for now! It's a listed building too, so I can't attach anything to the brickwork (even if it wasn't a listed building I don't imagine the landlord would be too thrilled about me killing his masonry). I'm thinking of trying my hand at some carving, so you might see a few Lepidodendron trunks in a few months' time...