Still Not Full

I must get my photos of my impromptu trip to RHS Wisley sorted out. But in the meantime, I did get some photos of my haul on Monday. Now I'm keeping back all the fern ones so as not to duplicate Friday Fern, but you can have a free shot of a Gondwanan gymnosperm.


This is Podocarpus lawrencei, one of the Australian species. It's well hardy too - Wikipedia says it can cope with -16°C, which is a lot more than most of my plants can cope with! I put it in the "Isleworth Pinetum", the little annexed bit of my garden the other side of the steps. I had to move the mystery plant to a patch of clover on the other side of the path. Still not got a scoobies what it is. I have it down as some form of Juniperus but it has been suggested that it's a Tsuga.


Either way, it's huge. Almost too big for the garden. I'm assuming I could trim it, like a yew, but I don't want to kill it!

Repost 30 December 2007: Bedgebury Pinetum - The Visit

A rather festive post from the Christmas holidays. And a reminder to me that I should probably think about getting cards made up with that photo right at the end of the post...

Back in November I mentioned that I wanted to visit Bedgebury Pinetum. Yesterday it was beautiful and sunny, so I bundled my poorly Hubster into the car and drove round the M25. He's not scowling in the photo, because the sun was so bright that he couldn't look at the camera...

Possibly to protect the rare species, there is no map showing the location of each tree, so I didn't spot some of them. So instead I took the opportunity to get some photos of the conifers, so I remember just how beautiful they can look.

I'd like to go back in the summer (probably without my reluctant botanist in tow), to hunt for as many different conifers as possible.

We did see the Old Man of Kent, the tallest tree in the county. It's a grand fir (Abies grandis) and is 167ft tall. I know all the Californians are laughing at that, but hey - dwarf island populations and all that! Joke.

I think I might use this one in homemade Christmas cards in the future though.

Hubster's Green Fingers

Hubster has a long history of killing plants. Mostly bonsai trees. He chucked his second one out after it seemingly died, only for it to come back to life halfway down the bank in his parents' garden. His third one he bought maybe just under a year ago, and managed to kill within months. He'd named it Kindling as a sort of veiled threat if it didn't grow, and then pruned the hell out of it.


Suffice to say, it died.

And Hubster vowed that he would never try to grow another living thing. Until he accompanied me on a forum meet to Akamba and fell in love with an Aloe aristata and an Echeveria elegans.


Thus his love of succulents began. I scored him a Pachyphytum oviferum at the Chelsea Flower Show, but the leaves are seemingly only attached to the stem by van der Waals forces, and every time a workmate pokes the plant another one drops off.

And then the other weekend he was presented with his most prized horticultural possession so far - a Dyckia frigida, which you may recall he's rather taken with. He doesn't care what it looks like - he just wants to go round the office showing off his "frigid dick".

So last night he brought all the succulents home again, to divide the Aloe, add it and the Echeveria to an open pot with the Dyckia and two Aeonium of unknown species, and abandon the Pachyphytum for muggins to look after.


There - look at him, with all my old palaeontology prep tools (I knew there was a reason for keeping them). He almost looks like he knows what he's doing, doesn't he?

And we now have five Aloe pups ready for a good home and potentially six new Echeveria if the propagation from leaves works. I've never tried that method, but I'm looking forward to trying.

"Great Radio 4 Programmes"

*sigh* Very little time in the past week or so to do what I said I was going to do, which was to thank Emma for giving me an Arte Y Pico award. Emma has said some very nice things about this blog. And I must reiterate my comment to her, that if there are any Radio 4 producers who think that this blog would translate nicely into a radio show, please get in touch!

I feel a bit ashamed, as I totally let the last award pass me by - waaaay back in April, Letsplant rated my blog E for Excellent, and I never passed the meme on. So I must do this one for sure!

1. Choose 5 blogs you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogging community, regardless of the language.
2. Each award should have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner should show the award and put the name and link to the blog that presented him/her with the award.
4. The award winner and the one who has given the award should show the Arte y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award. Translated, it means "the peak of art".

So this was quite difficult because a lot of excellent blogs have already received this award, and of course I agree wholeheartedly with those awards, but I don't like duplicating (not least because I don't like to inflict the meme on anyone twice).

A bit of blatant nepotism first. Hubster has a number of blogs, but for sheer creativity you can't beat his marvellous writing blog Clamouring To Become Visible. If you're into chick lit you're not going to enjoy his stories, but if you like Scott Sigler, HP Lovecraft, and wished Dan Brown hadn't written such dire prose because actually the plot wasn't too hideous, then you're going to like Hubster's work. And if there are any Radio 4 producers who think his stuff's worth serialising, then I know for a fact he wants to hear from you.

For gorgeous photos, and making a valiant attempt to convince us that life in the Caribbean isn't as blissful as it obviously is, I nominate Earth, Wind & Water. This week just gone it's all about the owls back in Blighty, and Daddy Tai Haku has supplied him with lots of excellent photos of the chicks.

I adore reading Nancy Bond's Soliloquy. She teams exquisite photographs with poetry, quotations and her own thoughts, and I love to see her posts arriving in my feed readers.

The "twin" blogs of A Yard In Fort Pierce and Another Yard In Fort Pierce, run by Aaron and Mike, are also ace. It's great reading their dual accounts of their volunteering at Heathcote Botanical Gardens, and it's really nice to see that there are lots of others from my generation getting the gardening bug (even though according to a lecture I listened to through a podcast once, no one should really be into gardening until they're 35!!).

So there are my nominations - no pressure to pass them on if you don't have the time or energy, and as always, please don't take offence if I missed you off (especially not if you just got one of the same awards from someone else!).

"Are You Doing Some Gardening Then?"

Hubster went out on Friday night and got right royally shitfaced, only coming to bed at 5:20am on Saturday morning. As penance for this, I dragged him round RHS Wisley and bought a few plants. And this, along with my sudden acquisition of a few more plants last weekend, meant I needed more pots. And yes, some of them were bigger.

Now, there are three places I go to for pots. Squires for BOGOF deals on big specimen pots, Wyevale for smaller glazed blue pots (they have a range of ethical pots - don't know if this means they give a fair wage to local craftsmen or the materials are sourced ethically but it makes me feel happy and warm inside), and Homebase for bog-standard terracotta and indoor/plastic pots.

So on Sunday morning, this was what my trolley looked like:


And I trundled up to the checkout. The lad looked at my trolley, looked at me, and totally deadpan asked "Are you doing some gardening then?". I'd have loved to be really sarcastic and told him that actually I had a pathological obsession with terracotta, and I was going to stack them all up in my top floor studio flat, but that would have been cruel. So would Hubster's suggestion that I was building a flowerpot man. In the end I just smiled and said "Oh yes, just a bit".

It must be very boring working on the checkouts, but there are, I'm sure, better ways of starting a conversation with a shopper! Once at Tesco, buying a 5kg bag of fusilli, the cashier said "Wow, you really like pasta don't you?". Which seemed a little silly, as it was a size that they sold, presumably for those people who find it more economical to buy 5kg at a time. Now, if I'd bought five 5kg bags, THEN he'd have been justified...

I say it every time, but the garden is full now. If the weather holds out into this evening I'll take some photos.

You Think You Have Problems With Slugs?

I'm not sure what disturbs me most - the fact it's blue, the fact that it appears to have a superhero cape, or that malevolent grin.

Friday Fern #11

Here's a disappointing one this week. Brainea insignis. The most expensive dead stump I've ever bought. I keep watering it, and I keep putting seaweed on it, in an attempt to get it to sprout fronds, but it really is not looking hopeful.


To be fair, everyone else who got one at the same time has had real problems getting theirs going. Mine is the last one, and still the only one not to have thrown out at least one tiny brown frond. I don't know whether mine was just a dud one, or whether I didn't look after it properly.

But this is a rather downbeat end to what has been a bit of a crap week at Mesozoic Towers. Can I just say though, that these bottle top waterers are one of the best inventions EVER? I picked up a fine holed rose and medium holed rose at Hampton Court, and they are great.

Repost 12 November 2007: Garden Update

Looking back at this, I never pruned the Dicksonia antarctica - it survived the winter unscathed. And the Washingtonia robusta definitely isn't dead!

I had to bring the Wollemia inside last night. Hubster said it was set to go down to -2°C, and while I know it should be able to cope with -5°C comfortably, I wasn't prepared to risk what is still one of the most expensive single items I have ever bought (only my laptop, my wedding dress and my car have cost more). So it's now inside our back hall (which is still about 15°C or less on average - we don't put the radiator on in the hall as we get draughts in from the pathetically inadequate door). And that's where it will stay until the end of February I should think. I'll stick it outside for the day from time to time to photosynthesise. And before the end of November the palms will be wrapped up in fleece.

So I thought it was time for an update, although (alas) no more photos - I hate coming home in darkness as it means I can't check on my plants regularly. Here goes...

Adiantum fragrans
My maidenhair fern - oh I thought I'd lost this one. After SVPCA I came home to the realisation that leaving it unattended for a week in an east-facing room at the end of August was a Bad Idea. I had to cut back all the dead fronds and it looked pathetic. It's okay now. Next door's cat likes eating it when she comes over.

Asplenium scolopendrium
Hart's tongue fern. It's gone from strength to strength, and if it was in a larger pot I'm sure it would have grown even more. It spored - mustard yellow coloured spores - so we'll see where it pops up in the spring!

Cupressus macrocarpa
My little "Goldcrest" cypress has hardly grown, but it's looking very healthy. I've debated, as it's right outside the back door, decorating it with little lights for Christmas, but I don't know where I can buy such a small number of outside lights - it's only about two feet tall.

Cycas revoluta
Bastard the cycad. I left it unwatered while we were away at SVP, and that's done it no harm whatsoever (the maidenhair and Boston ferns went to our next-door neighbour). No new branches, but I expect it's done its growing for the year, so we wait to see what it does come spring. The existing branches are starting to look a bit tatty, but it's not dying.

Dicksonia antarctica
After sustained attacks by the neighbourhood squirrels, countered by chemical warfare (pepper spray!), it threw up eleven fronds. It would have had at least fifteen if the little shits hadn't eaten four of them, but I'm happy with its progress this year. I expect the fronds to die back over winter and I'll prune it quite hard.

Dryopteris erythrosora
I've seen new fronds, and I think it is establishing itself, but it's not growing very much. I was expecting it to take off like the Asplenium I think. Red fronds that turn to green with maturity are very pretty though.

Juniperus squamata
To all intents and purposes this looks like it's dying and it's looked like it's dying since the summer. I have so many leaves going yellow and brown at the tips, and whole "branches" dropping off, but when you look at the entire plant it doesn't look half bad. I'll keep an eye on it over the winter.

Magnolia x soulangeana
I couldn't resist buying it and potting it up before the winter, especially as the garden centre said on its "What you should be doing this month" that late September-early October was perfect planting weather so the roots had a chance to establish themselves before the frosts. I'm unaccustomed to having a deciduous plant in my garden and it's freaked me out seeing it lose its leaves, but I am assured that particularly in its first year this is entirely normal. Fingers crossed.

Nephrolepis exaltata
The Boston fern has really settled in well in our living room between Bastard and the maidenhair fern, and has probably doubled in size since I bought it. A neighbour of ours has one in their front window that's at least 1m across. Scary stuff.

Phoenix canariensis
Getting bigger all the time, and it seems to have it in for Paul's nethers. I got spiked through my gardening gloves in the tip of the finger last week - it throbbed for hours. Fortunately my tetanus jabs are up-to-date, and at least if it's that spiky and evil it's deterring the squirrels.

Polypodium vulgare
This one spored when I bought it - big orange spots on the underside, but it has done almost bugger all since. It's looking healthier than the Dryopteris though.

Polystichium tsussimense
No. Growth. Whatsoever. This fern has just sat there. The fronds are lovely and delicate, and it is hardy, but I was hoping to have three fronds in Grandpa's old terracotta pots all ready to overflow. Are ferns not meant to be fast-growing???

Washingtonia robusta
This guy's looking not very robust at all actually. Some of the tips of the leaves look like they're dying. I don't know if it's too much or too little water - it's a sheltered spot in the garden, and they're hardy old souls. Some TLC for him over the winter.

The non-Mesozoic plants are okay too, but they're not really what you're interested in are they? Over the Christmas holiday I want to take a visit to the Bedgebury Pinetum, which was featured in the Grauniad over the weekend. It looks beautiful, and I love surrounding myself with conifers. According to the article I read, it has 488 of the 607 conifer species that can be grown in a temperate climate. There are 56 species within the pinetum that are officially vulnerable or critically endangered. And they have the three largest Leyland cypress in the UK, which I have to see!

Expect a write-up early in the new year, along with a few photos of my scowling Hubster, no doubt...

Plants In Stone

Up to no good, on a much-needed day off, I went to the Natural History Museum yesterday. It was the first time I'd been (for non-academic purposes) since I got my Gondwanan gymnosperm fetish, so of course now I'm looking at it in a whole new way (i.e. not blinkered to anything but dinosaurs).

First I heaved my fat arse up to the very top of the museum, to look at the Sequoiadendron giganteum (and tried very hard not to think about the little seedling I have in my garden):


Then I looked even further up into the roof, to spot a mural of Banksia speciosa in the breathtaking canopy:


A lot of the columns have engravings based on lycopods and the like:


And there are a couple of petrified conifer lumps from Arizona:


Once upon a time the Museum had a fern frond logo, affectionately known as the "zebra's arse":


And I can't believe that for years and years I've walked past half a dozen massive Ginkgo biloba right in front of the museum!


But the ginkgos aren't the only "living fossils" in front of the steps - there are two young Wollemia nobilis too:


Then I came home and totally rearranged everything in the garden. Oh the joys of putting everything in pots! I've pissed off thousands of woodlice by taking out the slates from the top of the fern pots and replacing them with Sphagnum moss, made a few spiders really mad by moving pots off their nests, and nearly put my back out lugging the Magnolia from one side of the patio to the other.

Everything is coping well with the sudden summer weather, except the Matteuccia struthiopteris and Osmunda regalis, which have gone a bit droopy. They'll pull through, but they're not going to look that great again this season. Oh yes, and I'm pretty sure the Gunnera is dead. I gather killing a Gunnera is no mean feat, not least because I think I drowned it!

Bastard's Home For Wayward Cycads

Yesterday evening I adopted another Cycas revoluta. It used to belong to one of my former supervisors, but he's moved house and there isn't really room for it. So please meet Bastard II:


He sat in the footwell of the front passenger seat all the way home (and my left hand has the scratches to show for it). He needs to be repotted soon. So I'm starting to wonder if I could cajole him into growing outside. I haven't the foggiest idea how to ease an indoor cycad into life outside, as the original Bastard had quite a rude awakening, just being dumped unceremoniously in the garden sometime around February!

Whatever I do, I suspect this is the best time of year to do it, while there's least difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures.

Friday Fern #10

A good old British native this week: Asplenium trichomanes, the maidenhair spleenwort.



This was an impulse buy a few months ago when Mum was visiting for the day, and I dragged her around the garden centre. I first saw one growing in the Blue John Cavern in Derbyshire. Because the lights are on in the cave all day, evidently a spore was able to attach itself to the wall right next to one of the lamps and photosynthesise to its heart's content.

Maidenhair spleenworts are also found on Winnats Pass, on the way up to the Cavern, according to the information board next to the gate onto the land. But I never saw one (the only time we've successfully made the ascent was in snow).



Tenacious little bugger that it is, it's been perfectly happy stuck underneath Bastard the Cycad, over in one corner of Jurassic Park, getting the occasional watering and not a lot of sunlight. Which seems to suit it. One day I will have a wall, or a fernery with boulders and pebbles, and I can divide this chap and wedge it into the cracks, where it'll be happy as Larry.

Whoever Larry is.

Repost 25 October 2007: Unofficial SVP Field Trip - Hartman Prehistoric Garden

Regular readers will know I go on a bit about the Hartman Prehistoric Garden. This was one of the highlights of my annual trip to the USA last October, and I wish I had spent longer there.

Last Thursday afternoon, suitably "buoyed" by Newt Gingrich's speech, Lorin, Neil and I headed out to visit Hartman Prehistoric Garden, part of the Zilker Botanical Gardens. The directions I was given by the concierge weren't quite accurate (despite them being from Google Maps rather than Mapquest), but we did get a nice detour to the Austin Nature and Science Center, which has a pretty sweet comparative anatomy collection, even if the Dino Pit erroneously has a pterosaur on one of its logos (although it could be worse - this morning I was looking for dinosaur wallpaper to download onto my new phone, and made the shocking discovery that T-Mobile consider ammonites to be dinosaurs...).

The entrance, which we only found once we'd walked all around it:

Anyway, it was very hot, but plenty of shady bits. And while Neil and Lorin complained about having worn jeans rather than shorts, at least it made their return journey on the black leather seats of the Pontiac a little more enjoyable. I reckon the best thing I can do is to just post the best of the photos.

Cycas revoluta with seed ball:

Ornithomimid sculpture across the pond:

Lorin discovers a huuuuuge Washingtonia filifera:

A Macrozamia cycad (not sure of species):

A Dioon cycad - was really impressed to see one as they won't grow in the UK:

The gorgeously-named Dryas julia butterfly:

#It's log, log, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood#:

The only Ginkgo biloba we could find:

Adiantum fragrans, a rather lush-looking maidenhair fern:

Gorgeous water lily!

I'm really glad we went - it was a very well done garden. I could have spent ages and ages there, probably sitting with my camera trying to photograph the tiniest fronds and leaves. All my own leaf babies have survived without me for two weeks and are looking altogether far too happy (well, my Washingtonia robusta is not looking overly robust). This weekend I have an appointment with a roll of plant fleece, and the Wollemia nobilis has to come inside. I just hope we can find somewhere for it where it won't get in the way of my bonfire party next weekend.

The intrepid field trip crew - me, Lorin and Neil (apologies for having the corner of the water fountain in the way guys):

Gratuitous Rose Pictures

It's our wedding anniversary today, so here's some lazy photo blogging of his buttonhole and my bouquet from two years ago:




Needless to say, this was before the Gondwanan gymnosperm fetish kicked in, otherwise I may have had a very different bouquet indeed! I loved my pale pink roses (buggered if I can remember what variety they were though). And Hubster had some lucky white heather too, being Scottish and all.


It was as sunny then as it was today, with not a cloud in the sky. And I can hardly believe it's already been two years.

Hampton Court And Haul

As there is a chance I'm going to fall asleep in front of Make Me A Supermodel, and I do need to go out to the corner shop and get chocolate for Hubster, I've got my arse in gear a bit earlier than planned and uploaded the photos...

Dicksonia antarctica forest in the "National Year of Reading" garden:



How do you make a garden evil? Stick an Agave in it. How do you make it just plain sadistic? Mulch it with broken glass, in the style of Southend Council's "Water Table" garden:



I loved the Guerilla Gardening display, with the largest Araucaria heterophylla I've ever seen in the flesh (well, in the bark and needle):


There was a gorgeous bonsai Metasequoia glyptostroboides at Mendip Bonsai:


And Fernatix had a good, suitably Jurassic display:


So the haul then... In the front, from left to right: Ginkgo biloba, Taxodium distichum and Sequoiadendron giganteum, and behind Leucadendron "Safari Sunset":


I am all out of pots though, so a trip to Homebase is in order. Unless I can hold out until Thursday to nip down to Squires instead...

More Plants

Because I suck, I didn't get my photos off my camera and uploaded last night, so you'll have to wait until tonight for pictures of Hampton Court yesterday. Because I'm a cheapskate, I elected not to pay £4.50 for a brochure with a map, so the three of us wandered around aimlessly for the best part of the afternoon and we realised we'd hardly seen any of the show gardens just as they were being cannibalised!

But one friend has the perfect birthday present for her boyfriend, and the other friend has a rather spiffy bonsai Chinese elm called Bruce. Hubster is looking forward to passing on all his tools and guide books from his fatal (at least for the tree) foray into the world of bonsai.

As for me, well I was persuaded to part with a tenner for a Leucadendron which I'm fairly sure is "Safari Sunset" (it's becoming a bit of a habit of mine to show up at RHS flower shows and come away with a protea whose name I can't remember!). And for less than the protea cost, I picked up three gymnosperm seedlings - Taxodium distichum, the baldcypress (if it likes swampy environments so much it can go under the overflow from the gutter!), Ginkgo biloba (while I would have loved to have the variety "Chi Chi" so I can pose with two of them and make Hubster snigger they're a bit too expensive, so bog standard species it is) and Sequoiadendron giganteum. A bigger pot, you say?

Photos of the show and the haul tonight, as long as I don't fall asleep in front of "Make Me A Supermodel".

Don't You Love Productive Days?

I had one of those great gardening days when I did so much! If only I'd got stuck in a bit earlier I'd have managed even more. For the past couple of weekends I've had family staying, I've wanted to hang out with them and it's a bit rude to do gardening when I should be entertaining guests! So there were a few tasks that had stacked up.

First thing first, I have a load of Antirrhinum "Tequila Sunrise" which were freebies with a magazine. So they needed pricking out and potting on. I've got 15 into small pots, and decided to see if the rest would survive out in the front garden (now that the bamboo and string fence I set up seems to have stopped the groundsmen from digging up my seedlings!). It's a bit late in the season, but given the weather at the moment I'm not convinced a few extra weeks would have made an atom of difference!

I also had to rescue the three remaining strawberry plants after Bubba the Squirrel decided to supplement his diet of tree fern with some fruit. I'll not get any more flowers now, but at least I can keep the plants strong and healthy for next year. I'd got one strawberry before Bubba got stuck in, and actually it was quite tart, so I hope it made him suck in his big fat rodenty cheeks!



I've also dug up the last of the potatoes. I had "Sharpe's Express" first earlies, which didn't flower (so confused the hell out of me). Leaving them in for another month helped a lot - from having a batch of baby new potatoes, some of them are now fist-sized, so I'll get a couple of meals out of them.



Tomato and chilli seedlings are in pots now in the growhouse, and a few other seedlings have been put in bigger pots. The growhouse is full again. No idea what I'm going to do with everything! I reckon vegetables are going to cease to be a fun side-project of mine along with the Mesozoic containers. I just don't have the time, space or energy to grow loads of veggies AND keep my other leaf babies alive.

So yeah, the other plants. Well, a Cheilanthes lanosa hurled itself into my trolley when I was in Homebase the other day, so that needed potting up. That'll be a future Friday Fern, no doubt. And while I was giving out bigger pots I decided to upgrade the inside plants' pots. Araucaria heterophylla is now in my biggest indoor pot. Sideshow Bob has been moved out of the bathroom, as he was clearly not happy (vertical, elongated fronds - not good). And the Adiantum raddianum "Fragrans" has been moved into the bathroom to see whether it copes well with the low light levels.

Finally for today, I made up some new labels for Jurassic Park. I ordered some great black plastic labels from an excellent e-Bay seller, along with a white marker pen. So everything's labelled properly, and I doubt it's going to fade like the black marker has done on the white labels.

Tomorrow morning I need to see if I can get some moss around the other ferns, but I'm heading off to Hampton Court in time for lunch so my gardening slot will be limited.

Friday Fern #9

It's a fern, Jim, but not as we know it.


This is Osmunda regalis, a fern that unusually really likes being in the sun. But more normally for a fern it really likes being moist too. Sunny but moist. It's just trying to make life difficult for me. Fortunately the weather has been so lousy over the past few days (I'm expecting the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show to resemble a rock festival when I go on Sunday) that the rain has done my job for me.



Putting some sphagnum moss down around it helped. The moss is pretty good actually. I've hardly had to water any of the ferns that have it instead of slates. Tomorrow I'll be out, regardless of the weather, cutting moss to go around the rest of the ferns. Except probably the Dicksonia antarctica and Blechnum tabulare because they are absolutely loving their new tall metal pots, and I have never seen such vigorous growth!

Repost 30 September 2007: Mesozoic Container Garden Update

This was the day of the greatest bargain ever. The £25 Agave tequilana may come close (as it should have been worth £75) but I think a £25 plant for 10p is still better...

I went to the garden centre and Homebase today. And I impulse-bought a magnolia - Magnolia x soulangeana. I probably should have bought the M. grandiflora as M. x soulangeana is a modern hybrid, but the latter will produce pretty pink flowers rather than white ones.

I also have a fat ball "tree" to keep the garden dinosaurs happy during the winter. Hopefully the neighbour's cat will be unable to get to them. Anyway, after that it was down to Homebase. A while ago I'd seen a Cycas revoluta, but was put off by the price (and I rarely have much success with DIY store plants). But payday makes everything better. And I was delighted to see that it was half-price, so didn't feel too bad about buying a magnolia too.

By the time I'd got it home I had already decided to name it Bastard, as it had spiked me from every angle. And I started telling Hubster that it had been a bit of a bargain at £12.49 so I didn't feel so bad about the magnolia. And I stopped mid-sentence. Because I remembered that I'd only paid £17.08 for the whole lot, and I'd bought a terracotta pot for it (which was by no means only a fiver) and some more gold gravel. So I checked the receipt:

Yup. The cycad cost me 10p. Money I could have cobbled together in small change from my wallet! Even Hubster had to admit that that just might be the greatest bargain ever. And in our front window it rather nicely hides the 32" widescreen HD-ready LCD penis extension - I mean television - that he lugged through Kingston town centre yesterday.