West Middlesex Hospital

Just under a month ago, Hubster started off a series of accidents, injuries and mishaps with a suspected stress fracture of a metatarsal. This necessitated a trip to the X-Ray department at West Middlesex Hospital, and my first visit to the hallowed halls. I'm pretty familiar with the layout of Charing Cross Hospital, but this was a new one.


The planting in the main entrance of the hospital was distinctly tropical. The banana was a really nice big specimen, although I was a little concerned about that yellow shrivelled leaf.


The gingers looked more at home.


Lovely as the clump looked, I suspect the Chamaerops would be happier divided and given a bit more room to grow.


And whatever the hell this was looked like it had been the recepticle for everyone's coffee dregs on their way through to the wards.

But it was really nice to see tropical plants. And they really do look good against that pale blue background, although I'm sure the walls weren't painted specifically to make the big leaves look good.

You'll be pleased to know that it was just a muscle strain though, and despite being kicked in the nads (accidentally by me), acquiring a 24-hour pukey bug and scalding his hand making the coffee, Hubster fully recovered.

An Aside...

I have a palaeontologist friend who, like me, is working full-time and studying part-time. She writes a blog called the Self-Designed Student, which really captures what it's like studying and working at the same time. She's very brave, because she's decided that, in September, she's going to go full-time as a student (it'd take a lottery win for me to be able to do that!). And she's raising money by entering scholarship competitions. One of the competitions needs lots of people to vote for her from different websites, and my thinking is that if I post it on here I can get a few links from Blotanical maybe?

What's Your Favorite Toy? Brickfish

She's currently stuck behind some guy who unimaginatively thinks his X-Box 360 is the best toy ever (I would hope that even if you really like your own X-Box 360 you can see that it's not really in the spirit of the competition...). If you can spare 30 seconds to click through from here or from Blotanical if you're a member, or from whatever you use to read blog feeds, that would be awesome and I will be forever grateful.

Obsession

There's a great article on the Torygraph's website about how gardening boosts men's sex lives. Normally I like to find the article concerned to assess the accuracy of the journalism, but I can just about cope with the geological academic literature - medical journals terrify me!

So I presume that, while the conclusion that gardening will help you get your end away is perhaps something of an exaggeration, nonetheless there will be a cohort of men of a "certain age" out digging this weekend.

But it was one paragraph near the end of the article that got me.

Some people have become so obsessed about their garden that there are worries that people are getting addicted to the pursuit just like they would to gambling or drugs.

Pure fiction. I don't know anyone that addicted to gardening. Do you?

Umm... *gets coat*

Last Hurrah

I go back to work tomorrow. And, while I am glad that my afternoons are no longer entertained by Jeremy Kyle double-bills, I shall be sad to forego my weekday visits to Wisley and the local garden centres, and to just get in my little car and drive. So on my last day of freedom, Friday, I had one last hurrah to Wisley, in the knowledge that all my future visits will be on overcrowded weekends.

This was the car park when I arrived at about 9:30.


It was, for a long time, just me and the RHS staff.


The grass border still looked absolutely magnificent.


It was an opportunity for me, without a bored Hubster in tow, to have a wander around a bit of Wisley I have never visited - the pinetum.


Take note, Royal Parks, this is a far better way of displaying winter colour than rows of municipal pansies.


Looking back down the rock garden, the sun was hitting the trees perfectly.


And I found the perfect book for my brother and future sister-in-law!


Hmm, having seen the state of my Alocasia and Platycerium perhaps I should get the book too!

Summer Versus Winter

Back in June, a border in St James's Park was planted out with tropical plants. It looked awesome, and it really flourished over the next few months.


You may remember that, at the time I said:

[B]orders like this make a change from the neat rows of pansies in the more municipal beds you see on roundabouts and the like.

So my heart sank today when I passed by the old border to see this:


Rows of chuffin' pansies!!! And they looked pretty crappy - the wires stretched out didn't seem to have prevented the wood pigeons chomping away. It just looked lazy and frankly boring. There are all sorts of plants that look at their best at this time of year, and if the Royal Parks lot can afford a dozen 6ft Dicksonia antarctica for their summer border, they can bloody well afford a few nice pot-grown Hamamelis of different colours. And what about dogwoods and willows? Ferns, heucheras, Cyclamen, different coloured conifers - a few Pinus mugo "Carsten's Wintergold", some Podocarpus. All would have provided gorgeous winter colour, and would have looked equally beautiful in that glaring sunshine we get at this time of year, the fog that's settling over London as I type, or covered in frost and snow.

Please, Royal Parks, can we have something a bit more interesting than pansies? I've given you a plant list. Get onto it.

How Sweet!

I spent two solid hours shopping today, and all I got was four vests and a reminder of why I loathe clothes shopping. I did have a quick look in Zara Home, and fell in love with a white fluffy rug that I would love to be able to sink my toes into getting out of bed each morning.


Do you see what the felt shapes are? They're Ginkgo leaves! How adorable is that? I couldn't find the rug on the Zara Home website, but it's £55.00 if any of you are that interested. It's my birthday in six weeks' time, so I'm hoping a benevolent relative will oblige...

Cycad Naughty Bits

The cycads at Kew Gardens seem to have decided that now is a pretty good time to get it on, so there were exposed cones all over the place in the Princess of Wales conservatory and the palm house.

Dioon spinulosum:


Zamia splendens:


Zamia pumila:


Stangeria eriopus:


I think this was an Encephalartos, but I failed to photograph the name plate:


But this little chap, my favourite Encephalartos horridus, was just too young to have sex...


I think it's posts like this that make Christopher's university flag this blog up as pornography.