Gardening Tips
Your fortnightly gardening tips for indoors and outdoors |
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Holiday Care for Your Houseplants.
Holidays can often pose great problems for gardeners. It is sometimes difficult to leave
plants even for a day and friends and neighbours do not always understand the importance
of regularly watering plants in pots and baskets, even when it is raining! Houseplants are
slightly easier to deal with because, in the home, extremes of temperature are less than
in the garden where the sun, and wind, can dry out a small pot in just a few hours.
Plants in pots on windowsills should be taken out of the sun before you go away, but to
prevent the house looking empty, try to leave a few on display. Succulents and cacti will
survive happily, even if dry for a short time so are ideal for this spot, and sanseverias
and hoyas will also come to no harm if dry for a while.
All plants should be given a good soak before you leave and they can even stand in a
little water. If it dries out after a few days, there will be no damage to roots through
waterlogging at this time of year.
If someone is watering your garden for you, plunge container-grown plants in a shady spot.
As well as reducing evaporation, shade is essential to prevent the delicate foliage of
many plants from being scorched.
Delicate plants like calatheas that will not withstand outside conditions, can stand in
the bath, or on the draining board on sheets of wet capillary matting with the end dipped
in a bowl of water in the sink.
Save seeds of garden plants. It is worth collecting your own seeds of some garden species
so that you can raise plants for future displays. You can collect seeds of both annuals
and perennials, but the new seedling will not necessarily be identical to the parent. It
is rarely wise to collect seeds of F1 hybrids because the young plants will not have the
characteristics of the plants you originally grew, but other hybrids may give goods
plants. Always take seeds from the best plants, with the colours you prefer.
On dry days, pick or cut off the rype seed heads. These should be changing from green to
golden-brown, before the pods open fully to release the seeds. Put them in paper bags- not
plastic bags- or the seeds may rot. When completely dry, shake out the seeds and pods onto
clean white paper.
Crush the pods gently to release all the seeds before blowing off the chaff and dust, or
separate it using a fine flour sieve. Once cleaned, the seeds must be kept dry and cool.
Put them into labelled paper bags or envelopes and store these in an airtight tin or
plastic box. The box should be kept in a cool place, preferably in the dark. |
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| Embarrassing
Stories |
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| Being top salesman for the UK, my company asked me to
demonstrate a revolutionary electronic accounting machine with a moving carriage. In front
of a hall full of salesmen, I pressed the wrong button and the carriage moved across the
machine and knocked a carafe of water off the table, which I caught with my left hand and
prevented it from crashing to the floor! The hall was in uproar, they loved it and a wag
at the back of the hall yelled "and for my next trick"! Anon |
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If the universe is expanding, why can't you ever find a parking space?
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I've tried to be objective and have listened carefully to
SCAMROD's argument against Tesco in Sheringham, but the fact still remains, that none of
the local shops will miss my custom if Tesco's materialises. As I haven't shopped in the
town for a few years now! Far easier for me to head off to Safeways, Asda in Norwich or
just lately Tesco in Dereham. I work and to run the gauntlet of the local grocer shops is
just asking too much, especially with their prices and lack of selection. And of course I
use local shops when in Cromer, Norwich or Dereham! Hardly a visit goes by on any of
these shopping trips without my spotting at least one Sheringham local with their loaded
trolley/s. At first it seemed strange, meeting and passing the time with a neighbour in
Asda, rather than down the High Street, but it's the norm now. Gone are the days of The
International Stores, Gilberts, Pages, Rusts, Robinson's in Beeston Road, plus the Co-op
down Co-op Street with a grocers plus drapery department. Does anyone remember Mr and Mrs
Robinson from Beeston Road please? Instead now we have Budgens and The Co-op, with a town
4 times as large, and that's called progress? Tesco's won't spoil Sheringham. It'll bring
people like myself back to local shopping and boost local shopkeepers tills. And
definitely save me and loads like me, petrol money and travelling time. It'll create jobs,
bring people in from the villages and outlying towns. Especially Saturdays with the market
on hand. These people will likely check out the local shops for a better selection of
fruit and veg, a better cut of meat, a nick nack or two, or perhaps a special gift.
Time to move on SCAMROD.... I'm local, my grandfather and great grandfather went to sea.
And I know they'd have been "tickled pink" to see my life made easier with a
proper supermarket, Granny tho' may have had her reservations, she definitely would have
opted for her Co-op divvy! I welcome newcomers but please don't settle in Sheringham
for a few years and tell us what we want.
Elizabeth Harvey |
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