I haven't had much chance do much recently, but managed to admire the greenhouse babies and the aquilegia. I love this plant; it is so generous, giving us a repeat performance of last year's display with no help from me. I also ate some of the greenhouse rocket - tasty and snail-free (although something has nibbled it slightly), but spindly. I'll try growing the next batch of rocket in a hanging basket. Haha, that will foil my slimy friends.
Rain came this weekend, and now the ground feels like butter against my garden fork. All the plants are looking happier, even the babies in the greenhouse (pictured). The French beans, in the foreground, have only just popped up today. Wonderful. The sweet peas and sunflowers are progressing too. Unfortunately a squirrel has discovered the dahlia bulbs (grrr), and my chicken-wire contraption around them has something of a horse-barn-door-bolted feel to it. But never mind, the aquilegia are superb.
The sunny weather goes on. The cistus and lavendar are thriving, but the front lawn is looking crispy. Yesterday I planted some dahlia (Garnet Quartz), potatoes (trusty Maris Piper), and a solenum cutting from my pa. Solenum, when happy, is an attractive and prolific climber. Back to work today, after a blissful long holiday, so this evening I could only wander around the garden in a slightly dazed state. Which was a good way to enjoy the sunshine. How exciting to have a new follower!
It was tomatoes today: Fantasio, Harbinger, and Gardener's Delight. Yes, I sowed these late, but hopefully they will flourish anyway. I also sowed some dill, which is one of my favourite herbs. There was some Echinacea in the greenhouse, just bursting to be free from three little pots. So that went into the garden, despite the ground feeling like concrete. Bring on the rain. Alium and lupins are emerging beautifully, as are the peonies.
At last I have taken a photo a wallflower, just before they 'go over' in this relentless heat. Why are shy people compared to 'wallflowers'? These specimens are taking over my garden, shoving everything else aside. Hardly shy. The Liatris spicata and Eryngium planum (no, I had no idea what they were until I googled) were looking distinctly unhappy in their 9-inch pots so I set them free amongst the retreating wallflowers. Good luck, blue flowers.
Today I sowed some sweet peas (Anniversary and Bouquet) - a fragrant summer staple. The weather is unseasonably hot. It must be summer now, officially, as the neighbours' hot tub has been switched on. It's like living next to an angry fridge-freezer on speed. Such unecessary whining (not me, the hot tub). I don't understand them at all. Here is some apple blossom from my mini tree; apple trees all around have been particularly laden with it this year.
Today I sowed some sunflowers: Russian Giant, Velvet Queen, and some non-specific freebie ones from a publisher (strapline: Grow Your Research). Sunflowers are great - cheery, bold and beautiful. I didn't get around to sowing any last year, but a spectacular plant shot up in the front garden without any input from me. Here it is, with bee. I enjoyed it immensely.
Forgive the appalling dad-style title; put it down to the euphoria I feel at keeping to a self-imposed challenge for more than 24 hours. I sowed some rocket (hah!) in the greenhouse, and pulled some brambles up to boot. The wallflowers have been flowering for at least three weeks now, and they are still looking big and bountiful but curiously unphotogenic. I grew them from seed two years ago, and nothing much happened with them last year. Today my colleague explained to me that they are biannual. There's a gardeny word. If I'd realised their biannualness before now I could have grown some more last year. Oh well.
When I said 'sporadic' I meant less sporadic than this. Despite being neglected the garden has flourished in the warm spring and rewarded me with bountiful displays of daffodils, tulips, and wallflowers. I'd forgotten I had planted so many tulips, and they are all fabulous. I stopped whingeing about cat turds, and got out there a couple of times during the last two week-ends to tidy up around the edges. It's funny how when you tidy a part of the garden, the part next to it looks more scruffy than before. That's the charm of gardening, I suppose. It's April already and I haven't sown anything, so I've set myself a challenge - sow one packet of seeds every night this week.
Snow arrived yesterday morning, and it has wrapped us in a blanket of white. It's beautiful, but deadly for most of the plants I imagine. Even the greenhouse perlagoniums look distinctly unhappy. I have never encountered a single snowfall this deep in this part of the world. It's at an over-the-top-of-your-wellies level in some places.
Brrr, what a cold snap. Relieved those bulbs are planted and the perlargoniums are now safely inside the greenhouse. Still, I got out there today and cleared up dead leaves and cat turds. Why don't cat turds decompose? What is it they put in Kit-e-Kat these days? I snipped more holly sprigs from some bushes on nearby common land that doesn't appear to belong to anybody (sorry if it's you) and put them down in the vain hope that I will find fewer fresh turds next week-end. My more pleasant discovery was a single pink rose, clinging on despite the frost.
Crikey. ThinkFree Office is really a posher (and therefore slower) remake of Google Docs. I like the look of this environment, with its fluffy white clouds in the background. Its compatability with existing Word files is neat, too. Now all I need is for it to work at the pace to which I have become accustomed.. i.e. without having to wait for 10 minutes. I'm still not all that keen to entrust confidential information to a cloud-friendly site, either. But this is (probably) the office of the future. Enjoy this rainbow of irises, discovered a few days ago. Yes, they are all irises.
I haven't felt the urge to delve into 'Cloud Computing' until now, as Microsoft Office is installed on every machine I use. And I have access to the work department shared drive as well as my H:Drive via the internet. Google Docs makes it easy to create and share "documents" outside the department environment. What a good tool for collaboration. It's simple to use, so there's no need to procrastinate. The web-based application overcomes software compatability issues, and it's beautifully portable. But you might want to avoid adding confidential information, for obvious reasons.
Wikipedia is fiendish, whatever its critics say. Yes, it may be less than 'reliable' as anyone can contribute, but who gets to define 'reliable' anyway? I love its accessibility. Where else could you check what a (90 Series) Toyota Starlet looks like and brush up on some facts about wisteria within a minute? Whatever you feel like checking is bound to be someone's pet subject, and may become yours. I'm addicted.
Wikis can be, in my opinion, an effective collaboration tool. I say 'can be' because they seem to work best when they are used for a one purpose and when all collaborators agree to use the wiki (and only the wiki) for that purpose. A few years ago I joined a wiki that was set up for a small group of scattered librarians, whose common purpose was to create a coherent set of teaching sessions for a residential 'Teaching Evidence Based Medicine' week later on in the year. It was a successful substitute for email, because:
How interesting. I abandoned the blog for over a month and then I find that it's gained more followers. Thank you, new followers! OK, so I missed the ticket to the Award Ceremony (for those who completed their 23 Things by the deadline) but this project will be finished.
Hashtags make sense, if only to encourage folk to focus on a particular topic. So many tweets veer into random thought territory... and oh, what a waste of time that is.
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