Weeding the Web

Presents for gardeners: 20% discount on Punch cartoons

As you may have spotted over the years, I'm a pushover for a good cartoon. I've even commissioned one as a present for Husband. You can't get much better, though, than many that appeared in Punch over the decades. Some of the very best cartoonists of their day contributed, including one of my favourites, Thelwell.

The Allotment, by Thelwell. Published in "Punch" May 1954. Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk

This one makes me laugh every time. It's the total oblivion of the sunbather to the glowering looks of his fellow allotmenteers that does it. Thelwell had a real feel for gardeners, as he showed in Up the Garden Path, a book that arrived in my Christmas stocking some time in my childhood.

Speaking of Christmas, wouldn't a gardening cartoon make a super present? (I wouldn't mention it, but I know that visitors are already arriving at Weeding the Web via "Christmas" searches.)

That being so, I'm really pleased to be able to offer a 20% discount on all Punch print products with the code at the bottom of the page.  There are plenty of gardening subjects to choose from (click on the picture above to go straight through to that).  All the images are available as archival quality prints on good quality, thick textured paper and are giclée printed. You could even go the whole hog and go for ready-to-hang canvases or acrylic prints.

The discount is available on all print products, even if (gasp!) you find a cartoon you'd like with a different subject matter.

Just enter the code NOVEMBER when asked for a coupon code in your shopping cart. The offer continues until November 30th, and I'll post a couple of reminders before then, which will also give us the chance to chortle over the gentle humour of a couple more cartoonists.

 

 

 

A Personality Test for Gardeners

Is this anathema to you?  As I cut the sleeve from Thompson and Morgan's plug plants, I had no idea what I would find. I had no idea what I'd ordered.

Mind you, never having bought plugs like this before, I was a trifle taken aback by their size.

I was lured by their newsletter offering thirty-six perennials (worth £35.94) for the cost of postage only (£4.95). It promised a minimum of three different plants from a range that included heuchera, silene, geum, gaillardia.

Couldn't resist. But, I'm interested, can you imagine yourself doing this? Do you do this?

As I potted up six of each of the following

• Coreopsis 'Golden Joy'
• Achillia 'Cassis'
• Digitalis 'Dalmation Mixed'
• Sweet William 'Sweet'
• Salvia 'Blue Queen'
• Verbena Bonariensis

I pondered. Well, first of all I pondered where on earth I'd put them. You have to pot them up, keep them frost-free over winter and then plant out mid-late spring. That's thirty-six small pots that have arrived for board and lodging with very little notice.

But equally I pondered why I'd ordered them. OK, yes, they were cheap. (On their website T&M were offering the lucky dip for £14.99.) But there was something more than that. There was the lucky dip aspect. 

Is it the subliminal thought of hidden treasure that makes this so attractive? The memory of the excitement of bran tubs at school fairs?

Or is it more prosaic?

An article by Linda Blair in the Telegraph today seems to sum up the attraction. She quotes research at Columbia University which asked customers at two delicatessens to sample jam from a choice of thirty and jam from a choice of six.

Are you surprised to hear that ten times fewer people made a decision when faced with thirty and, of those that did make a decision, more were dissatisfied with their choice from thirty than those who'd only had to choose from six?

I'm not. Here's me with a gardening catalogue: flip, flip, flip. Flip, flip, flip. Research needed for various plants. Difficulty in deciding if the height's right. Colour combination? Clay soil? Support needed?

Linda Blair summarises:

It appears...that the relationship between choice and wellbeing isn’t simple. Some choice is important—it helps us feel more in control in our lives. Too many choices, however, will overwhelm, and ultimately lead to indecision and dissatisfaction.

All those gardening queries swept away in a single action. The knowledge that I bought exactly the wrong plant for a particular spot, even after careful research - gone. And I can't possibly even think of ordering more. I now have a lot of what promise to be attractive plants that, to be honest, I probably wouldn't have thought of, and a couple I'm really pleased to have got (the salvia and the verbena). I'm merely sorry there weren't any heuchera.

If you're a different personality - and a good gardener, some might add - you probably hate the idea of unvetted plants arriving. I'm willing to bet you make disciplined and well-chosen lists when perusing catalogues, and take complete control over what goes where. That's the sort of gardener I've always aimed to be.

Why fight Nature, though? If it all seems a bit overwhelming, I recommend a lucky dip. It's positively liberating!

 

Just how bad will 2015 winter be?

SHOCK WEATHER WARNING: Coldest winter for 50 YEARS set to bring MONTHS of heavy snow to UK

You can't have missed the news of doom last month. The Express's headline above pretty much sums it up.  And yesterday the Evening Standard reported that bookies have "slashed" odds on a White Christmas.

Snow inching its way off the garden table, winter 2013

Is a grim chill creeping into your heart? It sounds like a busy winter for a gardener: heaving pots indoors; swaddling prized plants in fleece; firing up the greenhouse heater; getting soaked as we frantically shake heavy snow from fastigiate firs that will never look the same again.

What is causing this shiver of anticipation? Several factors:

1. El Nino is set to be the strongest since 1950, when, according to a Telegraph report, snow lay on the highlands for over three months and fifteen inches fell on the Isle of Wight in three and a half hours.

2. A reduction in the speed and temperature of the Gulf Stream, said The Express, means that Britain has no protection from the Arctic cold, which means we could have a repeat of 1962-3 winter when the sea froze off Kent and temperatures were nearly -20C.

3. Bewick's Swans arrived at Welney Wetlands Centre, Norfolk, two weeks early, while a lone swan made it to Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, a whole twenty-five days ahead of last year (though, given that he's only a year old, I reckon his mates played a joke on him and lied about the date). Bewick's are said to "carry snow on their beaks" and arrive ahead of bad weather, so have possibly been driven here by colder-than-normal temperatures in Russia. Canada Geese have also arrived sooner than expected.

But...remove media hype and what are you left with? 

Handily, Accuweather have, uninvited, been posting to my inbox for a year now. They forecast that there might be powerful winds in December and cold air masses, but otherwise we're in for a tranquil time with near-normal temperatures. The worst storms will pass to our south, and below-normal temperatures will track down from the north only for brief periods, though if you're in Scotland or Ireland you'll have below-normal day temperatures for much of the time, with near-normal night temperatures. 

Goldfinch seeking seeds in the snow of 2012

Just not exciting enough for news. Compare Accuweather's prediction of five days of snow or ice in London (NB they forecast 15 last winter, which I'm pretty sure never materialised) with the Evening Standard's hysteria; this paltry number of days translates into "could cause travel chaos during festive period and grind the transport network to a halt".

(Pause to consider bizarre use of "grind".)

But perhaps Accuweather is being too cautious? Well,  UK Weather Forecast explains that El Nino's effects on UK weather are not well understood and weather has differed widely in past El Nino years. They currently favour a "winter of two halves", with usual autumn gales, heavy rain and snow at times, maybe turning colder after December. In beautifully measured tones, they declare: "It should be highlighted, though, that this coming winter does provide some mixed and contradicting signals in terms of possible weather and more time is required, in the coming month or so, to see how those signals develop before a more comprehensive prediction can be made."

Shifting to The Weather Outlook, we find that recent monthly temperatures can't be taken to indicate a really cold winter, although pressure patterns are pointing to a higher chance of colder weather than seemed likely a month ago. Overall, though?  "At this stage there isn't one overriding signal favouring either a colder or milder than average winter."

If it is cold and it rains, then there is a good chance of snow. The good old Met Office is quoted as saying: "“The probability that UK precipitation for October-November-December will fall into the driest of our five categories is 15 per cent and the probability that it will fall into the wettest of our five categories is 35 per cent.”

I make that more chance of being really wet than really dry, but actually 50/50 on its being somewhere in between.

So, I think we can all take a step back. It could be a good moment to order more fleece, bubble wrap and paraffin but, for most of us in the UK, it currently seems likely to be a pretty normal sort of winter.

UK Weather Forecast releases its last long-range forecast for winter at the end of next month - it's the one with the highest chance of accuracy - but given that weather forecasts aren't very accurate beyond a week ahead, I think they're more for entertainment than anything.

Oh, and for creating headlines.

 

A Good Weed? How Plants Work by Linda Chalker-Scott

Clear explanations, challenges to orthodoxy. Sometimes you just know you're going to enjoy a book. If you haven't come across Linda Chalker-Scott before, then How Plants Work, The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do is a great way to meet her.

Linda's credentials tell you a lot. She has a PhD in Horticulture and is an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Washington State University (WSU). There, she co-chairs the Garden Team, an interdisciplinary group that produces science-based WSU Extension publications for amateur gardeners. She writes educational materials for the nursery and landscape industry, certified arboriculturalists, pesticide technicians and restoration ecologists. She is published widely in scientific and popular magazines and - which is how I came across her - hosts the entertaining and informative blog, The Garden Professors, where there are some very enjoyable podcasts. Phew!

How Plants Work is her fourth book and explains just that. Unless you're particularly retentive, or are just brushing up knowledge gained at A Level and beyond, you'll probably not want to devour it in large chunks. As someone who dropped all sciences for A Level, this is a book I need to take at a steady pace, if I'm to absorb as much as I'd like to.

Linda Chalker-Scott

However, this is not because it's difficult to read. Linda has a lucid style that clearly explains the various plant processes covered. It's just that there's so much to take in.

Chapters progress from "Under the Microscope", which is a selective introduction to plant anatomy and biochemistry, through chapters such as "The Underground Railroad" (all about roots) and "Why Leaves Can Turn Red Anytime, Anyplace" to "Garden Care, Not Control" which covers ways of working with your plants, not against them.

Described like this it sounds rather dry. It's not. Linda uses plenty of scenarios and problems encountered in her own garden to introduce and explain how plants behave and the problems they, and we, encounter.

It's well illustrated with photos and, browsing through, your eye will be caught by the plentiful stand-alone pages, which either focus on a particular phenomenon (such as the heat-producing spadix of skunk cabbage) or bust a myth with scientific precision. The latter are, of course, the most fascinating. Do you reduce watering to prepare for winter dormancy, or put down sheet mulches of cardboard or newspaper? Read this, and stop. 

As people begin to think about present-giving, this is definitely one to drop a hint on. If no one's picking it up, just go the whole hog and treat yourself.

How Plants Work was provided by Timber Press for review purposes.

GBBD: the cold and lonely ivy

It gets lauded as much as it's vilified. Does it kill trees, will it destroy brickwork? Current advice seems to be that, with trees, it can fill the canopy so full that the tree becomes top-heavy and vulnerable to strong winds, while it only penetrates holes in walls that are already there, rather than causing them with its aerial roots. 

This is a Good Thing, as we have rather a lot of ivy on the wall in the front garden. For all that it creates work (cutting back, though you wouldn't know it from looking at the picture below), I rather like it. As front gardens along the road increasingly become hard standing, our wall is a strong interjection of green. What the photo also shows, though, is that the height of the ivy above the wall equals the height of the wall below. This, I fear, is Not a Good Thing.

I can't help thinking that the vilification of ivy has something to do with older times, when it gathered associations of death, decay, cold and loneliness. The Contest of the Holly and the Ivy describes it as cold and that only the owl (a bird associated with death) will eat her berries. Thomas Hardy's The Ivy-Wife has it killing the thing she loves. And in The Ivy Green (of which this is the first verse) Dickens has it feasting and growing fat on the decay of past glories:

Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

All seems a bit harsh, though the amount you see in churchyards surely helps to cement the associations.

Mine, however, is positively bursting with life, being covered with unripe fruit.  According to the RSPB, weight for weight, it contains as many calories as Mars Bars, so I guess the blackbirds and thrushes that tend to eat them only later in winter are saving them against sharp weather.

The heads are also rather stunningly architectural, which I reckon accounts in part for the joy of a different carol, Ivy, Chief of Trees, It is (the Latin means "I came crowned"):

The most worthy is she in town;
He who says other, says amiss;
Worthy is she to bear the crown;
Veni coronaberis.

Ivy is soft, and meek of speech,
 Against all woe she bringeth bliss;
Happy is he that may her reach:
Veni coronaberis.

There's more, if you're interested.

I'm fairly sure our neighbours think we're potty (and if you're American, I think I can see you wincing at what is probably a noxious weed in your neck of the woods), but ivy is a store house for insects. It was crystal clear in the warm sunshine recently that the flowers are a magnet for them. Wasps, hornets, hoverflies, bumblebees, red admirals, small tortoiseshells and peacock butterflies, and other late-flying insects, are all listed as drinking the nectar. Earlier in the year, the holly blue butterfly might feed on the flower buds.

So, for the time being it's staying. If we get heavy snow I'll dash out to relieve the wall of the extra weight, but I'll save its haircut for next year.

This is part of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted by May Dreams Gardens. Why not pop over and see what else is blooming around the world?

 

Tea leaves - are they really a plant food for peppers?

Every year I grow a couple of sweet pepper plants at the front of the house - they're south-facing, protected by the porch and receive radiated heat from the house behind them.

Normally I feed the peppers with tomato feed. This year they've had tea. Every day, after the daily pot, I topped up the dregs with cold water and delivered the contents, tea leaves and all, with each plant receiving half a teapotful.

And they've loved it. Tight-skinned, shiny peppers, no disease. A plus point was the increasing depth of tea-leaf mulch (which confused one passer-by, who wondered if they were receiving breakfast cereal), which creates a fast-draining surface that seems to discourage slugs and snails.

Is this an anomaly? It's certainly an experiment that seems to be a standard part of American school's science fairs.

Gardening Which? disagrees. In October 2010, in an article on old wives' tales, they warned that tea might be harmful, as it contains aluminium, fluorine and manganese which in high concentrations can slow plant growth. They felt that the nitrogen in tea probably wouldn't be very available to plants and said that regular watering and an occasional liquid feed would be better for the plants' health.

I'm sure that regular watering has played quite a part in the success this year. My peppers received a regular drench at the same time each day. It was easy to remember to do it, as we have a pot of tea at the same time each afternoon.

However, it's worth noting that dried tea leaves contain phosphorus and potassium, and tea also makes soil slightly acidic. Peppers like a bit of acidity.

Bell Boy red peppers started ripening towards the end of September on a south-facing porch

All I can say, as you can see from the picture above, is that it appears to have worked beautifully. I've saved on liquid feed and not had to sieve the tea leaves out of the pot to add to the compost.

I'll definitely do it again. If you've tried fertilising with tea, I'd love you to comment below on how you got on.

The Emergency Poet prescribes lines for a jaded gardener

I think we've all been there. You stare out at the garden; it's not the way you want it, you seem to have been working on it for ages and, right now, you really don't have the inclination or even the ideas to make it change for the better. In fact, it's just become a chore.

But is it the garden, or life itself that's making you feel like that? And what can you do about it, anyway?

The answer might surprise you. In celebration of Poetry Day, I asked the country's only Emergency Poet, Deborah Alma for a prescription for the ills I've just described.

Sounds odd? Well, Deborah's is a deceptively simple idea. She travels the country in her 1970s ambulance, listening to people's problems, probing preferences, and then picking the poem that offers balm for whatever ails her "patient".

With it, you'll possibly get a prescription to place the poem where you can read it often or, as with one of mine, "Take the poem once a day, ideally outside and alone and listen to the birdsong, staying outside until you can identify at least five different songs."

I mean, what better suggestion for a gardener?

Deborah usually has a chat to establish reading preferences and answers to, as she says, "other mysterious questions", but I posed her an extra challenge in that we did all this by email. What did she suggest?

I've been prescribed a cocktail. First, Postscript by Seamus Heaney. It describes, explains Deborah, "a trip out to County Clare, where there is a calm lake on one side and a stormier sea in the other. The poet stands in-between and into this limbo, or in-between space, something marvellous comes. I suppose it’s a poem of letting go and not chasing something; and so the answer, the inspiration, can be allowed in."  If you don't know it (and I didn't) it's also a beautiful description of wild landscape.

The second poem, to be placed somewhere prominent, is The Door by Miroslav Holub (another poet I'd never met before), which, as Deborah says, asks "for one small step forward, as long as something is done." It does, and it made me laugh.

I'm not reproducing them here for copyright reasons, but do click through and read them.

Meanwhile, out this month is Emergency Poet - An Anti-Stress Poetry Anthology. Edited by Deborah, it offers her choice of poetry for times when you need hope, a tonic to lift the spirits, courage, inspiration and support for life stages we all encounter. Reading it is a reminder of why poetry remains perennially popular - all life is in it, so succinctly stated.

And if you think all anthologies tend to rehash the same popular lines, then you're in for a treat. There are familiar verses from Yeats, Thomas, Tennyson, Housman and others, but equally it includes plenty of lesser known poets - not being well versed (hah!), I'm not sure if I should be ashamed of never having heard before of Derek Mahon, Kaylin Haught and Gerda Mayer, but I'm delighted now to have made their acquaintance.

This collection is a rich delight that cleverly expresses and comforts so many of our emotions. You can find out where Deborah will be visiting next on her website, but when she's too far away to meet face to face the book puts her knowledge and wisdom next to you on the shelf.