The Flowering of Venus

Posted on 9th November 2010 in Books, Carnivorous Plants, Crazy Car Man, Update

It sounds like the kind of euphemistic prose you’d get in a certain type of romance novel – you know the ones I mean – the ones that have a liberal sprinkling of words like sword and lance and aren’t about sixteenth century military.

To get in the spirit of all things inspired by romance novels, I shall be referred to as Carrotelle de Summergarden and Crazy Car Man will henceforth be known as Count Automaniac of Kingswoodtopia. I have masses of titian curls and creamy shoulders (I’ve never understood that description) and the Count smoulders from beyond his lantern jaw (and smells just a little bit like car exhaust). Please feel free to give yourself a new, romance novel inspired name and description.
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Question for the Collective: Deadheading

Posted on 18th October 2010 in Books, Just Stuff, Not For Eating

What I know about growing flowers could fill half a thimble, and that’s being generous….in all honesty, it’s probably more like the drops that are left in the bottom of a thimble when you fill it up with water and then pour it out, give it a good shake and then set it upright again.

Not much.

And so I call on the wisdom of the cyberverse, and all you legends who pop into Crazy Garden Ladyland on occasion, for advice on what to do with my flowers.
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Boss of the Weeds

Posted on 9th October 2010 in Books, Field at the Front

I have a love/hate relationship with weeds. I find some of them absolutely fascinating, and quite frankly, any plant that has the audacity and strength of will to grow out of a crack in the footpath really deserves a round of applause. And some of them are quite lovely. To my eye, there is nothing more free and beautiful than a wild meadow full of flowers and grasses undulating in the breeze. I see great beauty, and others see a field of evil.

I have a book on weeds that I picked up at our local Salvos for $3. It’s a bit dry as I think it was designed to be a text for agricultural students, and the authors are quite dismissive of the average joe gardener.
“To the home gardener, any plants which volunteer between his neat rows of vegetables or around the bases of his standard roses are weeds” *
Messieurs Lamp and Collet obviously believe the home gardener is an obsessive pedant fixated on one particular type of flora, which the weed boys, naturally, are not.
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In Case You Needed More Proof…..

Posted on 6th October 2010 in Books, Foreign Lands, Garden Hardware, Travel

Whilst in Bedouin Town, Mrs Bedouin showed me that kitsch isn’t solely the domain of seaside retirement towns and my side garden. The country has it too. I can feel a travel slash garden ornament coffee table book trying to be born. It hurts.

A country cousin of my wheelbarrow was in situ behind the local cafe (coffeeshop, let’s not be having any of that foreign lingo). I gloated inwardly at first at how beautiful mine was in comparison until I realised that the lovely owner of this one is gardening in a semi-arid region, her tank water is for all aspects of life (if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down) and not just for the garden, and she was quite possibly old enough for the barrow to have been her’s as a girl, and wasn’t something picked up at the local antique shop because it had charm.
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Mad Chooks and the Inevitable Revenge

Posted on 24th July 2010 in Books, Chickens, Cooking, Hugh of River Cottage

There are roughly 150 free range chickens that share the 10 acres of farm on which we rent our cottage. Marge the Chook Lady, keeper of the chickens, picker of olives, carer of the ancient landlord, source of village gossip ensures her charges live out their days in a wallow of dust baths, sunshine, bug feasts and all manner of fresh goodies from the greengrocer in town.
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The England Files: Part IIIb – Harewood House

Posted on 14th July 2010 in Books, Foreign Lands, Not For Eating, The England Files

Once upon a time, many years ago, when I was a wee lass, I adored beyond comprehension Enid Blyton’s books, particularly ‘The Magic Faraway Tree‘.

So I had a complete regression to seven years old when I saw this particular tree in the grounds of Harewood House.
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Sparkly Bug Eater Update

Posted on 8th July 2010 in Books, Carnivorous Plants, Crazy Car Man, Update

I adore my droseras.  I think it’s the sparkly flamboyance of them that really appeals to my inner showgirl.  So I was feeling quietly despondent at the thought of them failing.  They were starting to look faded and droopy, like a showgirl at the end of her career and I wasn’t sure what they needed to un-tarnish the sequins and bring the shimmy back.
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New Book!

Posted on 2nd June 2010 in Books, Carnivorous Plants, Crazy Car Man, Just Stuff

My book has arrived!

CCM ordered ‘The Savage Garden‘ by Peter D’Amato for me what seems like years ago, which in reality was only a few weeks, but in this age of instant gratification is an eternity!

Blah blah blah, years, weeks, instant gratification, who cares!  I got a new book!  About plants that eat things!

!!!

This is why Kindles and Kobos and e-readers of a similar ilk will never, ever, EVER cause the death of the book.

The joy of holding a brand new book in your hands, smelling it, flipping through the pages, the wind in my hair from the aforementioned flipping, putting the first crease in the spine, the anticipation of the knowledge you know lies between the covers.

There is nothing like it!

And this is before I’ve even read a word.

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