Roses against walls: do not tuck them behind the wires!

 Roses grown up on the wall are a lovely sight, and a great way to “manage” them: it keeps them flat, out of the way of passers-by, it allows us to see every single bloom, instead of half of them being hidden by foliage and other blooms: and it makes it easy to keep them open and with good air circulation, which helps to reduce the incidence of pests and diseases.

All round, a good thing, then!

However, it's always best to tie the rose to the wires, rather than tucking the new shoots behind the wires.

Why?

Two reasons:

 

 

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New Edition: Compost and Leaf Mold!

 

Ladies, are you embarrassed by your smelly compost heaps? Gents, are all your trendy friends talking about Leaf Mold, but you have no idea what it is, or how to make it, let alone what to do with it?

Then this is the book  for you: written specifically (on request) for everyone who wants to start right at the beginning, with no foreknowledge of the subject at all. 

 

This is two books for the price of one: the first book is All About Compost with clear and simple descriptions of what happens in a compost heap, how to build them properly, and how to manage them, not forgetting What To Put In, and – just as important – What Not To Put In, with the emphasis on easy care and doing as little work as possible.

The second part is all about Leaf Mold: what it is, how it differs from compost, how to make it, how and why to collect leaves, exactly what to do with them, what to expect, and what to use it for.

The book clearly explains the differences between Compost and Leaf Mold, along with why they need to be treated separately, and the benefits of each.

 

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Hellebore seedlings - not worth the effort

 

I had a question from a member the other day: “My Oriental Hellebores are surrounded by lots of weeds,” they said, “where have they all come from? I don't have any bird feeders nearby?”

This is the photo:

 

Firstly the good news: these are not weeds.

Well, they are, but not from bird feeders:

 

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Apple pruning in winter.

I recently went on a very interesting training day with the WFGA, it was a one-day course on winter pruning of apple trees: so I thought it would be timely to share some information with you, as this is very much a good time to do what I would call late winter pruning.

Which can help to avoid this sort of situation:

 

Oops. Yes, it blew over in a storm.... to be fair, it was a very old tree. But I digress. I just wanted to start off with a picture, and every other picture I have contains fruit, or masses of leaves, or both...

Now, you might be wondering why someone with my experience feels the need to go on courses, or training days, or skills workshops, whatever you care to call them: and the answer is that there is ALWAYS something to learn.

It is true that I felt a bit bad to be sitting there, happily listening to the tutor, Andrew, while all around me were diligently making notes: but I am sufficiently big and ugly that I no longer feel the need to pretend that I don't know something, when I do.

And there were indeed things to learn: one thing in particular was of great interest, because I had never heard of it before.

Oh, I'll just interrupt myself to remind everyone that, when “one” is self-employed, “one” should still undertake what is called Professional Development, which means going on courses, training days, workshops etc. Back when I worked in offices ( the”Dark Ages” as I call them), we were forever being sent on training courses, or those ghastly “team building” sessions, where the management would pretend to be on equal footing with the rest of us, but would still take the lead in every exercise because no-one had the nerve to tell them to stand aside and let someone else have a go.

(Except for one memorable session, when an otherwise very quiet and timid member of the firm suddenly told the Big Boss off, for automatically stepping forward to organise a project to drop eggs from the fire escape without breaking them, or something equally daft. We were all shocked speechless, as was he.)

Where was I? Oh yes, Professional Development is very important, when “one” is self-employed, in fact you could say that it's even more important for us, because we must continue to better ourselves, and without an HR department forcing us to do it, it's easy to let it slip. Not least because training usually costs us double.........

 

 

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