Gardening
Manged to fend off the toothache long enough to do some work in the back garden.
Cleared out loads of weeds so that I could plant monkshood and comfrey. Both native plants with attractive flowers that grow reasonably tall. Monkshood is poisonous in every part, but I have no intention to go nibbling any of my flowers, so I'm not worried on that score.
All the young plants I planted in our garden and in next door's are settling in nicely. The only things that have got nibbled at all are the flowers of the violas and even those haven't suffered that much. This vindicates my theory that native plants are the way to go when it comes to avoiding slug problems. Violas are a posh garden form of heatsease, so I thought the cultivar might suffer a bit more than the wild form, but I wanted some instant colour for next-door's centre bed which will only have established plants next spring as everthing I've put in there is new and small right now.
I've still got some bluebells to plant - English, not Spanish, of course. If anyone has Spanish bluebells, go and dig them up right now! (they're starting to be a problem as they escape into the wild and hybrdise with the native bluebell) If you can't tell the two apart, the simplest rule of thumb is to see whether the head droops when it flowers. If it droops, then it's English, if it stands up straight and looks more like an anorexic hyacinth, then it's Spanish. Spanish bluebells also have a paler blue flower than the English one. Most bluebells that have come from garden centres are Spanish ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Bluebell
Incidentally, the old Latin name for the English bluebell, Endymion non-scriptus, probably relates to the myth of Endymion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endymion_%28mythology%29 - imagine the flower looking as though it's nodding off to sleep.
Cleared out loads of weeds so that I could plant monkshood and comfrey. Both native plants with attractive flowers that grow reasonably tall. Monkshood is poisonous in every part, but I have no intention to go nibbling any of my flowers, so I'm not worried on that score.
All the young plants I planted in our garden and in next door's are settling in nicely. The only things that have got nibbled at all are the flowers of the violas and even those haven't suffered that much. This vindicates my theory that native plants are the way to go when it comes to avoiding slug problems. Violas are a posh garden form of heatsease, so I thought the cultivar might suffer a bit more than the wild form, but I wanted some instant colour for next-door's centre bed which will only have established plants next spring as everthing I've put in there is new and small right now.
I've still got some bluebells to plant - English, not Spanish, of course. If anyone has Spanish bluebells, go and dig them up right now! (they're starting to be a problem as they escape into the wild and hybrdise with the native bluebell) If you can't tell the two apart, the simplest rule of thumb is to see whether the head droops when it flowers. If it droops, then it's English, if it stands up straight and looks more like an anorexic hyacinth, then it's Spanish. Spanish bluebells also have a paler blue flower than the English one. Most bluebells that have come from garden centres are Spanish ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Bluebell
Incidentally, the old Latin name for the English bluebell, Endymion non-scriptus, probably relates to the myth of Endymion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endymion_%28mythology%29 - imagine the flower looking as though it's nodding off to sleep.