Now that the winter has arrived for real there is not much to do in the garden even when the weather allows for the odd stroll. The few leaves that survived the gales are still causing problems in the scree beds and have to be removed as soon as is feasible to avoid dampness round the necks of the plants which would fatal at this time of the year.
Not much is happening in the alpine house except for the hardy cyclamen which provide some respite from the dreary weather with their vast array of foliage variation not to mention the many different coloured flowers. One particular selected form of cyclamen Cyprium has beautiful mottled foliage and slender white flowers with red throat. It really does help to allay the winter blues. A few of the South African bulbs especially the Moraeas are braving the elements with beautiful iris like flowers. Although the flowers only last one day they seem to keep coming for a couple of weeks and sky blue petals with yellow throats show up well in the low light conditions.
The annual alpine weekend took place in Termonfeckin on the weekend of the 13th 14th and 15th of November and as usual attracted a large crowd of alpine plant enthusiasts. I had a very unpleasant drive this year because of the bad storm on the Thursday night which continued into Friday morning. When, after loading the plants that I had reserved for the plant sale in the heavy rain, I decided to check the engine for oil and inadvertently left the oil cap sitting on the engine and did not discover the mistake until I was sixty miles up the road. Well you can imagine the mess that caused, and it was only when oil started to appear on the windscreen that I realized what had happened. A quick repair, bush mechanic style, by stuffing a rag into the opening on the top of the engine solved the problem in the short term. I then took a rag and spent thirty minutes trying to clean up the mess before slowly making my way to the next garage which was thirty miles up the road. They did not have an oil cap but I did get the car washed and had a welcome cup of coffee.
Go To Page: 1 2
