When do you start to think about ........

[Horus]

Wait until the breeding season gets into full swing and I will meet you and Omar somewhere for a pub lunch and I will bring you a bucket full of shelled snails

[Mad Dilys]

A matchbox with a little grass in it, slightly open to allow the earwig to get in then hung from the flower stems makes a good earwig trap. Just close the box before untying the string and keep it closed until opening it in the chicken run or the vivarium.

I have a lot of respect for earwigs, great little mothers and tough as ****.

[LovelyLadyLux]

If skinks eat slugs we'd have skinks here as big as Shetland ponies! We get snails too.

I love dahlias and was really into collecting them in my last place. I need to get the base plants in the garden first this year and then see if I can tuck in dahlias - BUT - I had earwigs. UGHHHHH Pinchy little buggers.

I'm just hoping all my hostas don't get eaten (that is slugs?) I've got most of them in pots and my entire front is gravel and concrete and patio stones (no grass) so any slug travelling to my hostas is going to have to cross hostile sharp blue chip gravel. Am sure they will and I'm watching for them (soon as the hostas bud out - IF they bud out)

BTW H - So far my orchid is doing REALLY well (but then we're talking on a week or so). I went to the garden shop to buy fertilizer (which was sold out or not yet brought in or minimally carried) and there was 1 solo bottle of orchid fertilizer foliage spray. I didn't buy it and will now wait 'til I go next month down to the USA and will pick up a bottle there as I'm confident it WILL be carried in all the stores there. LIFE on the Island means specialty stuff can be hard to find and I rather expected not to find anything specific to orchids although EVERY store here carries SHULTZ African Violet food and has for years. It seems a staple of the garden shops but the African Violets are ALWAYS easy to get here. Everybody grows 'em.

What is more interesting is that seems there was a shipment of orchids arrive as ALL the stores now have a bunch of them. Pot I got was probably 6" wide but they're now in anything from 2" (tiny tiny pots) to HUGE 14" pots (granted these have other plants growing in them around the roots of the orchid which is maybe a good idea or not)

[Horus]

The plant food will wait, just keep up the watering regime, but stick with the bigger pot size of 6" if you buy any more as they are quite slow growing

[LovelyLadyLux]

The teeny tiny ones looked cute but so small.

Today when I went to one of the other garden centers I got TWO very root bound DRACENAS that will grow really nicely outside in the summer in the center of my two large concrete planters. I'll surround the roots with lobelia and something else.

These dracaena looked like they also just came in off the truck and were ONLY $2 each and they are about 28" inches tall. That they're root bound just means they'll grow fast once I get them into bigger containers.

Just thrilled I got TWO and they look terrific! If it isn't raining tomorrow they'll be planted and on display out front

Might put some pansies around them instead of lobelia but then pansies don't last that long.... Hmmm what to do what to do ???

[Robbo70]

I have pansies in my wall pots that have been flowering and surviving for 2 years! perhaps my lack of interest, a quick hose in the summer evenings and bit of tomato food is the reason why. Nothing here gets pampered or looked after. Its like a survival of the fittest in my garden

[Mad Dilys]

Pansies are my favourites - from tiny violas to the huge hybrids.

The opening picture on my computer is a patch of tiny, tiny self sown violas in range of colours from white to deep purple which appeared in the middle of a large lawn belonging to a friend.

I say friend, the b*****d wouldn't listen to my pleas to at least let them sow seed, but shaved them off almost before I had a chance to take a picture.

I found a sticker of a pansy smaller in size than of the end of a pencil, stuck on the glass behind an arabesque screen in a remote mosque in eastern desert. It was at exactly my eye height or I'd have missed it. I told my DH and the next time he went there it took him ages to find it.

The screen was around the resting place of a 20th century woman famous for her kindness and scholarship at Sidi Abul Hassan Shazly.

At this place of pilgrimage, which over 20 years ago comprised about a dozen small buildings including 2 small mosques we also bought a sack of charcoal from some nomads right in the middle of the desert.

It took me a while to realize why they were trading in it.

[Horus]

Last year I had some lovely Pansies in various pots and they lasted all through the Summer, but the problem with seeds is that often due to them being a hybrid plants they rarely come back true to type. Lobelia is really nice for baskets especially the dark blue ‘birds eye’ type with the white centre, lovely, but I find it can get overshadowed by taller plants in the same pot, best on its own or between Pansies.

Interesting about the Mosque MD, but I am curious about

It took me a while to realize why they were trading in it.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Me too re: why they were trading in it.

I haven't had much luck with pansies ever self seeding and I've wanted them to. I've figured the orange and some of the fancy colour combos won't self see as they hybrids but I've also figured the yellow purple combinations should (but haven't).

In the USA I'd planted violas and while they self seeded they slowly petered down to zip too.

They sell pansies here now by 1 pansy per single 4" pot for $2.50. IF they'd last and grow I would mind but usually soon as the sun does come out and we get summer heat they're long gone.

I'm waiting this year for my peony's to come out. I have 4 clumps - 3 reds and 1 pink. Never had a white but that will be added in this year. The daughter has 2 clumps of them that have now established for about 8 years and she gets the most phenomenal display. They'd don't last long enough for me but they're beautiful when they're out there.

This is only the second year of this garden and last year since we had record breaking drought and heat with severe water restrictions so I stopped planting and only snuck out in the wee hours to water. This has quite limited what flowers I'll get this year but I need to get on with the march and see what I can get in. The only positive about having waited a year is that the soil should have composted a bit better (I added compost).

Just need to figure out what plants will give me a full season of colour (and need to find 'em here too)

[Horus]

Its always a problem finding suitable plants for your own garden, trial and error really

[Mad Dilys]

Last year I had some lovely Pansies in various pots and they lasted all through the Summer, but the problem with seeds is that often due to them being a hybrid plants they rarely come back true to type. Lobelia is really nice for baskets especially the dark blue ‘birds eye’ type with the white centre, lovely, but I find it can get overshadowed by taller plants in the same pot, best on its own or between Pansies.

Interesting about the Mosque MD, but I am curious about

It took me a while to realize why they were trading in it.

Well, I thought, there's not sign of a tree for miles and miles so where did they get the wood to make charcoal?

Aha! Because they have no wood, they have no fuel!

As they only had an old pickup truck at best or a camel/donkey at worst, charcoal is the ideal fuel to transport being light and as an extra burning with an intense long lasting heat. Oil and wood can't compete in a nomadic situation.

So the fellows we met had a better vehicle and traded charcoal for the Nomad's animals.

We called them Spivs when I was young - now I think the term is entrepreneur

[LovelyLadyLux]

Ohh - charcoal.........interesting

[Horus]

Yes that makes sense when I lived in Africa charcoal was and still is a major fuel source

[Robbo70]

Yes that makes sense when I lived in Africa charcoal was and still is a major fuel source

it still is here in the summer when Omar wants a shisha pipe but its chilly. The stuff goes in the garden burner, with wood and anything else flamable for an hour then he uses the embers of charcoal to smoke his pipe