A large picture of snowy horse riding in The Daily Mail and my snowy deers in the Express

Another one of my BA crew meeting pictures is in this morning’s Mail

One of the pictures I took at the cabin crew meeting in Esher yesterday is in The Daily Mail this morning

“There may not be an afterlife, but there is the potential of the self.”

Side Effects
Adam Phillips > more

One of my pictures of students using iPhones is in today’s Telegraph

While I was pruning my blackcurrants the other week I spotted some handsome-looking young side branches. As so often happens at this time of year when I’m just itching to get growing something, they’ve made me come over all propagational.

Any time from autumn to spring is good for hardwood cuttings, and it’s dead easy. I find the best approach is not to think too much about whether you actually need more blackcurrant bushes: just get the things growing and worry about it then. Which sums up my general approach to life, really.

1. Choose a nice whippy young branch - those lower down on the bush seem to take best - and cut away just above a bud as if you were pruning.

2. Trim the bottom of the cutting just below the lowest bud - this is where the roots will form

3. Now trim the top of the cutting, snipping off the shoot tip back to just above a bud

4. Repeat as many times as you like to end up with a bundle of cuttings about 6" long

So here they are. I mix a really gritty compost for my cuttings – usually about 50:50 multipurpose and horticultural sand, as I find ordinary multipurpose on its own tends to get soggy so the cuttings rot off and you don’t get anywhere near as good results. After taking off any buds from the lower half of the cuttings – they’re leaf buds and won’t be needed underground – I sink them half to three-quarters of their length into the compost and water in. And that really is it.

You can pop them in the ground, too – but if you’ve seen my allotment lately you’ll know why I didn’t do that. Even with a thick layer of grit in the bottom of the trench these little cuttings would be having to learn to swim before they could grow. So a pot it’ll have to be: I shall be repotting them pretty sharpish as soon as they start showing signs of growth, though, as there aren’t many nutrients in a compost mix that’s so sharply drained. Fingers crossed for five little baby blackcurrant bushes this time next year.

A picture I took of Jeremy Clarkson as he drove through London in a car graffitied with the words “I don’t love you Darling” has been used by the Daily Telegraph Business section to highlight the pre-budget effects on motoring.

My pictures of the overpainted cycle path have appeared in The Mirror, The London Evening Standard and on The Daily Mail website today

Hardwood cuttings should be taken now: that way many climbers and most deciduous shrubs can be propagated sucessfully.

A few amusing cuttings I’ve discovered this week.

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn’t find any.

http://tinyurl.com/ylz5924

“A pervert repeatedly caught pleasuring himself in a muckspreader has been sent back to jail after returning to his favourite Redruth farm.”

http://tinyurl.com/yak8bfr

“…Of course as someone who cares deeply about the future of this country, I’d say that having Glenn Beck not searchable by Google is an entirely good thing. But a good business move? Not so much.”

http://tinyurl.com/yferkmp

“Today, a bandaged and bruised police driver may have had a tough time explaining how he managed to write off one of the force’s prized Lamborghinis when he rammed it so hard into a line of parked cars that one of the stationary vehicles ended up on the police car’s roof”

http://tinyurl.com/yhnzfxz

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Once again, success with swans! after taking a snap whilst walking through St James’ Park on Saturday.

Back at the end of May I posted about the beheading of my Aeonium.  The plant had got so ridiculously tall that I decided to take a friend’s advice and chop the top off and root it in some gritty compost and I was reliably told that the remaining stem would sprout new leaves. 

Being a obsessive seed sower and propagator I considered the remaining stem which in my opinion was still far too tall and decided I would have a go at taking stem cuttings from it.  I had no basis of expert advice to base this idea on just a feeling that if it worked for other things why not. The top bit of the plant seemed to root quite quickly and the plant is growing well but the stem and stem cuttings have just sat there doing nothing.  They got put outside in the summer, were neglected and unloved.  Nothing happened, but I don’t give up easily and dutifully put them back in the greenhouse when the nights got colder.

I am happy to report that my patience has been rewarded.  New shoots have appeared on the  stem left attached to the roots- fab! But more excitingly two of the four stem cuttings have new shoots as well.  I suspect the other two haven’t struck as I dropped the cuttings when potting up and probably put them in upside down!  I really should rename this blog “the patient but clumsy gardener!”.

So from 1 Aeonium I now potentially have 4 if the cuttings get through the winter.  Have very satisfying.

Few of us have the space indoors to save all our favorite container plants for the winter. My wife’s overwintering system disposes of most of the outdoor plants yet saves the best for the future. It starts about the time of our first frost in October. The first job is to spray for insects, all plants to be brought indoors.

Figure 1

She then prunes the tops and roots of her old favorites; i.e., those she absolutely must save, such as a special ivy geranium or a family heirloom plant. These are repotted in ten inch pots with fresh potting soil and placed on a mat around the base of her lighted plant rack (see previous post “Overwintering Plants Indoors”). The debris and old potting soil are dumped on top of our fence line garden, incorporated with a potato fork, and allowed to decompose over the winter.

For foundation plants in her containers, Gail prefers geraniums, begonias, impatiens, coleus and Swedish Ivy. She takes six inch cuttings of the most vigorous or most colorful plants, puts them in pint jars of water, and places them directly under the lights (figure 1).

Figure 2

In ten days to four weeks, depending on the species, the cuttings develop roots at the nodules along the stem and are ready to be transplanted (figure 2). She selects the healthiest stems and trims the roots to about one inch (figure 3). These are inserted, four to five per pot, into six inch containers of fresh potting soil (figure 4), and placed directly under the lights.

In a week to ten days, the new cuttings are doing well (figure 5) and will provide the foundation plants for next spring’s larger containers. In the spring, she will purchase a few annuals such as wave petunias, dusty miller, vinca, ornamental grasses, and alyssum to add texture and color to her arrangements. All will be transplanted to fourteen to twenty inch pots (figure 6).

Gail believes coleus in one of the most underused plants available for containers. There are dozens of foliage colors and patterns and no two plants are alike. She does not take cuttings of coleus because, if anything, they do too well under the lights. A coleus cutting, rooted in water in October will be a foot tall by Thanksgiving and over two feet by spring, unsuitable for containers. Instead, she starts seed of her favorite patterns in late winter. By spring the seedlings are about eight inches tall and just right for container plants.

My wife offers these general maintenance guidelines for wintering indoor plants:

Figure 3

• Keep the plant lights on 14 to 16 hours a day.
• Keep the room temperature at 65 to 70 degrees. Normal winter house temperature is fine.
• Provide air circulation with a ceiling fan, if possible. Air movement helps develop strong stems.
• Water when the top of the potting soil begins to dry out or when the soil begins to shrink away from the side of the pot. It is possible to overwater a houseplant.
• Periodically, spray for white flies and aphids. She prefers a Pyrethrin based insecticide with Piperonyl Butoxide.

Gail is the flower gardener of our team. Her expertise and eye for color, texture, and arrangement has added a lot of beauty to our home. BFG

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6