Hello Dear Reader.
I hope YOU are as snug as WE are? And even if YOU are wearing your fur coat in bed, which BiBi dearest is doing now if she has any sense, YOU probably don't look like SHE does, SHE looks, well to be honest, SHE looks like a a gobbledegook, which is MY way of saying SHE looks hysterically funny (haha AND peculiar).
When Debi came to stay she gave HER a pair of long black thermal mittens, so SHE has those on and SHE has a white zipped up fleecy jacket with a hood on, all I can actually see of HER are HER fingers and thumbs and a little of HER face, but SHE looks warm enough, so I guess I'll just have to live with it!
SHE brought HER three little Orange Trees in a couple of days ago, they were looking very sorry for themselves as they were suffering from lack of water but YOU cannot water them in this weather if they are outside as it would freeze and cause their roots aka toes to be damaged.
YOU might well ask "where did SHE put them", they are actually 'living' in the bath! SHE gave them a shower and a good drink and that will be their 'lot' until they go back outside sometime in March.
It means they have to be lifted out when when SHE wants a bath but it is better than them dying because their toes froze.
Which brings me to plants that thrive on having their toes frozen... very bizarre I find this!
SHE has a passion for Peonies and when SHE got the allotments, contacted the Nursery Gardens very near to where Constance lived in Somerset. SHE had worked out a planting plan and knew which colours SHE wanted and asked them to send HER a catalogue.
This arrived and that was when the idea of a 100 foot Peony Walk came to a screeching halt, for each plant was listed at £16.00 and she wanted somewhere in the region of 100 plants!! A Peony Walk is usually several plants deep, not just one row of plants in a line.
Big rethink!
Then SHE thought to HERSELF "where do peonies come from?" and going on-line SHE came across an amazing website called www.peonynursery.com, they are based in Lithuania. GO on-line and see these beautiful plants, they stock all the ones SHE wanted and they start at $4.00 a plant.. which is a great deal less than £16.00!
SHE didn't order as many as SHE had originally worked out SHE wanted but half the amount and planted them, as they had said on the planting notes, NO MORE than 2 cms below the ground with a 'nose' showing. Then SHE marked the place with a stick and the name of the variety.
Three summers later (2011) these breathtaking plants have started to come into their own, some were stronger and settled in better than others, some were not quite what SHE wanted but ALL of them are beautiful beyond belief and now SHE does know exactly which ones SHE will buy in order to complete her Peony Walk.
Coming from Russia and Lithuania and other places which experience severe weather temperatures, cold and hot, they don't mind their toes being frozen in the slightest.. and in fact , they flower better when they've had a good frosting!
And MY last piece of tonight's Tale will astound quite a lot of YOU and if YOU didn't know this little bit of gardening knowledge, well, neither did WE and WE'VE done this for eleven years but won't do it again!
SHE was reading a Gardening Book by an American author who works a big vegetable garden in Maine. This is a state way up on the northern part of the eastern seaboard of the United States. SHE has read this book before but suddenly SHE READ this phrase "and the Perennial Bell Pepper"... Perenial? Pepper plant is a PERENIAL? SHE scurried off to look at a couple of gardening 'BIBLES' and there, sure enough, in little print was the magical word!
The reason SHE got so excited was SHE had a HUGE Red Bell Pepper,growing outside with lots of peppers growing at different stages, all doing their stuff and as happy as could be, but as the days were getting colder and it was slowing down a bit, SHE repotted it into a HUGE deep pot, gave it some delicious Bone Meal and Phostrogen Plant Food and put it on the window sill in the sitting room... where it has proceeded to grow like a trifid!
It has grown another seven inches in height and has grown five new peppers which are now in various colours ranging from dark red through to brilliant red, they are as sweet as can be and the plant doesn't even object to the radiator being on underneath the sill!
And come next Spring, Pepper will go into the courtyard with the Oranges and Debi's little 'Eureeka' Lemon tree and they'll all live happily ever after.
And now it is b-e-d time... WE hope that YOU sleep well or are having a very happy day if YOU are reading this in the Southern Hemisphere.
GeeGee Parrot.
February 4th, 2012.
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