Time to Potter - or Ponder ! Connection with gardens, even small ones, even potted plants, can become windows to the inner life. The simple act of stopping and looking at the beauty around us can be prayer. - Patricia R. Barrett, The Sacred Garden

To be able to walk under the branches of a tree that you have planted is really to feel you have arrived with your garden. So far we are on the way: we can now stand beside ours. - Mirabel Osler

BULB: potential flower buried in Autumn, never to be seen again. - Henry Beard

Gardening Tips Not sure when to plant your sunflower seed? What plants to grow for summer bloom or desire to find a perfect plant partner, then look no further. This Gardening Advice blog will help you branch into something new. Visit often for timely tips from Gardening experts. Plant the seed and join our Blog community today.Blooming Direct

A burglar was sent to prison for robbing a stately home, but he refused to tell the guards where he’d hidden the loot. A few months later, his wife wrote to him and said, “Now that you’re in jail, there's no one to dig the back garden. I suppose I’ll have to do it myself.” So the robber wrote back saying, “ Don’t you dare dig up the back garden, that’s where I buried the stuff from the stately home!” And he handed the letter to a warden to post. A week later he got another letter from his wife. It said, “You’ll never believe it- yesterday thirty guards came around and dug up the entire back garden!” And the robber wrote back." Now plant the potatoes!”

Some Exeptional Plant Offers .................

tulip A friend of mine mistook a tulip bulb for an onion recently. He went straight to hospital and after a short wait in casualty the doctor saw him. “Are tulip bulbs poisonous? My friend asked the doctor. The doctor told him that they were and he would have to be admitted the poisons unit. “Oh dear” said my friend “How long will I be in for?” “Don’t worry,” said the doctor “You will be out by spring!”

Some Exceptional Plant offers
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On a cold winter night an old man is sitting by the fire watching his favourite TV programme. The wind is howling and all of a sudden there is tap, tap, tap on the door.He gets up and opens the door. No one there! So he goes back and sits down. Just as before there is this little tap, tap tap on the door. Up he gets again and opens the door. a quiet little voice shouts out "down here", the man looks down, and at his feet is a little snail and the man says, sternly, "WHAT DO YOU WANT"?. "I'm cold and I'm hungry, can I come in and sit by your fire and have something to eat"? says the snail. "NO", says the man and he lifts his foot, and takes an almighty swing and kicks the little snail right over the garden wall. The man then sits down and gets back to his programme.................................. 6 MONTHS PASS and the old man is having his lunch when he hears a little tap, tap, tap on the front door. He thinks to him self for a while and then goes and answers the door. There at his feet is the same little snail and the man says again "What do you want"? and the snail answers back in a little forlorn voice, "What did you do that for"?

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Love it or Hate it ?

Just a lighthearted look at the world of gardening.Some quotes,jokes and tips on how we all enjoy a garden....If like me you love nothing better than planting something and watching it grow and filling every space with colour or if you are like him indoors who only goes out to get the sun lounger or light up the barbecue,read on........................................................... "A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken" - James Dent

To The Rose If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars? G.K. Chesterton

"I don't know whether nice people tend to grow roses or growing roses makes people nice." - Roland A Beowne

"Our England is a garden and such gardens are not made.........by singing "Oh how beautiful" and sitting in the shade............While better men than we go out and start their working lives ......at grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner knives."......................Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Armchair Reading
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Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. ~ Joan

Growing Vegetables

During the war the encouragement to grow our own vegetables was a neccessity.Afterwards,we longed to see the joy and peace of Roses,Lupins,Wisteria climbing above the windows,hard working Geraniums and cottage garden favourites.......................Now with the age of tastless,over sprayed supermarket produce, it is becoming more and more popular to try to grow just a few of our own veg...............We all know how superb a freshly picked tomato is - that's a start.I personally could not go a summer without the feast of fresh runner beans,sometimes a a dish by themselves with pepper and melted butter.......I am not talking allotments here - more power to you and you know much more than me!........I personally prefer to just grow a few favourites in containers.The seed and plant producers are always developing new strains for the small gardener and some of these such as the dwarf species are perfect for this.......I love pots of mixed varieties of lettuce from which you can pick leaves as you wish and leave to grow on.Slugs,yukk...can be warned off at the base of the pot.Radishes sown at weekly intervals in a large pot are superb,sweet and crisp,Tiny tomatoes are now available for hanging baskets and sweet baby carrots,peppers and little new potatoes are all suitable for this method.........and you MUST have a herb garden.......grow them all in one barrel,old sink( often you can buy at your local recycling site) or window box........- and turn yourself into a T.V. chef this Summer!

Armchair Reading.

"I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli." - George Bush, U.S. President, 1990

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