Topic: WHERE ARE ALL THE HEDGEHOGS?!?

[Spurdie]

 ;D No, you must get more sophisicated adverts in your part of the country. There's no point in trying to sell fancy wellies to canny scots! There's been a bitter cold wind here today, but amazingly the sunflowers are still upright. It's just the bi-coloured ones we have left now (the ones Monty was "very disappointed" with  ???).
Soon be time to take in the houseplants ... streptocarpus has flowered its socks off all summer and could do with a rest. Come to think of it ALL the houseplants could do with repotting. I did them all in spring, but they have outgrown their pots AGAIN. Is your house overrun with triffids too?

[Val]

 ;DI don't have one house plant, everone thinks its strange as I love plants but I just can't keep them. They always give up on me or get infested, I even manage to kill half the cuttings I take. The only one I had for years was the christmas catcus, in fact I might get another one for the downstairs toilet, the parlour palm I had given has died. I think its lack of light in the winter...thats my story and I'm sticking to it. ;D I bought some asters and another sedum yesterday. Iwas going to put them in today but got rained off. Sun is shining lovely now but it'll be dark soon.

[Spurdie]

 ;D Val, I often forget to water ours, but somehow they manage to hang on for dear life until I finally realise they're wilting. I have given up with parlour palms - the last one I had turned white with fright and never recovered. I managed to kill off a coconut palm after only 3 months by putting it outside in the tropical border. I expect it was too cold and wet this year. Last year's hot and dry summer would probably have suited it better! This year's cannas have been a wash out. No flowers at all. The ornamental sweetcorn has bonny grassy heads, but no multi-coloured cobs yet.
Was it an ice plant you bought or some kind of houseleek? My iceplant is dark red and keeps seeding itself wherever it feels like. I was digging up little oregano and lemon balm plantlets yesterday to give away. Oregano is still flowering and lasts for ages when cut for the house. The mint is running riot and will have to be hauled out and put on the compost heap. Hopefully it'll smother a few wasps! You'd have thought they'd all be dead with hypothermia today, it's been bitterly cold.

[Val]

 ;DIt was an ice plant, The foliage looks a purpley colour, different from the one I've got.I don't know about the flowers yet, it hasn't fully opened.Its been real cold today, looks like I'll be getting my jumpers out . I usually wait until my arms turn blue, put them on then the weather warms up so I suffocate...

Went past..[thats a first]..the garden centre, it was nearly empty, just 2 cars, a sure sign its hibernating weather.

[Spurdie]

 ;D Hi Val
You'd think the garden centres would be full of bargains at this time of year, but the ones up our way have turned themselves into gift shops! I suppose only about a quarter of their stock would be actual plants, the rest fancy vases, ornaments and PLASTIC GARDEN CREATURES !!! Some of them are really sinister looking and others just plain daft. What I can't understand is people having a gravelled over front garden, with assorted plastic creatures carefully placed ... in amongst MORE stones! Grey gravel, grey stones, grey animals.  :(

[Val]

 There's a house up the road whose front garden...they have a driveway, so didn't need it for that....is concreted over and just covered in plant pots, hundreds of them. The mind boggles, I always find pots harder work, all the time and watering etc.They aren't the pretty coloured pots just normal plastic ones. Its gross. By crikey its nippy today as well. We had a bit of sunshine but its raining now.OH is putting in another door bell. The one we had it got set off by someones car. Everytime they locked their car it made our door bell ring....Don't ask.!

[Spurdie]

Ha ha!  :-X When I fitted Mam's new doorbell, she kept going to the door and finding no-one there. It turned out that 2 other neighbours had the same wireless doorbell from Argos, and they were all set to the same frequency. I had to change it twice after that before it would only ring with her own doorbell.
Your potty neighbour must be kept busy! I'm not a pot person myself, although I have one at either side of my door  - one full of herbs (not got far to go with the scissors) and the other with a clematis and climbing hydrangea in it.
I've had terrible wind (of the outside variety) today, but at least it seems to have blown all the wasps away for the time being.

[Val]

 ;DThats the trouble with most things these days, everyone has the same. We aren't mentioning door bells for a while. Everything that could go wrong did, he dropped it and broke it, he broke the drill bit, err don't happen to have a spare knocker do you?... He finally did it this morning.the air was blue for a while. Did you see Ground Force the other night? They had a bush with white bracts but never mentioned the name of it. The only one I can find is a Cornus, they grow to small trees, I wondered if this was a different sort. It looked quite pretty. It was in the last 5 mins or so, I just caught the tail end of it . I don't watch the whole program, its more about building than gardens and when they do have something interesting they don't say its name.