Moan, moan, moan----get it off your chest or have a chat

[mark smyth]

Did anyone see Gardeners World last Friday? Toby the new presenter said something stupid - as far as I know. He said something like - did you know daffodils follow the sun from east to west. What a load crap. When grown in the open ground they face south. That's what mine do anyway and that's why bulbs for shows are turned to make sure the flowers open facing all directions.

Did anyone see the farmer on TV who was planning to make her farm more environmentally friendly? In the programme they visited a wood. The editor slipped in various birds including a firecrest Regulus ignicapillus. They arent a British bird. They also showed a robin with a song dubbed over the top. That's Ok except it was the call of a swallow.

[TC]

Mark
I have lost count of the number of times in films on the TV that the call of a Great Northern Diver has been used when something "spooky" is about to occur.
The problem being that it is usually in a country that the birds never live in or visit.  Likewise the Kookaburra's call is often used in scenes in the African jungle. I think I heard it in an old Tarzan film.

[Lori S.]

That sort of thing (misplaced bird calls in sound tracks) drives me mad!  Willow ptarmigan is another whose call sometimes adds atmosphere to jungle scenes... 

[Martinr]

Mmmmm Daffodils face South. Mine mostly face North! Which is good as that means they face the house. I suppose it might have something to do with them growing on a steep North facing slope. I'd conclude that daffodils face the light or, possibly the heat as was amply demonstrated by a sunflower which faced North an dclearly preferred the heat coming from the back of the house instead of facing the sun. There's more to this than meets the eye (whichever way your looking)

[Anthony Darby]

Did anyone see Gardeners World last Friday? Toby the new presenter said something stupid - as far as I know. He said something like - did you know daffodils follow the sun from east to west. What a load crap. When grown in the open ground they face south. That's what mine do anyway and that's why bulbs for shows are turned to make sure the flowers open facing all directions.

Did anyone see the farmer on TV who was planning to make her farm more environmentally friendly? In the programme they visited a wood. The editor slipped in various birds including a firecrest Regulus ignicapillus. They arent a British bird. They also showed a robin with a song dubbed over the top. That's Ok except it was the call of a swallow.

Actually, the firecrest is a British bird Mark.

[Lesley Cox]

Did anyone read the wonderful Arthur Ransome books, including "Great Northern?" I still go back to them occasionally.

My little moan today concerns the search facility on the Forum. I've never had much joy with it but when I'm looking today for references to Saponaria, all I get is "You probably mean Sonora." No, I don't!

Also discovered in the October 2008 in the Southern Hemisphere thread that many images posted by Heinie, in South Africa (but not all) have a label in the space saying "This image or video has been removed or deleted. Photobucket." What's that about?

[vivienr]

My little moan today concerns the search facility on the Forum. I've never had much joy with it but when I'm looking today for references to Saponaria, all I get is "You probably mean Sonora." No, I don't!

I have found that if you do a search when you have a thread open it will only search that thread. If you want to do a wider search, make sure that you are on the home page then it should search everything.

The 'did you mean...' predictions can be hilarious. As if anyone would want to search for 'Pulsating vulgar is' 

[Maggi Young]

Vivien, your suggestion that the search only worked for the thread you have open, unless one searches from the main page puzzled me and I just tried it.... from this page, for Saponaria and got 20 results, Lesley!!  !"it" also asked me if I was looking for Sonora, but it gave me 20references,too.


The removed photobucket pix are a disappointment.... an issue raised a while ago ( there's a thread on the subject...  http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2851.0 ) and I tried to contact everyone who uses this method to ask them to repost pix if they could in another format and also not to use these links which are liable to change, "go away" or what ever.... but not everyone responds 

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Vivien, I have tried that but had similar hilarious results and nothing of what I wanted. It seems to be one day you're lucky and another, you're not. As for pulsating vulgarly..... Well, it would be, wouldn't it?

Maggi I read the thread about Photobucket at the time but never having heard of it and being a computer dunce anyway, really didn't know what it was all about. I certainly do now. Thanks.

[Martin Baxendale]

The 'did you mean...' predictions can be hilarious. As if anyone would want to search for 'Pulsating vulgar is' 

Oooh, sounds interesting. I think I'll try it.

[Maggi Young]

More bad news on the jobs front, of particular interest to growers of alpine plants.....This extract from today's issue of Horticulture Week Daily  ( sic)...
Administrators appointed to sell Whiterigg Alpines
by Magda Ibrahim
HortWeek.com
09 April 2009
 
The largest alpine grower in the UK - Whiterigg Alpines - has appointed administrators to sell the business and assets.


Paul Flint and Brian Green from KPMG Restructuring in Manchester have been appointed joint administrators of Whiterigg Alpines Limited, the Chorley-based grower and supplier of alpine rockery plants.

The business, which employs 91 people at its Lancashire base and has a turnover of circa £4.5m, is the largest alpine plant grower in the UK.

Whiterigg Alpines supplies more than 200 garden centres around the country, including Wyevale.

The business continues to trade with the existing workforce under the control of the joint administrators while a buyer is sought for the business and assets.

KPMG Manchester associate partner Paul Flint said: "As we are now entering one of the busiest parts of the year for companies in the horticulture industry, we will be working closely with the existing workforce at Whiterigg Alpines to trade the business as a going concern. We would encourage any parties who may be interested in acquiring the business and its assets to contact us as soon as possible."
 

[Tony Willis]

Maggi

that is terrible it is just down the road from where I live. We had not heard but the local paper is not out yet. I feel sorry for the employees there is just no work around here and lots of businesses are closing.

[mark smyth]

I wonder if they supply a local nursery who then supply local garden centres?

Anthony This was new to to me but I would guess the chances of it being on the farm in question is slim

(c) RSPB web site
"This tiny, restless jewel of a bird vies with the goldcrest for the title of the UK's smallest bird. It is now an established breeding species, although only in very small numbers. It differs from a goldcrest in having brighter green upperparts, whiter underparts and a fiery orange crown stripe with broad whitish eyebrow stripe, and below that a short black stripe through the eye. Its small breeding population makes it an Amber List species.

Where to see them
Breeds mainly in south-east England and passage birds are seen largely on the east and south coasts. Best looked for in bushes and trees, especially conifers, often in the company of goldcrests.

[Paul T]

My little moan today concerns the search facility on the Forum. I've never had much joy with it but when I'm looking today for references to Saponaria, all I get is "You probably mean Sonora." No, I don't!

Lesley,

I rarely if ever use the search facility any more, as even from the main page I get a fraction of the actual results it should be getting.  Obviously it works fine for a couple of people, but it most definitely does NOT work right for me (as I have said before), to the point where I no longer bother using it at all because I can't trust it.    A real shame as it means that the forum isn't the wonderful reference resource it could be.

I guess the only other possibility is that whenever we need to search for something we just send the request to Maggi.  I am guessing that the search facility must work differently for those with administrator capabilities at least, because for me if I search from within a topic it only searches that topic, yet for Maggi it works for the whole forum.  And as we've said before in the admin area..... Maggi seems to get much better results for the same search than we do.    So Maggi could become not only the administator but also the search-master-general for the forums.    She's already infinitely invaluable, but that would make her doubly so (although can infinite be doubled?  )

OK, I'll stop rambling now. 

[Lvandelft]

Vivien, your suggestion that the search only worked for the thread you have open, unless one searches from the main page puzzled me and I just tried it.... from this page, for Saponaria and got 20 results, Lesley!!  !"it" also asked me if I was looking for Sonora, but it gave me 20references,too.

Maggi, when I search for Saponaria I get 4 references and with Sonora I get 4 references too.
So, there must be something different between "the whole Forum" when searching, and you in the "admin area" , like Paul suggests.

I also tried "saxifraga"and got 6 pages with references and "saxifrage gave 4 pages as result.