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

[Michael J Campbell]

Does anyone know if ALITAGS (Andrew Grace) are still in business. I placed an order last week and paid with visa but got no confirmation email, and nothing deducted from my account. I put an enquiry on their website which appears to be working OK, and got no reply. I ordered from them last year without any  problems.

[Paddy Tobin]

Michael,

They are still in business. I ordered from them a few weeks ago and have received delivery of the order.

Paddy

[Michael J Campbell]

Thanks Paddy.

[Anthony Darby]

This is when one of the demi-gods from Mount Olympus (or the demi-goddess Maggi) transfers these two posts from the Moan x 3 thread to the Happy thread. (Yes, I did take James and his cousin to see 'Clash of the Titans' and yes I did enjoy it. )

[FrazerHenderson]

Just been reading the RHS website and noted that yet again The National Botanic Garden is in financial difficulty. We've been there twice and on both occasions we arrived at opening time and left at closing - we thought the whole venture was simoply superb, well laid out, informative and (apart from an expensive restuarant and very poor shop) a great day out. If you are down in Carmartenshire - and location is a problem for low visitor numbers - please go and see it, it wuld be acrying shame if it were to fail. I've attached the RHS news statement:

"The National Botanic Garden of Wales is facing an independent funding review after a predicted drop in visitor numbers forced it to ask the Welsh Assembly for extra money.

Minister for Heritage Alun Ffred Jones asked for the assessment after the Assembly agreed to provide the Botanic Garden with another £250,000 to cover what it described as 'projected cash-flow difficulties during 2010'. The review will look into the Garden's current finances, its future financial prospects and its governance arrangements. It is expected to be completed this summer.

The director of the gardens, Rosetta Plummer, welcomed the review, saying it had been agreed as part of an earlier financial arrangement in 2008.

'The Garden welcomes the opportunity to demonstrate the significant steps forward it has taken, and is taking,' she said."

I suppose that this isn't really a moan but rather a desire to see a jolly good venture succeed.

[Maggi Young]

Hello,
so I am home from over the ocean - it was a sort time to see everything I wanted.  I visited Havre de Grace a fairy small town at the Susquhanna river, the Botanical Garden in Pittsburg, New York-Manhattan, went to see the Fantom of the opera on Broadway - I had a chance to visit the Cochran house in Dowson town, Pennsylvania
you can see my journey here /bur Washington DC and New York still missing/
http://arykana.lapunk.hu/?modul=galeria

Erika, I think this is a happy post.... so I have moved it to the Happy place!! 

[maggiepie]

Gerry, thanks for the tip, I will keep my eye out for the book. 

[anita]

I rarely have moans about the garden, it's generally a pleasant respite no matter what I'm doing... but today I spent three hours hand weeding sour sobs (Oxalis pes caprae) from the front lawn. It's extremely tedious because I have to get every single tiny plant out or the wretched things proliferate.
The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that when we bought this house and garden 10 years ago i would fill wheelbarrows with the wretched things and now there are very few left except for those in the lawn.. which I left till last because I could behead the little monsters by mowing so I didn't have to put up with their bright yellow faces taunting me. Now I just keep going back to the lawn and weeding the little blighters out and reminding myself that in another three or so years I should see the last of them! (O. pes caprae grows from bulbils which are generally very hard to extract so it's basically a war of attrition - I keep pulling out the plants with as much root as possible until the bulbils are exhausted the ratio of smaller and smaller plants suggests that I'm getting the upper hand! Roundup can be used when there's nothing else at risk but in established beds, or lawn, hand weeding is the only option available to home gardeners.)
It is a reminder that it's important to be very careful about the plants we introduce to continents such as Australia.. so few of the weeds I deal with are actually natives. Somebody at some stage probably thought O. pes caprae would be a lovely garden plant for Australian gardens.. and it would be if it wasn't a complete thug.
Anita

[Martinr]

The Lily beetles have appeared

[TheOnionMan]

The Lily beetles have appeared

Yes they have.  Even this year, where I am home everyday (unemployed), and first thing I do each day (or do twice a day) is inspect all Fritillarias for Lily Beetle.  Even in just one day's time, after snapping this photo of F. meleagris in good form, the next day 3 mating pair of lily beetles destroyed all three flowers; one they ate right through the stem and the flower fell off.

[Tony Willis]

The Lily beetles have appeared

so has the Provado!

[Lesley Cox]

So where do the beetles come from? Are they like Topsy?

[TheOnionMan]

So where do the beetles come from? Are they like Topsy?

    So, what is topsy?

[Lesley Cox]

Topsy, who said "I just growed" when asked where she came from. Can't remember what the story was but an old American children's story.

[gote]

So where do the beetles come from? Are they like Topsy?

They sleep overwinter in the debris/top layer of soil. Spring warmth will wake them up. Many insects sleep over wilter as adults. Our early butterflies do the same in crevices of trees or barns or similar places.
Göte