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

[Anthony Darby]

Okay, I'll confess, Anthony.... since you are slighter older than I, I thought it would make us BOTH look good if I stuck with the "young" tag.

 

[Maggi Young]

Well, in that case, it's just as well about the red hair and the children, eh? I thought there had to be good Scots' blood there with that hair 

Come to think of it, Berwick will likely be annexed, anyhow!

[Paul T]

and I thought I understood English 

Luc,

Don't be concerned..... he's from Scotland, and they speak Scotlandish, not English.   Only vague similarities as far as I can tell.  You have to remember as well that the Scottish language is so diverse that virtually neighbouring villages in some places can't understand each other.  If THEY can't understand each other then what the heck chance do the rest of us have!! 

But we still love them of course, particularly those that do moderate this wonderful forum!! (Suck!  Suck! Suck!  ).

 

Modified later to fix spelling mistake

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Thanks for giving my moral a boost Paul !   
I needed that....   

[Anthony Darby]

Actually, people from other countries find it easier to understand a well spoken Scottish accent as it tends to reflect the spelling of the word e.g. Sterling and Stirling are pronounced differently here and Derby is closer to the American pronunciation. We also (one of my pet hates, especialy on radio and TV) don't mispronounce words by dropping syllables or adding letters such as properly ("proply"); drawings  ("drawrings") to give two examples. We don't all speak like Burns but try understanding local lingo in any area of any country but your own and you're in trouble. I work in Falkirk and even after nearly 30 years I sometimes have trouble understanding. A chip butty becomes a "roll on chips"; a jam sandwich becomes a "piece on jam" and in Glesga becomes a "jeelie piece", and yes folks, after our last house extension was completed our builder (from Denny)said "we're no awa tae bide awa", indicating he'd be back to fix any snags.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Don't you worry Anthony - we all looove the Scottish accent ! 
(Taggart is one of my favourite whodunnits) 

[Lvandelft]

we all looove the Scottish accent !

Thought it's a language.

[David Nicholson]

Nobody has had a good moan for nearly six months so let me put the matter to rights with two of them, both, in a way, concerning garden centres.

First up-Clay Pots.
This is my Primula re-potting time and as many of my plants are quite small, or the larger ones  have an odd offset or so, I needed to boost my supply of three inch clay pots. I must have tried at least half a dozen garden centres and can't find what I need anywhere. There are loads of imported clay pots about and I find the four inch kind perfectly adequate but the three inch kind are only half as deep as the four inch kind and much to shallow for Primula growing and in my view not much good for growing anything. WHY!! When you buy a three inch plastic pot (when you can get them, only Sankeys make them now) they are just as deep as the four inch pots. Do these people know anything about gardening.

Second up-Sand and Grit.
Bulb re-potting time is coming closer so I need to get in more sand and grit. Can I find DRY sand and grit anywhere? You bet your sweet life I can't. Every bag I pick up, and this includes also bags of compost, weighs about half as much again as it should. Reason:- they are all stored out in the weather and have just about as much water in them as they have sand, grit or compost. I even had a go at the manager of one garden centre who ventured the opinion that given the price of water in the UK he ought to be putting his prices up substantially. He had no idea at all that some gardeners actually buy sand and grit to add to loam based compost to provide a free draining potting medium-he thought everyone bought grit to make concrete and sand to may sand pits for children! God help us!

There I feel better now    

[Lesley Cox]

Good to be back here. I sympathise with you David and am able to help NOW. I have hundreds of old 3" clay pots which no-one here uses any more but I can't bring myself to heave them out. They are very sturdy and frost-proof (locally made, not Italian or Taiwanese) and are good and deep. If you're willing to pay the freight (which I estimate to be around $50,000 by airmail), you can have the lot for free.

I see the Forum is slow this morning, around the world apparently. Certainly it is here, and this thread is, appropriately, the only one that has opened in less than 3 minutes (almost immediately in fact). I'll try the others later. So that's my moan for the day.

[ChrisB]

David,

When you repot your auriculas, do you always split them up a lot?  Some of mine have really clumped up a lot, and I was told recently that they all need splitting to one 'carrot' per pot, is this true?

[David Nicholson]

Lesley, I will PM you.

[David Nicholson]

David,

When you repot your auriculas, do you always split them up a lot?  Some of mine have really clumped up a lot, and I was told recently that they all need splitting to one 'carrot' per pot, is this true?

Depends what you want to achieve Chris. Plants I grow under glass I always take off any offsets at re-potting time and those with roots I pot up and grow on (I don't bother with un-rooted offsets these days). This means I always have a supply of new plants coming along to replace the old ones as they get to the end of their flowering days, or use at plant sales or swap with other growers. Those I grow in the garden as Border Auriculas I leave to clump up and only split them when they start to outgrow their site. You can leave the ones under glass if you want to but I think an Auricula in a pot looks better as a single crown plant.

[ChrisB]

Thanks for the help David.  Was my instinct to split the good ones.  Think the ones I'm not as keen on will go out like you say.

[Lesley Cox]

David has PM'd me and suggested I mis-typed the cost of sending my clay pots to the UK. I promise you, not at all. The $50,000 while a joke, is based on the cost of recent small packages to the northern hemisphere. Just about cheaper to charter my own plane now, than rely on NZ Post!

[Carlo]

So we can expect a visit then Lesley?