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Post by coppice on Oct 22, 2014 19:06:37 GMT
I started a chat in the nineties with several folks. The one who kept on the longest passed a little more than a year ago. Much of it was about cooking and gardening. The spectrum of text was in glorious black and white, at a 2400 baud rate. Gail, hereafter "Bunny" and I both have (had) mobility disabilites. Our neet-o computers were the next new way to get out, replaceing CB radio. We even worked for a spell as co-workers at a congregate home for people with developmental disabilities. ( This got us labeled as married  ). How to garden, how mobility disablities impacted gardening, and how folks with very low budgets could garden were an intertwined and persistent thread to those evening chats. Trudi Davidoff, and Robin Marble. became the most often go-to for seeds. As operators of seed banks that did not require full reciprosity. Only Bruce and Paige are still living. They went silent years ago. Bunny, Bill, and Mary Frances have all passed. In this new hash-tag world I'm not sure I want to keep up. I think I'll just keep pecking at my full sized keyboard. |
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Post by coppice on Oct 23, 2014 15:06:31 GMT
I worked out a deal for one of my baby-ivys trained as bonsai, for a box fulla hickory nuts. This'll give me more nuts for N4Sers to plant out, and clear off my bench for ivy. Every spring I buy a rooted clump at the local big-box store for a couple bucks and divide (and or root) it into a few to several twigs for eventual bonsai training. Ivy is a tank of a vine with distinct zombie potential (as in ya' can't kill them). Good for me, and good for the newish grower who wants to try their hand at bonsai. An' I get stuph as part of the swap that I can no longer walk to.  |
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Post by Rosefriend on Oct 23, 2014 16:33:59 GMT
It seems to me coppice, that you have a good plan and all sorted out...many things that you plant in the USA we wouldn't want/need in England...as far as I know we don't have Hickory or the nuts in the UK (could be wrong) and I had to laugh at your description of Ivy - yes it is definitely a tank of a vine with distinct zombie potential and thanks to my neighbour having tons of it, I have a hatred of it....bonsai or not!! Well done for getting such a thug to be a bonsai though!! I have read about need4seed and it sounds a good situation in the USA, very possibly not so ideal for the UK though..these days with the terribly high costs of postage etc people tend to think twice before sending anything, especially long distance as the USA is. It is often said that Internet stops personal communication between people - I totally disagree - some virtual friendships are better and truer than in real life. Plus forum life has obviously been helpful in getting seeds etc. |
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Post by coppice on Oct 23, 2014 18:39:04 GMT
I held out an ivy trained to a shallow pot (as bonsai) as one potential minimum of what a garden could be.
As a rule it took Bunny about three years to kill one. She did rather better with papyrus.
Both before and post moving, I would train ivy and give them out. Its sort of a legacy of chat.
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Post by Rosefriend on Oct 24, 2014 13:35:36 GMT
I held out an ivy trained to a shallow pot (as bonsai) as one potential minimum of what a garden could be. As a rule it took Bunny about three years to kill one. She did rather better with papyrus. Both before and post moving, I would train ivy and give them out. Its sort of a legacy of chat. I think Bunny did rather well only taking 3 years to kill one (I firmly believe that you can't kill them - haha!!) - how long did she need for the Papyrus?? |
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Post by coppice on Oct 27, 2014 0:51:05 GMT
Bunny was a good baptist. She even got a divinity degree...
Papyrus lives in a pot in a bowl of water. As long as you replace the water it'll live on with a fair bit of other neglect.
Longer hospitalizations however were too much for her biblical plants.
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Post by Rosefriend on Oct 29, 2014 7:20:54 GMT
Bunny was a good baptist. She even got a divinity degree... Papyrus lives in a pot in a bowl of water. As long as you replace the water it'll live on with a fair bit of other neglect. Longer hospitalizations however were too much for her biblical plants. Plants and long absences rarely make good travelling companions. Many years ago a neighbour asked me to water her plants...no problem except for one plant, (no idea what it was) but each day that plant dropped one leaf - they were away for 2 weeks and on the day that they were coming home, the last leaf dropped off...!! I was in a right state - as I didn't know what it was I couldn't buy a new one so I ended up telling her the whole story. She laughed and laughed and said that she had got the plant from a friend, had hated it on sight, and was very relieved that it had gone to it's makers!! I never knew whether she had told the truth but I was rather relieved when they moved away and I didn't have any more watering jobs to do for her!! |
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