Thursday, 17 October 2024

The Triffid Bee Garden

We have a decent garden. It's not big, but it's productive because we cheat totally, adding vast amounts of shop-bought compost, chicken manure, Growmore, blood fish'n'bone, seaweed extract etc. Also there's nothing wrong with taking daffodils and so forth off the cheap shelf at B&Q because they'll come back next year, and we collect seeds from parks'n'gardens across Europe and buy in specialist ones so we have a disorganised profusion of colourful triffids of all nations, especially as we hose during drought conditions.
As gardeners, you collect seeds for next year but as the garden is small, we have an annual production surplus and that rankles, so we identified an unused patch of land off the Botley Road outside Romsey only 2 1/2 miles from where Grandad had his retirement home. So all the Tree Tobacco (Nicotiana glauca) and Solanum laciniatum (Kangaroo apple) and the insanity thistles can go there, as well as all the excess love-in-a-mist, hollyhock, opium poppy, Aquilegia and permanent sweet pea. Hopefully it will be an ongoing food supply for all the bees, as well as an otherworldly (if rather poisonous) surprise for the dog walkers and blackberry pickers of North Baddesley.
Obviously I'll be off in University so I sent my special Compost Attendant to scatter the holy seed, then I will pray over the site from afar to confer fertility. First seed scattering was on 29th August 2024, at "flirts.mice.regal" (what3words) and thereabouts.
There are small plans to scatter the same seeds on the Farlington roundabout (junction of A27 and Eastern Road, Portsmouth).