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Perhaps they made a book after the film, I'm pretty sure i read that to my children years ago, we watched the film together too of course, time spent with your children is irreplaceable and don't le anyone persuade you otherwise. I taught all my children to garden and cook and may other skills which stood them in good stead. My son is a single parent and has a degree, teaches computing at the local college, the other day he made a childs birthday cake in the shape of a horses head - one any woman would have been proud of!

David, The EFF published a legal guide for blogging a while ago (http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-ip.php). Note this is US focused, however it covers "Fair use". Quoting in small amounts and attributing them to the book is probably ok... but then I am no lawyer :)

I too leave mine in the ground but plant them a little deeper than they say otherwise they tend to fall over as the heads get quite big.

I've been looking though a bulb catalogue which came in my new gardening mag and there are lots of alliums taller than yours, including some new ones. That's the best way of choosing what sort you want. You plant them in the Autumn, and leave them to root and establish, then they come up and get ready to flower in Spring/Summer. You should be able to leave your old ones in the ground - as long as you don't get waterlogged? I had 'Purple Sensation' this year and though the flowere are smallish, they were successful and lasted ages. The seed heads were great, too. They will stay where they are. I paid lots for some big ones (Stipitatum) and they were complete failures. I shall try a different sort for next year. I shall try a bulb expert firm, possibly on the net, or maybe trawl the garden centres to choose good fat bulbs! Maybe somebody with more experience than me will be able to help us both as to whether we should feed them and when? Good luck with yours!

Hello joey. You are right! I couldn't find an entry for Aeonium undulatum in any of my ref books, but today was reading a gardening mag and to my surprise and pleasure, there was a photo of one with its name! Thanks and congratulations on your detective skills!. My friend Lesley will be pleased to know what she has got. Unfortunately, the plant will die back after the flower dies, but she can apparently take off the baby rosettes and pot them up. The plant apparently only rarely flowers, so she's been lucky this year!

Well. today started well, with sunshine, but the clouds soon came up and it has been rain alternating with patches of sun since then. I feel like the woman in the weather house thingybob who pops out to forecast the weather! At least my husband got all the grass cut in the dry! We are only able to compost about a third of each cut as there is so much, so the rest has to be transported to the council tip! I have to try to get back out there again, there is always more to be done, isn't there! The weeds sure do enjoy this weather, they are appearing everywhere in their thousands, so it seems to me, anyway. My least favourite weed is the hoary bittercress - if you miss one, it shoots its seeds in all directions (clever but annoying) and it seems to flower when very tiny, too. Since I dug up all those symphytums, new seedlings have emerged, including to my surprise a tomato! Now where did that come from?

thanx Tussie1 I doubt if anyone, least of all you, could remember reading the Wizard of Oz book b4 it was a film. I am 46 yrs old, with a 4- and 6-yr-old (boy and girl), and consider myself an elderly parent (the kids tell me I'm anceint, but I believe this is normal).I am so glad I did most of the things I wanted to do b4 I settled down. I believe that experience makes me a better parent. Because of the children, I feel like a 26- rather than a 46-yr old, and find myself doing things with them almost subconsciously, with a sense of deja-vous, and realising that this is what my parents did with us at that age (weird?) My gardening hobby can certainly be traced back to pre-school age, because I remember it so well, but the strange thing is, I had to mow the lawn for pocket money, and hated it, and still do! In adulthood, I removed all the grass from every garden I had and replaced it with beds. In our present garden, I removed about 3/4 of it, but decided to leave a lawn area for our children (but I still hate mowing it!) Also, as a late parent, I am often conscious of mortality and responsibility (is this strange) and believe that I have to help teach my children as much as poss., and, as in my own case, leave them with as many great memories and skills as I can. By gardening with them, we can talk about so many relevant topics, at their level, and I find that it works very well. I have had people say to me that they wonder why i spend so much energy and time on the garden for the children, because they'll be grown-up as soon as you can blink, That is exactly why I do it, while I can! Also, I secretly enjoy the opportunity to be bold, brash and adventurous in the garden! - david

Thank you very much, wemamabell, I see you are not very far from me. I really admire your "About Me" profile and love the garden pics (Isaved the colourful border pic in My favourites) Wish I could have same in my garden! Am about to write my next blog entry, which is where I can at last write about how we translated the Wizard of Oz into a garden. - david

I love this. Wish I could have the same stretch of border, but with children and footballs, it wouldn't last a minute!

Hi David, behind the strip there is a field, and behind that woodland, more fields ponds etc and an old churchyard and lots of really old oaks and elms, those house a terriffic number of species.

Thanx Ajay, that is what I thought. I think I'll just keep my working title as is and put 1,2,3,etc after each entry so I can keep track of the order. Thanx again. PS. I would have liked to put in short quotes from the book where appropriate but am worried that this may be illegal without permission of copyright owners. Can you help me with this one also?

Yes, it is great to have an adjoining wildlife strip to help out with the garden. We had a narrow woodland strip at the bottom of the garden we used to have, and it definitely helped in the planning of that garden. Beyond the woodland strip was a largish "field" - really, an area of unused land which had developed itself into a natural wildlife oasis. I always looked forward to taking our dog out there, so I could see the wildflowers, peacock butterflies, moths, toads, etc. Guess what? That land belonged to the Council, they sold it off to a developer and now it has almost 60 houses on it! Now we live in a village on a private, unmade road, and the surrounding environment is, I hope, more stable.

I compared some pictures and it's a gloxinia. Sounds like it will be a bit challenging to nurse back to health but I'll give it a try...I'm so glad I found this site today! I have lots of questions about my plants and now I have people to ask - a big thank you to all three of you!

Thanks for the photos and descriptions. Good for us folks who can't get there! Saw some of it on BBC2 last night, but they kept hopping round to visit people and not keeping to the actual show.

Managed to catch last night's coverage on BBC 2. I wish I'd seen the previous programme! Thanks for the photos. I live too far away to go to the London shows. I hope to go to the AG show at the end of August for the first time.

News! He cut the grass today in the sunshine and he has got a gnat bite! (only one - and I've got several more) Hoping for another sunny day tomorrow...

My first thought was a gloxinia too, it's pretty!

Joey my partners son lives near Heathrow, I sometimes visit up there,we have very little light pollution, often check out the night sky before going to bed,
Spritz, I wll keep my fingers crossed for you if we get more heavy rain, I lauged at your description of wassailing in squelchy wellies!!

I'm sure it's a gloxinia! Should flower for a couple of months in bright light (not direct sun) Stand pot on damp pebbles and keep water off leaves when you water it (tepid temp). Lovely present from your daughter.

To answer Tussie first - on the map it's actually called a brook. Usually it babbles along but after heavy rain it rises alarmingly quickly and yes, it does flood! We have seen it go right over the lane to our cottage and make the ford in the lane impassable. Last time was Jan 6th when we went wassailing in an orchard down the lane... the water came over my wellies and I had to dance around the apple trees squelching as I went. What an experience - tradition rules in Somerset! We do also know that next door has had flood water inside in the past, not for some years though! No good worrying about it, but we've all got flood barriers ready in case.

joey - our daughter also lives under the flight path to Heathrow. When we visit, we are very aware of the noise, hustle and bustle and can't wait to return to our rural idyll. I feel for you and I will think of you when we are outside watching the stars (another huge benefit of country life - no light pollution!)