Hong Kong Garden

OK, spurious link alert, I made the title of this load of bloggox "Hong Kong Garden" because I've been watching Punk Britannia and Siouxsie and the Banshees were a favourite of mine back in the day. My tenuous link to Punk? I was once at a party and the four original members of the Sex Pistols were there. This was in the winter of 1975/6 I think and John Lydon was sitting all by himself in an armchair nursing a glass of something looking bored to tears.


 I was told who he was and what the band were called and said, "Who?" waddya know, hindsight is a wonderful thing. This was a little while before the Summer of '76 kicked in, you know that drought that didn't have any rain, unlike the recent just ended drought... In that summer I disappeared for 10 days - bit like Agatha Christie, only she was a writer and I'm not - on my famed (in our family) "Lost Weekend".


I went to Liverpool for a long weekend and didn't return for the aforementioned allotted time. I didn't ring work and I didn't ring home. I think it was the first time my dad truly worried about me - we had an awkward teen-year-thing going on. I was 19, the teen-year-thing had started six years before!


Anyhoo, enough of that stuff, gardens, that's what it's all about. Recently I have bloggocksed about the weather and how rather restricting it has been for me on the work front. Suffice to say, not a lot has changed, but I did work on every day this week which is a first for three weeks or so.


Here are some pictures and I think I will add longer captions than usual, just to speed things up a bit.

This is nice... At Pat's place in Berko Robins have decided her
post box is the perfect home. Sweet!

Pat's grass hadn't been cut for a couple of weeks and she gets mildly
paranoid at that fact. I think this Wem-ber-lee look is pretty damn good.
 I usually cut it with curves through it but last week I decided to give it
 a formal look. Standard stripes across and down the length of the lawn.
I, for one, think it looks fine...

The brown at the bottom of this Hebe is from "someone" using the dreaded weed killer without thinking about the plants. Disappointing, it's not my garden but I don't like the use of chemicals for this very reason. You have to be sooooo careful when applying them. A lot of the plants have been affected. Shame.

The following are from Rebecca's place in Bucks and I have to say it was an eventful day there this Tuesday 19th June 2012 (so sue me Locog!) if only for the fact that my trimmer's engine basically fell off mid-trim. It got so hot the plastic melted and the whole back of the trimmer, petrol driven, just fell to the ground all aflame and obviously feeling a bit sorry for itself. A sad demise seeing how it was well less than a year old. On to the warranty then, but in the mean time I had to buy a new one.


Tring garden centre is OK, don't get me wrong, but this Wednesday - obviously the 20th - it was nothing short of, well, inCompRehensibly APpaling. The servers had crashed - perhaps linked to the RBS/NatWest debacle this week, whatever! - and there were no staff to help anyone, anywhere.


I asked for a Ryobi In-line trimmer, petrol driven. Firstly, no one was available to see if they had one in stock, "We never keep that many in stock sir." 15 minutes later the member of staff cajoled into "helping me" came back with a Flymo hover mower and electric trimmer. Another member of staff said, as I sent the first one back to get what I asked for, "Sorry, he's the Plantarian Manager." What's that got to do with me, I thought. It was like a line from Fawlty Towers. "He's from, Bar-cell-owner."


Next the Plantarian - a Dr Who character if ever there was one - returned with a Ryobi Brushcutter. Twice the price and NOT the item I asked for. Problem was I only spotted it when the Plantarian asked for more money. "If I didn't need it urgently, I work as a gardener, I would be walking away from here mate! I want a Ryobi In-line trimmer," as he walked away with the brushcutter I added, "Petrol driven."


At this point the original assistant, a woman who looks like Sonia from Eastenders, caught my eye - thankfully she didn't drop it - and, I kid you not, tutted. "I know," I said, "he's a Plantarian."


He came back with the correct product. I paid and took a double pack of gardening gloves for my trouble - this episode took 40 minutes. 


Oh yeah, the original Flymo hover mower (returned to the stock room) was actually wanted by another customer who had wandered off and "...lost all sense of time..." I kid you not, she said that after being away from the till for over 30 minutes.


Likesay, pix from Rebecca's:

A lovely Delphinium

I love a pond... And I love lily pads

The driveway - I so should take "before" pictures, this is a truly remarkable transformation!

Oh dear! Work in progress I believe. Each week seems to bring more problems with the drains - bit like the Coalition Government.

So, there you have it, that was the week that was. More rain than you can shake a stick at (sic) and the thought that I should have at least shaken said stick at the Plantarian.


Happy Shaking...