Category Archives: cosmos

A passport to beer and nuts

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We’ve just listened to this weeks Great Lives on Radio 4 with John Cooper Clarke about one Johnny Green (once hippy, driver, writer and the road manager of The Clash and Tour De France fan). It’s a great 27 minutes with contributions from his kids, Topper Headon and Chris Salewicz. It’s nice to hear old JCC’s distinctive voice again. To listen to the show click here.

On the subject of Johnny Green, here’s something about him on blackmarketclash.co.uk (here) about The Clash’s Bury St Edmunds gig in 1978 (where we were also in attendance). We love the line at the end which makes us smile “I considered the Camden Town rockabilly as my friend and a passport to beer and nuts”. We all love a passport to beer and nuts.

A cosmos a month before christmas

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A big thanks to our good friend Rich R up in the Lake District for sending over the photograph of his cosmos (and a shout to Debby H too, as the seeds came from her plants). Rich writes, “Really cold here today, wind chill feels like 2°C. With hard frosts and snow on the way, I thought I’d better send you this pic of the cosmos before it’s too late.”

Brilliant stuff, Rich – thanks again (and to Debby H) for sharing!

Cosmos and reggae make Saturday night alright

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Big thanks to Debby H for sending us a great picture today (above) of possibly the last cosmos of the year in her garden. She said, “If the weather brightens up later on, I will go out and deadhead them, then maybe they will keep on flowering.” Great stuff! We hope they do keep flowering.

Now we love the cosmos, we can’t stop seeing them about. Here’s one spotted on our early morning travels in SE23 this week, they’re a bit blurred but you’ll get the gist.

And a few doors down we saw a nice raised (vegetable) bed with some trellis used as a squirrel, pigeon and general pest deterrent, what a clever idea.

And from gardening we move onto the subject of music which goes hand in hand here on Weeds. We heard Skinshape x Horus – N’Téro (feat. Modou Toure) on last week’s Ross Allen NTS show here and it’s a lovely slice of reggae! Catchy as anything too.

 

Here’s a nice bit of dub called Order Dub for a Saturday night off the Self-Titled EP from Nadia McAnuff & The Ligerians from SoulNurse Records out of Tours, France from the golden year of 2022. It’s a subtle bit of mixing but lots going on if that makes sense.

 

And we just found by pure chance now on Bandcamp a do over of a version of Dennis Walks‘ Heat Don’t Leap by the one and only Gregory Isaacs called Gone is the Love from a good few years ago. Great tune!

And funny enough there was a few cuts of the original “Heart Don’t Leap” and more great tunes on On The Wire the other week. Listen in here!

Do you reckon the weather will hold out for gardening tomorrow? It was perfect here this morning and afternoon. Fingers crossed!

Towards the end of the growing season

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Cheers to Mike & Julia from near Coventry for sharing a towards the end of season photographic report (fantastic pictures as ever Julia!) This is going to be a two parter as there’s so much good stuff been sent. Their comsos are looking fine (above and below).

Their garden doesn’t half look fine even at this time of year. We thought our garden was looking beyond repair but last weekend with a bit of a lawn cut and a trim and pulling out of the tomato plants and some dead heading it didn’t look too bad in the end but nowhere as great as these pictures.

We also love what we think is an echeveria (below) as those angular flowers look great and also those aster flowers (lower below).

Next part will include some dahlias amongst some other things. Keep them coming Mike & Julia and thanks again!

We had joy, we had fun, we had a season in the sun

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Last weekend we returned from a week away visiting some great East Sussex locations such as Camber Sands, Eastbourne and Brighton. Weather weren’t too bad (a bit of rain in the morning but usually sunny in the afternoon) but it has seemed to have changed when we got back home. Everything in the garden is now winding down, the tomatoes have their last fruit on them, the cosmos are still going (more on those later) and the giant sunflower (from seed bought off ebay) is doing great, following the sun as usual (more on that here).

We brought in the houseplants that were having a holiday outside, a chilli in a pot which will hopefully survive the winter and be back outside in the garden as they are technically perennials and even a couple of the pelargoniums taken from cuttings from the ones at the local train station. Why not? It’s nice to have a bit of the outside indoors.

Our north London correspondent Debby H has suggested we should get a page together of how people’s cosmos did this year and have a bit of a gallery going on and we think it’s a great idea. If the slugs got at your seedlings earlier on, don’t worry we will repeat it next year but any pictures of your cosmos to one deck pete (at) gee mail dot com please.

Also a massive shout and thanks to Jon Harris from the excellent multi-genre music  show called Coughing Pigeon on Brum Radio here. On the 1st August show they played Madtone Safety Council V BiggaBush‘s Lock your bike at 01.15. The show continues in the usual unusual way with all sorts of great stuff from the dubby to this wonderful tune from Christie Laume called Rouge Rouge, wonderful stuff indeed.

 

As it says on the website “You should approach every Coughing Pigeon show with a degree of both certainty and curiosity about what you will hear. Household names feature alongside the relatively unknown in a quest to create a unique listening experience” and they are right!

Cosmos fever

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A big thanks to Debby H for starting this current wave of cosmos appreciation here at Weeds. Hers are presently looking great in situ (above).

We know a couple of us had some problems with slugs eating some of our seedlings but that’s not going to stop us trying again next year. We started off a good few but the only ones that survived were the plants under the dying cherry tree which are giving us a few nice blooms at the moment (above).

And above and below are from Mike & Julia‘s garden near Coventry. Great stuff!

Gardening is about having a go and if the slugs got your seedlings this year it doesn’t mean they will next year. Out with the beer traps and the copper tape and your other favourite anti-slug tricks and see what happens. Another good thing about the old horticulture is the practice of swopping and passing on plants and seeds. Keep the old circle going around! Cheers again to Debby H!

A butcher’s around the garden

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After a bit of rain last night in SE23 we viewed a few things this morning, the first being a small water lily on the pond. It’s been taken close up and looking again we’re still not sure what that is in the top right hand corner, micro frog spawn perhaps?

We’re seeing flower buds on the cosmos. We did sow a few seeds in various places but these are the ones that survived. There’re under an old dead cherry tree and they seem have taken well. In a few days there should be flowers (Cheers Debby H again).

And this look like a couple of the Thompson & Morgan seeds here. The above must be the Quick Fire Chilli Pepper to the rear and in front the Quick Snack Cucumber.

We’ve bought some plant feed now to supplement our ever dwindling amount of Comfrey liquid and with the supposedly 25 degrees C today, all should be the right stuff for these plants to grow well. Or so we hope!

International Report AKA a rose abroad

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Thanks very much to Debby H for sending us some pictures from the south of France where she is staying at the moment where it’s been up to 34 degrees C since she arrived.

The first is of a lovely rose plant (above) and she said “This would be nothing special in the UK, but this plant rarely flowers after April or early May here. However, they had such a wet spring it seems that the rose is much happier this year.”

The picture above is of a strelitzia, the bird of Paradise plant which is looking well healthy, Debby has one in London that she started from seed about 6 years ago. It is a wonderful plant and we read that germination of the seed can be anything from 4-8 weeks to 6 months!
“The next is my prickly pear which seems to have gone bonkers growing along the ground instead of upwards as it should do.” We do love this picture, cacti are brilliant.
The above we think is a phormium tenax aka New Zealand flax.
And the picture above is of an oleander. Her own plant is still not in flower yet and we do hope it’s not long before it looks like the above.
Wonderful pictures as always Debby and do keep updating us. Have a good break out there! Ta for the “A rose abroad” headline as well.

Flowers at the end of May

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Thanks for Debby H for getting in touch again and sending an update. She has just sent us a picture of her Zephyranthes Robusta and said “Each year, I store the bulbs in the garage over the winter. In late spring I bring them out and they grow again. Isn’t nature wonderful!” It really is Debby!
And what is fantastic is she has attached a picture of the first flower on one of her cosmos plants. How wonderful is that for May? Cheers Debby!

More from north London

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A big thanks to Debby H who sent us some pictures of how things are getting on gardening wise in north London. First are the cosmos (above) which are looking healthy. Those inner toilet tubes seem to be working well as plant pots by the way.

And above are the tomato seedlings which are sown in an interesting way as we usually sow one to a pot, but this method seems great. The tomatoes as well as the cosmos are ready to be repotted, and Debby has given us a great idea for further sowings.

Above is the azalea in her garden is looking great. As she wrote “I just found that the azalea is a type of rhododendron.” We didn’t know that.

And Debby has just got back from a break in Suffolk. “By the coast near to Dunwich the whole area was covered in the most amazing yellow flowering gorse bushes” “It went on for miles. I have never seen it looking quite so spectacular.” Brilliant stuff Debby, cheers for the update and we look forward to more pictures this year.