Category Archives: cosmos

It all seems to have started up north

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A big thanks to Debby H. for sharing an update from her north London garden! While we sowed ours directly outside this year and are still waiting for them to pop up, Debby’s cosmos are already starting to flower even though the plants are still small (see her photos above).

It’s great to see that her seed potatoes are finally breaking through. There’s some really healthy growth on them already.

Elsewhere in the garden, the rhododendron is also blooming beautifully.

As she mentioned “The bluebells are still lovely, although unfortunately not the native ones” (above).

The garden is looking great at this time of year as well, what’s it going to look like later this year? We can’t wait to find out, keeping sending us the updates Debby!

In north London the gardens are certainly waking up

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Great to hear from Debby H in north London for letting us know how her garden is at this time of the year. She said, ” I have now planted the cosmos in the back garden (above), and we have hundreds of bluebells coming up this year (below)” There’s a big clump behind the cosmos above.

“I thought I would include a picture of our pear tree which has more blossom this year than I remember from previous years. To the left of the tree is the doronicum, which is also blooming well.” There’s a post about the doronicum from March here.

Thanks as always Debby and great to see that things are developing in the garden!

A report from north of the river

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Cheers to Debby H for getting in touch and for letting us know that things are starting to hot up in the garden. “We have germinated about 30 dwarf sunflowers which will need to be potted soon. Also, our tomato plants have finally started to shoot.” Brilliant.

“The cosmos are ready to be planted in pots and put in the cold frame. We have already put some in our plastic greenhouse. We are going to see which environment they prefer.” Great stuff! Please let us know the outcome of that Debby.

She also mentions a plant we have never heard of before (pic above). “Last year our neighbours gave us some plants that we think are called Doronicum. We had seen them giving a good display in our neighbours’ garden and praised them, so they gave us some which we planted last autumn. They are all now beginning to flower. Lots of buds there.” They look a lovely flower!

We look forward to more reports Debby!

A report from north London

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If you remember, last month Debby H in north London let us know that the early sowing of her cosmos seeds had germinated (here).  She very kindly sent us a picture of how they are getting on now and look how healthy they look! “We will put some in a flowerpot soon and put it in the plastic green house.” Great stuff! We still haven’t sown ours yet and will have to do so soon.

So also sent us a great picture of some daffodils growing on an area of council-owned land, down the middle of a road near where she lives. Impressive or what? Thanks Debby and let’s hope spring is around the corner.

A canna lily in north London

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Thanks to Debby H for getting in touch with a great picture of her canna lily and don’t it look grand!
She also let us know that she sowed the first of her cosmos seeds a couple of days ago and she’ll let us know when they start showing up. As she said “It’s a bit early to sow them, but it’s an experiment!” We are always up for gardening experiments here. Saying that most of our gardening experiences are experiments.

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!