A big shout to Rich R who is on his holidays at the moment in Crete and found this rather nice flower called a sea daffodil (AKA white sand lily, amaryllis, lily of Knossos, beach saffron or beach crocus). It’s supposed to have a “pleasing, exotic and very subtle lily scent”. More about the plant here.
He also took some great pics of the sunset and the eclipse the other night (above and below). It looks like a magical place and “the beach we look out on is the actual one where Zorba the Greek (Anthony Quinn) did his dance”. Wow great stuff Rich, enjoy the rest of your holiday!
Heard on this week’s Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room (here), here’s a wonderful bit of classical ambience. It’s by Steven Legget & Laura Reid and it’s called Low and it’s excellent stuff and one to wind down to after the bins have been put out and you’re sitting pondering “Was it recycling and general refuse or was it just recycling tonight?”
Here’s a good refuse tip, don’t feel left out after a bank holiday. Bin collection is usually a day later so put your feet up and wait another 24 hours before dragging those bins down the drive/path knowing that you “know the (wheely bin) score”. Remember every part of the world over has a bin night. What night is yours? Do send us your pictures of your dustbins!
Cheers to Debby H for sending us some pictures of her garden in north London now that the summer is sadly coming to an end (how quick has this year been?) The first (above) is of the Zephyranthes Robusta (AKA Rain Lily). As she told us “These bulbs have flowered so many times this summer. We thought that we had seen the last for the year, but amazingly it has performed again!”, great to hear!
There’s also the Ornithogalum “The flowers have now grown. Unfortunately, one of them broke off, possibly due to the wind, but we still have 8 flowers.” Even though the picture is a little out of focus it gives us a good idea how they have done this year.
“Our sedum has flowered and is looking very pretty” above.
Debby also has a self-seeded ragwort(we think) which if it is, has a nice flower but has its problems as it is poisonous to horses and other livestock and causes minor skin irritations so it’s better to leave those gardening gloves on if you ever are wanting to pull one up.
Cheers for the update Debby, the garden is looking great!
We’ve just found this tonight, a dub piece by the great Scientist & Alicia Previn called Scientist Spacewalk. Super strings dub on the answer rhythm. More on the collab here.
And it’s nothing to do with the strings on 1970’s UK reggae releases…
Two Paradise Garage classics were heard in a couple of retail establishments earlier today. The first was “My Love is free” by Double Exposure heard in a coffee/expensive sausage roll shop in Herne Hill at 9.30 am.
Later on while walking through Lewisham Shopping Centre (home of probably the cleanest public loos in London) at about 12.30 pm The Fatback Band‘s “Going to see my baby” was coming through the speakers. What next, a bit of Death Metal in the meat aisle in Tesco sometime this week?
What’s the best tune you have heard being played in a shop? Answers please via the comments and we’ll blog up a chart.
By the way here’s a classic Paradise Garage cassette from supposedly1982 but possibly recorded a few years later.
Gil Scott Heron – The Bottle The Clash – The Magnificient Dance Cymande – Bra Loose joints – Is it all over my face Double Exposure – My love is free Exodus – Together Forever First Choice – Double Cross First Choice – Dr Love Lenny Williams – Running (mixed with Man Fridays Love Honey, love heartache acapella.) Fatback Band – Going home to see my baby Loleatta holloway & Salsoul orchestra – runaway Shades of love – Body to body Positive force – We got the funk Roy Ayers – Running away Salsoul orchestra – Ooh, I love it (love break) Salsoul orchestra – You’re just the right size Carl Bean – Born this way
Cheers to Gerry Hectic who emailed us letting us know that “Lidl have a set of 6 really nice looking alpines for £4.99” (Below are the said offers which look great.) The top picture are the bargains in situ and we love the small stones on top of the pots that really work.
We haven’t got that many alpines/succulents but we picked up this sempervivum (in the forefron of the picture below) at a sale at a community garden two years ago (the one where we bought the mullien here) and have split it a few times since.
Behind that are a couple of mini succulents bought off ebay which are sandwiched between the pink geranium that we bought at another sale which has been divided a few times now and passed onto to our mates. It’s all about passing things on!
Here’s an excellent radio programme featuring those Maunsell delights Shivering Sands. It’s a 24 minute great listen so tune in here for a very interesting listen. Thanks to the The Maunsell Seaforts Appreciation Goup on Facebook for posting this up!
And when we put Maunsell dub into Bandcamp it came up with this, a great version of United Melody by Addis Pablo no less.
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!
A big thanks to Debby H for sending us some pictures of her garden that’s come on a bit since she went away for few weeks. The above is of the first cosmos flowers.
Above is the radio related Marconi red pepper which is doing very well and her second pepper plant (below) is looking good too.
And her giant daisies (below) are coming along nicely!
There’s been a couple of suprises, one being a fuchsia that she thought was dead has come back to life and her ophiopogon (below), which is now flowering (little pink bell-like ones.)
It’s good coming back from being away and seeing how much has changed in the garden. Cheers for those Debby!
Cheers to our friend in the Lake District Rich R for sending us a picture of his first cosmos flower, brilliant stuff. It’s fantastic about all this passing on seeds that gardeners do and a big cheers to Debby H for starting all this cosmos mania off in the first place. Ours are still a work in progress, but we may know more in a few days time.
Rich also sent us a pic of Bassenthwaite Lakefrom the other evening, looks great. Cheers for those!