Stands That Deliver
After so much heavy stuff, it's time for another gardening Willie Tip. Which is also an excuse for some more pictures.Patios can be a bit boring if you just have lots of containers at ground level. The answer is to buy some tiered plant stands.
The one pictured has troughs of trailing lobelia cascading down the centre with geraniums at the side. And there are a few nasturtiums poking through from the back of the stand.
The bad news is that these stands are self-assembly with several hundred tiny screws and washers. It took me about two days to assemble the first one, partly because I originally assembled it back to front. 'Rome wasn't built in a day', I said to myself. But a tiny voice in my head kept saying 'but this is only a frigging plant stand.'Actually it's not a 'plant stand'. It's called an étagère so you can impress, and possibly baffle, your friends.
'Do you like my étagères?' I asked someone.
'They're beautiful. Did you grow them from seed?'
From a previously unseen episode of Keeping Up Appearances:
Richard: I do like your new plant stands, Hyacinth.
Hyacinth: Not plant stands, Richard!
Etagères!
I will not have my elegant, rust-resistant, classic French-style étagères referred to as plant stands.
Another way to divide up a patio and get away from straight lines is illustrated by the use of sumac trees in containers (referred to in an earlier piece) creating a shady screen around a table and chairs.
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Kathryn Flett in today's Observer writes the reverse of what I said a few days ago and gives a rave review to Extras and is very rude about the Catherine Tate Show.
If this woman can so ignorantly contradict the perceptive judgements expressed by myself and my readers then she is clearly not fit to be a television critic and should be dismissed immediately.
posted by Willie Lupin @ 6:15 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Hmmmmmmmm I liked Extras and the Catherine Tate Show.
Both. So there.
Liked the plant pics.
Gardens are a great consolation in these dark times. I didn't comment on your two previous blogs because the whole thing was much too distressing. Two colleagues were in the carriage when the 'suspected' bomber was shot.
I like to have vertical colour too, but I can't be relied on to water small pots regularly enough. So I use perennial shrubby climbers; roses, clematis, jasmine, honeysuckle and such. But I adore nasturtiums - the leaves particularly - but I put them in the ground and let them scramble over bushes in borders. I have branched out this year and sewn an annual climber, blue convolvulus or morning glory. Can never have to much blue. I have some extremely luxuriant leaves but not a bloody flower in sight. Any idea what I'm doing wrong Willie?
Apologies. I should have written 'suspected bomber' of course.
I read the Observer earlier as well and said something along the lines of 'bloody cheek' when Catherine Tate was dissed.
It is rare that I genuinely laugh out loud watching something, particularly when on my own, but I did several times watching Catherine Tate.
I don't get the criticism either that 'oh dear, Little Britain got there first'. No they didn't.
Yes, Catherine Tate is similar in that it is a sketch show featuring characters that are generally grotesques, but this isn't something that Little Britain particularly pioneered, I don't feel. And even if they did, it in no way undermines how good the characters are in Catherine Tate, or what a fantastic actress she is.
zaphod, glad you liked the plant pics. As you probably realised, I had to hire a hot air balloon for the overhead shots. :-)
cello, sorry to hear that some of your colleagues suffered that trauma.
The gardening pieces are mainly for a change of tone and to play with my digital camera, rather than from any great knowledge of gardening. So I can't really help with your question. But I have had similar problems with annual climbers not flowering, including, I think, morning glory. Climbing nasturtiums are more reliable, especially if you start them early indoors to give them a head start. Going to write about nasturtiums soon.
matt, hear, hear to all of that.
I also love the couple who laugh hysterically at trivial and not particularly fuuny things. When I've encountered such people I always feel I should join in out of politeness but I'm not very good at feigning laughter.
A lot of Tate's characters are taken straight from life and barely pushed into caricature, unlike Little Britain.
Well I can't comment on the tv shows as we don't get those shows over here - yet. We should in a year or two or possibly an American rip-off version of the shows.
I love your plant pictures. I'm so jealous *sigh* I have a black thumb and I can kill any plant unlucky enough to be cared for by me.
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