Moosey News : February 2006
Dear Subscriber,
Are you interested in yet more outpourings of new garden plans and schemes, catalogued obsessions with compost, moans about sore hands, and intimate details of Rusty's dog-diet? Then welcome to the February Moosey newsletter!
This month's features
- Rose Archways
- Pets
- Paul Gaugin Rose
- Manly Garden Help
- Summer Botanic Gardens
Regulars
- Plant of the Month : Lychnis
- Animals of the Month : New Kittens - Beige Puss and Fluff-Fluff
- Garden Quote : On Cats and Dogs
- Garden Gallery : Kronenbourg 'Flaming Peace' Rose
- Forum Focus : Vegetables
- Gardening Advice : Mental Gardening Preparation
- Searching for Moosey - Flaxes, Fat Dogs and Gnomes...
- Coming up this month : Grand World Garden Tour
This months features
1. Rose Archways
My first official article about this new flowery feature - the pictures are less than impressive, but from little acorns mighty oaks do grow! It's important to record the beginning of something - my website is full of pages with cheery footnotes promising new photographs as things grow, with the well worn phrase 'Watch this space!'...
2. Pets
This isn't strictly a feature, but my January journal does have some special Moosey pet photographs. For example, the journal displays the first time that six of the current seven Moosey pets have been captured on camera, completely un-posed, occupying one small space (the kitchen floor). And you can check out dog-on-a-diet...
3. Paul Gaugin Rose
A beautiful flower on a hopelessly small bush - that's the picture so far for my rescued rose Paul Gaugin. Should I move it? Should I prune it? More water, some rose food? The real Paul Gaugin should inspire this rose to live a long healthy life!
4. Manly Garden Help
Does anyone else out there want to 'meet' the Moosey Manly Garden Helper? We get enough strange virtual visitors lured in by the rose 'Sexy Rexy' - I'm afraid that stories and pictures of tanned, topless shovelling might just tip the balance! Be content looking at the results of his labours!
5. Summer Botanic Gardens
The same day I booked my airline tickets for my Round-The-World Garden Tour I decided I needed more practice being a roving garden reporter. So off I went to the local botanic gardens. I'd like to be able to say that I'm improving, but...
Regulars
6. Plant of the Month : Lychnis
Ironically, this is the month that I rip out all the flowering Lychnis, leaving behind the smaller plants which will flower pink, white, and magenta next summer. Well deserving of this award, Lychnis is a totally no-nonsense, easy-care, extremely short-lived perennial in my garden...
7. Animals of the Month : New Kittens - Beige Puss and Fluff-Fluff
With Beige Puss covered in ringworm (resulting in preventative drugs for the entire Moosey animal household) and Fluff-Fluff covered in car engine oil (pet shampoo didn't work - the kitchen scissors did!) there haven't been as many photographs of the new Christmas kittens in the journal as you might have expected. Being pets of the month might restore some balance!
8. Garden Quote : On Cats and Dogs
Gardening with felines is humbling. It's so different to dogs - try booming 'No!' in your sternest voice of discipline to a cat! Ha!
9. Garden Gallery : Kronenbourg 'Flaming Peace' Rose
Kronenbourg rose, AKA 'Flaming Peace', is one of my newest roses - much admired and much photographed. This picture is in my modern shrub roses section...
10. Forum Focus : Vegetables
Lots of us are growing them, some of us are eating them - check out the vegetable garden talk in this month's forums...
11. Gardening Advice : Mental Gardening Preparation
Gardening is mental! Spend at least half an hour (preferably snug in bed) preparing the mind only for the gardening day. No pens and paper for the distractions of list-writing, no garden magazines for visual distraction of glossy coloured photographs...
12. Searching for Moosey - Flaxes, Fat Dogs and Gnomes...
- Fat Border Collie
- Who is the unkind person who found the Moosey site this month by searching for 'pictures of fat border collie dogs'? Oops - I think they'll find quite a few, taken in the days before Rusty's dog-diet. Check out my journal to see if he looks 'fat' to you!
- Phormium Pruning
- 'Trimming a phormium' seemed a sensible search phrase to comment on. Unfortunately the last time the head gardener at Moosey's did this she lost two large, expensive kitchen knives. Perhaps a peep at a well behaved phormium (New Zealand flax) which doesn't need trimming might be nice?
- Cricket Gnome
- Finally, this month's favourite hybrid - 'garden cricket gnome'. A cricket-playing garden gnome? When young, the Moosey children used my garden gnomes for cricket stumps. I was puzzled as to why their noses and hats always kept breaking off - obviously I mean the gnomes! The current Moosey gnome is a non-player, but keeps well away from the house lawns, just in case...
13. Coming up this month : Grand World Garden Tour
Not strictly this month, but coming up soon enough - my Scary Grand World Garden Tour. Helped by gardening friends from around the world, supported by my disbelieving family, fuelled by some spare Moosey money, my seedling plans have germinated. I have already written my first (private) list of things to take.
I hope you enjoy reading this month's pages. And could any gardener who has a bona fide cricket-playing garden gnome get in touch? I'd very much like to meet him...
Cheers,