Its been a fabulous day – beautiful sunshine and temperatures of 19c – apparently this is the result of southerly winds blowing hot air from the Mediterranean up to the UK . This is set to last till the end of the week – Thursday may even reach 21c in London and the South East.
It appears that this very mild weather has delayed the annual winter planting of pansies along the sea-front by more than 3 weeks . The longer growing season is a subject I highlighted in a previous blog http://www.myclimatechangegarden.com/blog/growing-season-lengthens-by-1-month
Today I noticed a very busy man digging up the bedding plants and geraniums which have being growing along the sea-front since the end of May. I watched him fill a large truck with these healthy looking plants . On closer inspection, I saw that most were still flowering – particularly the geraniums – and certainly not suited to “being dumped”.
The man – fearing I was a reporter I think – asked not to be named but told me that he needs to get the new planting done as quickly as possible because it is so much later this year .He said I should’t worry as the discarded plants go to the local green compost dump. Good to hear that the local Council are recycling their plant waste but why plant these water guzzling, time-consuming bedding plants in the first place. Goodness knows how much it costs to fill the long beds along the promenade for the summer – and then to just dig them up and replace with pansies for the winter seems such a waste of time, money and water.http://www.myclimatechangegarden.com/blog/mediterranean-plants-v-annual-bedding
Maybe in future the Council should save our money and resources by doing away with all bedding plants and opting for more sustainable, long-term planting like the rest of the sea-front which looks attractive all year and thrives in our ever-longer growing seasons.
Or, they could at least take cuttings to produce plants for next summer?
I cheekily asked if I could pinch some of the geraniums to over-winter in the conservatory – could not bear to see them discarded like this. I caused quite a stir walking along the beach laden with bare rooted plants. Felt less like a guerilla gardener in reverse when I bumped into another lady who had filled her whole car with the same “throw-away” plants – waste not want not!
October 28th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
This is a great post.. Very informative… I can see that you put a lot of hard work on your every post that’s why I think I’d come here more often. Keep it up! By the way, you can also drop by my blogs. They’re about Vegetable Gardening and Composting. I’m sure you’d find my blogs helpful too.