Moosey News : July 2007

Dear Subscriber,

I'm back from visiting beautiful summer gardens, full of great ideas, writing lists as I sit inside by the log-burner. My own garden is sleeping, in semi-hibernation - it's wet and rather cold. But I'm home! Yippee!

This month's features :

1. A Day at Kew
2. Gardens of Plockton
3. Holiday - Scotland
4. The Laking Garden Perennials
5. A Garden Book by Diarmuid Gavin

Regulars :

6. Plant of the Month : Rhododendron Ponticum
7. Animal of the Month : Two North American Dogs - Willie and Charlie
8. Garden Quote : On the Size of the World
9. Garden Gallery : A Colourful Garden
10. Forum Focus : Eek! I've Been Away!
11. Gardening Advice : Catalogues can't spell.
12. Searching for Moosey : 'hot gardener'
13. Coming up this month : Coming down to earth - that's the wintry, damp kind, though the weeds in my garden still seem to be thriving.

This month's features

1. A Day at Kew

There's a lovely TV series called 'A Year at Kew'. Perhaps If I'd watched it I wouldn't have missed out seeing Kew's largest glass-house...

2. Gardens of Plockton

In Scotland I stayed for five days in a scenic little village called Plockton, where I did a bit of sneaky paparazzi photography of the local gardens.

3. Holiday - Scotlands

The west coast of Scotland is the perfect holiday destination for a keen gardener. You can see where I went in my Scotland journal pages.

4. The Laking Garden Perennials

The Laking garden is in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and here I found the most beautiful perennial borders in the whole world - well, in my much traveled opinion, that is!

5. A Garden Book by Diarmuid Gavin

This is not a shameless attempt to inject some manly spice and sauce into the Moosey newsletter, though the writer of this garden design book does have a certain gardenwise sex-appeal, I suppose...

Regulars

6. Plant of the Month : Rhododendron Ponticum

This naughty rhododendron has colonised the hills of west Scotland. When I visited it was in full beautiful flower.

7. Animals of the Month : Willie and Charlie

You'll meet these two wonderful North American house dogs in my journal. Willie lives in Alabama, and Charlie lives near Toronto. Both are the most welcoming, well-behaved dogs, though Willie has chased the odd duck...

8. Garden Quote : On the Size of the World

Meeting new gardening friends makes a huge world seem much smaller!

9. Garden Gallery : A Colourful Garden

You'll enjoy these photographs of a colourful summer garden in Brussels.

10. Forum Focus : Eek! I've Been Away!

Oops. I've been seriously absent from the forums all month. Of course the forum is blooming merrily and growing naturally without my help.

11. Gardening Advice : Catalogues can't always spell.

My bedtime light reading in Alabama was a real American seed catalogue. Oops. As I've suspected, my blue annual salvias were spelt wrongly in the New Zealand catalogue - they should be Salvia Horminum, not Salvia Hominim.

12. Searching for Moosey : hot gardener

hot gardeners

The Singapore climate is rather hot, and visiting gardeners tend to get red-faced. The local gardeners work fully suited and masked, and look like pest exterminators. You'll see photographic evidence in my Singapore journal.

13. Coming up this month : Down to Earth

Coming down to earth - that's the wintry, damp kind, though the the weeds in my garden still seem to be thriving.

Cheers,