My favourite winter-flowering shrubs, which are also scented - and the scent is usually very powerful are:-
1. Daphnes - these come from Nepal, don’t mind the cold and have wonderful scent and blossom in winter and spring. Choose where you plant them carefully as they don’t like being moved. Slow-growing but absolutely wonderful.
The tallest is Daphne bholua Jacqueline Postill. A gem. Other daphnes to consider are daphne oDora Aureomarginata - which is evergreen and scented and equally gorgeous.
2. Viburnum - eg bodnantense Dawn. In winter comes to its own it’s lovely white pink scented flowers. Nothing to write home about the rest of the year but you will have lots else to look at instead.
3. Mahonia - dark, evergreen, with shiny sharp leaves but with beautiful yellow flowers - scented. The soft yellow against the green is lovely at a time when there is not much else to look at. If you planted several of these against the wall you’d have a lovely green tableau for that wall and it would discourage burglars.
4. Cotoneasters are also good for this. Not scented though. As is coronilla Valentina glauca - evergreen with lovely yellow flowers in spring.
5. Hollies - especially if you get standard hollies and space along the wall. The ones I have in my garden are ilex “Silver van Tol” which are female, self-fertile and have lovely variegated leaves and bright red berries. Ilex Golden King is also good.
6. There are quite a few winter-flowering clematis around - clematis Armandii (flowers in early spring) is good. Taylor’s clematis is a really good nursery for them with loads of advice and you can put in exactly what you want - north facing, winter flowering and/or scented and then pick what you want. They deliver.
7. Finally, don’t forget sarcococca confusa - Christmas box. It is a small evergreen - so for the front of the bed or near doorways - but it has the most incredibly strong vanilla-like scent in winter from tiny white flowers. I have it in my front garden and it can be smelt from across the street. It is so cheering on a cold winter’s day.
You can also have a Camelli x vernalis “Yuletide” which has red flowers from November onwards. I have had it in flower at Xmas. Not tall and needs to be in a pot as it will need ericaceous soil (assume your garden is clay) but it can be nice to out a pot in the garden with a beautiful plant in it. If you have a lovely tall pot that as well as the plant can be a feature to draw the eye in winter.
I must say I am enjoying these garden exchanges. A light in the dark. Keep it up you two!
The problem at the moment is finding anywhere to acquire the plants!
One thing I think needs eliminating, the button on the pedestrian crossings. Should be a motion sensor or some such. Looked at that every run out as a massive touch vector. Also gloves back for fuel pumps.
There's hardly any traffic round here, so haven't needed to use them
One thing I think needs eliminating, the button on the pedestrian crossings. Should be a motion sensor or some such. Looked at that every run out as a massive touch vector. Also gloves back for fuel pumps.
Elbow works.
It does, but I'm not talking about myself here. There'll be people using them and spreading the virus generally, the whole not touching your face thing whilst you're out is tricky even though I've managed it not everyone will.
Surely most of those buttons have no effect anyway?
Of course MOST won't but it's a numbers game. The less shared vectors we have, the lower the R0 of infection.
Lord Sumption asked the question. Those with all the data and the knowledge in this area reluctantly decided that yes it was the right thing to do. Indeed they got to that point after first trying a more light-touch approach. The public agree with the new strategy. What's the problem?
Oh yes. Peter Hitchens, the man that thinks cannabis causes people to become terrorists, thinks its a bad idea. Lol.
Hitchens makes a fantastic point about the link between ‘terrorists’ and cannabis actually.
If you grant that both heavy drug users and terrorists tend to emerge from the pool of social misfits then it ceases to be a particularly remarkable link.
Well no one in authority seems to act on the link, remarkable or not. In fact people want to legalise the drug
Maybe if they decriminalise it, then the link will magically disappear?
OK, that sounded bad. Let's try again:
Maybe if they decriminalise it, then the future terrorists won't have to talk to drug dealers at all and won't get set off on a path of crime that ultimately winds up in them becoming terrorists?
Y'know, maybe. Maybe not. But it doesn't seem like an obviously stupid thing to try.
It’s not the mixing with drug dealers that leads them to terrorism, it’s destroying their critical faculties with drugs that allows them to be lured into a warped worldview
The humble soap bar is a month wait on Amazon now. The misses will kill me if I go into too much of "her" stock, so I've got 8 bars on order. Also ordered some moisturiser, never thought I'd need that.
How do we get our hair cut,???
I’ve moved to home-shaving. Number zero.
Too much information.
Lucky Mrs Meeks
If you want too much information, yesterday’s major political discovery was that Andrew Cuomo has pierced nipples.
The Italian improvement continues. It's a bit slower than we'd all like, but it's clearly happening.
Three things worth noting:
1. New infections in Lomardy fell again, and are now 68% below peak. Where Lombardy leads, the rest of Italy follows.
2. While there were 4,053 positive test results yesterday, this was just 14% of those tested. Two weeks ago, more than a third of people were testing positive. This is a really clear indication that the incidence of CV-19 is now heading downwards.
3. The number of active cases is slowing dramatically. Last week, it was increasing at c. 4,000 per day. Yesterday and today, it's been about 2,000. By early next week, the number of active cases should peak and begin to decline.
It is bad but the trend could be worse. I feel quite optimistic today. I definitely sense that social distancing has taken root. Just got back a few minutes ago from my Boris Break and people are staying well away from each other. I'm sure it's the same everywhere. The virus will not be spreading so easily now. It will be hacked off and on the retreat. That will take some time to work through into the numbers but I think that one month from now we in the UK will be breathing a little easier.
I love the idea of a 'boris break'. BTW Do we have any reports of how he and Hancock are doing? Oh I just thought could we not rename the breaks 'Hancock's half hours'
Well enough for a Cabinet meeting this morning. Not sure how many days he's got left locked away.
Out on Friday this week iirc. A GP on the Labour team has written to him to say he should stay another 7 days as WHO now say 14 days isolation with symptoms.
Why would a GP on the Labour team think it helpful to intervene like that?
Why would they think it appropriate to publicise?
14 days post resolution of fever is what the WHO recommends for isolation. The UK recommendation of 7 days post resolution of fever is insufficient to prevent onward transmission. We know that viral shedding continues for quite a while. It is a valid point, if trying to protect the top team.
Forgive me for my cynicism but I think the CMO can make a judgement. Labour is once again trying to score cheap points
The humble soap bar is a month wait on Amazon now. The misses will kill me if I go into too much of "her" stock, so I've got 8 bars on order. Also ordered some moisturiser, never thought I'd need that.
How do we get our hair cut,???
I’ve moved to home-shaving. Number zero.
Too much information.
Lucky Mrs Meeks
If you want too much information, yesterday’s major political discovery was that Andrew Cuomo has pierced nipples.
The humble soap bar is a month wait on Amazon now. The misses will kill me if I go into too much of "her" stock, so I've got 8 bars on order. Also ordered some moisturiser, never thought I'd need that.
The Italian improvement continues. It's a bit slower than we'd all like, but it's clearly happening.
Three things worth noting:
1. New infections in Lomardy fell again, and are now 68% below peak. Where Lombardy leads, the rest of Italy follows.
2. While there were 4,053 positive test results yesterday, this was just 14% of those tested. Two weeks ago, more than a third of people were testing positive. This is a really clear indication that the incidence of CV-19 is now heading downwards.
3. The number of active cases is slowing dramatically. Last week, it was increasing at c. 4,000 per day. Yesterday and today, it's been about 2,000. By early next week, the number of active cases should peak and begin to decline.
We're exactly like the US; if we were able to acquire what we wanted on the open market then we wouldn't be trying crash build ventilators ourselves.
Did you listen to the clip? Not only are states bidding against one another, the federal government is also involved in bidding for stuff through the same process....
Just what are they playing at. You either do it centrally or you do it on a state level.
I'm not one of the nationalise-everything people for all my Corbynista tendencies. But really, isn't this a time when the US government should simply take over the manufacturers and distribute the ventilators according to population, need or other reasonable criteria?
The Italian improvement continues. It's a bit slower than we'd all like, but it's clearly happening.
Three things worth noting:
1. New infections in Lomardy fell again, and are now 68% below peak. Where Lombardy leads, the rest of Italy follows.
2. While there were 4,053 positive test results yesterday, this was just 14% of those tested. Two weeks ago, more than a third of people were testing positive. This is a really clear indication that the incidence of CV-19 is now heading downwards.
3. The number of active cases is slowing dramatically. Last week, it was increasing at c. 4,000 per day. Yesterday and today, it's been about 2,000. By early next week, the number of active cases should peak and begin to decline.
The Italian improvement continues. It's a bit slower than we'd all like, but it's clearly happening.
Three things worth noting:
1. New infections in Lomardy fell again, and are now 68% below peak. Where Lombardy leads, the rest of Italy follows.
2. While there were 4,053 positive test results yesterday, this was just 14% of those tested. Two weeks ago, more than a third of people were testing positive. This is a really clear indication that the incidence of CV-19 is now heading downwards.
3. The number of active cases is slowing dramatically. Last week, it was increasing at c. 4,000 per day. Yesterday and today, it's been about 2,000. By early next week, the number of active cases should peak and begin to decline.
The Italian improvement continues. It's a bit slower than we'd all like, but it's clearly happening.
Three things worth noting:
1. New infections in Lomardy fell again, and are now 68% below peak. Where Lombardy leads, the rest of Italy follows.
2. While there were 4,053 positive test results yesterday, this was just 14% of those tested. Two weeks ago, more than a third of people were testing positive. This is a really clear indication that the incidence of CV-19 is now heading downwards.
3. The number of active cases is slowing dramatically. Last week, it was increasing at c. 4,000 per day. Yesterday and today, it's been about 2,000. By early next week, the number of active cases should peak and begin to decline.
How long after the lock down did Italy reach the inflection point?
About two weeks. (Lockdown across the country on 9th March). So we'd reach the inflection point towards the end of the upcoming weekend, but then have a week of constant (linear) growth that would really strain ICUs very badly...
From HYUFD: "One in eleven Brits (9%) say they have already cut their own hair due to being in lockdown. Men (12%) are twice as likely as women (6%) to have done this..."
Well, I think the public mindset has been that baking bread and cutting hair is difficult. I'm referring here to ordinary coiffure and decent bread. Now, with a derriere kick we are finding otherwise. Personally, I got fed up with barbershops 50 years ago and have been cutting my own, saving much money and time. Bread baking too. Mass produced bread uses the awful Chorleywood baking process.
The Italian improvement continues. It's a bit slower than we'd all like, but it's clearly happening.
Three things worth noting:
1. New infections in Lomardy fell again, and are now 68% below peak. Where Lombardy leads, the rest of Italy follows.
2. While there were 4,053 positive test results yesterday, this was just 14% of those tested. Two weeks ago, more than a third of people were testing positive. This is a really clear indication that the incidence of CV-19 is now heading downwards.
3. The number of active cases is slowing dramatically. Last week, it was increasing at c. 4,000 per day. Yesterday and today, it's been about 2,000. By early next week, the number of active cases should peak and begin to decline.
Winner of dickhead question of the day...Peston hands down...can we send CV patients home that won't make it, so they can die with their loved ones.
Yes. Utterly bizarre question.
To put it in context we weren’t allowed to visit my Dad in his final 10 days. Mum was allowed 20 minutes, in full PPE, at the end - at the cost of 14 days in quarantine
We're exactly like the US; if we were able to acquire what we wanted on the open market then we wouldn't be trying crash build ventilators ourselves.
Did you listen to the clip? Not only are states bidding against one another, the federal government is also involved in bidding for stuff through the same process....
Just what are they playing at. You either do it centrally or you do it on a state level.
I'm not one of the nationalise-everything people for all my Corbynista tendencies. But really, isn't this a time when the US government should simply take over the manufacturers and distribute the ventilators according to population, need or other reasonable criteria?
If June isn`t too late for the flowers, I`d go with foxgloves in front of hydrangea petiolaris for a north facing wall.
North facing wall is not going to get a lot of sun, and may well get rather dry. It is difficult to get a lot of flowers in such circumstances.
I have dicentra "bleeding heart" that does well in such a position, but a hardy perennial rather than a shrub. A berberis may do well in such conditions and can have good autumn colour too. Ribes Sanguiam is pretty tolerant of conditions and grows fairly quickly to size, with quite a long flowering period.
Foxglove can take dry shade. Woodland plant. Dicentra is a good choice - but Matt specified 600mm - won`t reach anything near that. Mahonia could work if soil type matches. I`d definitely go with hydrangea petiolaris - everyone should have one if they have a north-facing wall - superb plant.
Tlis there some missreading of the requirements? The wall is 1.5m. Hydrangea pet. will be too vigorous. It can grow to 5 m tall with ease.
Comments
Well, I think the public mindset has been that baking bread and cutting hair is difficult. I'm referring here to ordinary coiffure and decent bread. Now, with a derriere kick we are finding otherwise.
Personally, I got fed up with barbershops 50 years ago and have been cutting my own, saving much money and time. Bread baking too. Mass produced bread uses the awful Chorleywood baking process.
The night bar is open....
So, the true peak is probably higher.