Re: slide projector sought-health update

Michael Barclay wrote:
> 
> Dear
> Planters,
> 4/6/00
> 
> It will soon be one year since my spinal chord injury and subsequent
> hospitalization.
> 4/23/99 was the date I posted "I'm back."  So many of you welcomed me
> and prayed
> for me that I want to thank the entire group.  Your positive thinking
> and encouragement
> helped me to where I am today.  You'll remember when I came home I still
> could not
> stand or walk.  Today I stand and walk with Canadian crutches and no
> longer need the
> wheelchair at home.  I have even begun to investigate my garden and am
> almost sorry
> to say it's done just fine without me.  Darn it.

Dear Michael
It was good to hear how your recovery is still continuing and I pray it
may go a long way further yet. As with all cases of severe injury, how
far recovery actually goes seems to be very much governed by the courage
and spirit of the patient and so represents a triumph of mind over
matter (or maybe individual spirit over medical received wisdom).

It is good to know your garden has waited for you like a true friend. I
am sure you will improve all the quicker now you can begin to work in it
a little again. Gardens are marvellously healing and comforting things
and help damaged people very much by calming the spirit and relieving
stress.

  I will be featured for two lectures at  the annual International
Convention of the American Rhododendron Society  the end  of May in
Boston.  My first lecture will be on landscaping with  rhododendrons, 
empasizing their role in the landscape 49 weeks a year WHEN THEY ARE
NOT  IN  BLOOM.  

Good to know your world still remembers you and has  a place for you. 

I do think this subject proposes an important concept. Particularly in a
small garden the backbone plants need to be chosen to provide beauty and
interest most of the year and not just during a short burst of blooming,
however spectacular. in my own garden I have sometimes regretfully
passed over plants with beautiful blooms because they were otherwise so
boring.

 My second lecture on Sunday ends the convention.  It is on vireyas.

These lovely rhodos are becoming increasingly popular here especially in
the milder parts of NZ. Even areas which have touches of frost can often
grow them in the open garden with a little help from overhanging
vegetation and  in  districts with a definite winter they are very
popular container plants. With their usually small root systems it is
not to much of an effort to move them into shelter for the winter.

I have several under a plastic roof (just outside our main livingroom).
This roof is mainly there to aid the early ripening of our very prolific
grapevine. In summer the vine gives nicely dappled shade to the plants
and the roof seems to adequately keep out our quite light winter frosts.
I love the way they flower at many times of year. Several are having a
go now as we journey through autumn, including a new one I bought last
year called "Haloed Gold" (locally-bred I think) which has come out as a
soft promrose yeallow.

 I'm
> about to register a complex pink hybrid of  (leptanthum x konori) selfed
> X konori  'Pink'...she's to be dubbed 'Barclay's Rosella'---Rosellas are pink
> australian kakatoos  with great beauty.

I hate to cast any cold water on your name for your lovely plant, but
you really do need a short course on Australian parrots.

 A Rosella is not a Cockatoo, but a much smaller species called a
parakeet (meaning I guess "little parrot"). And in spite of the
rosy-sounding name Rosellas are a brilliant mix of green red and blue
with alas no rose at all. They have been imported into NZ as pets and
some have escaped and become feral here, where they are much more bold
and inclined to come into the suburbs than our own native paraketes,
which live in deep bush and so are rarely seen (they are also not so
showy, being green with only  small touches of either red or yellow).

Cockatoos are the largest of the Australian parrots and as far as I know
are mostly either white or black, though one of the white species sports
a sulphur crest. Once again because of their popularity as cage birds
they were much imported here in the past and the escapees now form large
flocks in some areas, where they sometimes make an nuisence of
themselves by stripping fruit or nut trees. At other times they feed
harmlessly on wild fruits or pine cones.

Almost all the other numerous species of Australian parrot are
intermediate in size between the Rosella and the Cockatoos. It is among
this group that there are pink parrots, most notably the Galah, a
modest-sized bird a little bigger than the Rosella and a most vivid rose
pink all over. It is occasionally seen here as a pet, but I don't know
of any feral birds.

The oldest parrot I ever met was a Galah, which for a while belonged to
my son who was living in Australia at the time. He was reputed to be
around 105 (and certainly looked it). He had, as you can guess, gone
through several minders from whom he had learnt a small repertoir of
words, but his prize trick was a a most convincingly ghastly smokers
cough!!

To complete the account of Ozzie parrots there is of course the
Bugerigar, which is the smallest of all and is I think a popular cage
bird in many parts of the world.
The tame ones come mainly in green, yellow, blue, grey and some fancy
combinations, but never as far as I know in pink.
>> 
> If you've survived this far I am finally getting to my point.  I would
> like to buy the  best used slide projector I can find.  

Alas I am much too far away to help, or I could have offered you the
loan of mine wnich has all the modern "bells and whistles". I certainly
would not be willing to sell it though. Tony has been a keen photograper
over the many years we have been together and we have amassed a very
comprehensive collection of slides, both portraits of almost everything
in the garden and specific ones relating to my speciality of organic
gardening. Thes are still very much in use and likely to remain so as
long as I am speaking in public.

I hope you are successful in finding what you want anyway.
Best wishes

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
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