Re: Monkey Puzzles & The Puzzle of the Midland Mediterraneans
Tim wrote:
>Tony and Dave's autobiographical snippets suggest to this third
>ex-Midlander (ex-Black-Country-man, even, in my case: an arcane
>reference that probably only Tony and Dave will understand: no one
>else needs to, BTW!) that there's a mini-thesis lying in wait here,
>based on an explanation for the mystery of why Midlanders seem to
>have this attraction for the flora of the world's hot spots. I dare
>say our ex-Midland trio could suggest one or two...
Aha another bloke from the Black Countray. Well Or never! Ow bin ya
me ol' luvverr?
Ahem, sorry folk, just some quaint dialect only understood by an
equally quaint bunch of people :) Its quite true about Midlanders and
exotics though, they seem to fall into two distinct groups - they
either are so conventional and conservative that any colour scheme
moving away from red, white and blue is too racey by half. The others
go berserk and try to plant anything and everything that they've seen
on holiday in Majorca. My mother falls into the latter and constantly
amazes me what she manages to do in her garden just outside
Stourbridge. Kumquats, Citrus mitis, Canary Island Date palms, all
manner of South African succulents and a darned great big Oleander in
one corner that defies almost any amount of frost. Her 'conventional'
neighbours get decidedly 'sniffy' when they pop round for a chat -
they think good taste starts and finishes with lobelia, alyssum and
salvia!
>The best bunch of Monkey Puzzles I've ever seen (even though they're
>now past their best and could do with some selective felling and
>replanting: they do self-seed but the seedlings are mostly cropped off
>by grazing cattle) is a 'helmet' of them, several hundred strong, on
>top of an isolated hillside on the Monreith estate in South-west
>Scotland
Ah well, the humid climate of Scotland is far more amenable to Monkey
Puzzles, they get so dusty and drop their branches too easily in urban
areas.
Dave Poole
