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#31
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My best buy this year....whats yours.
wrote: DavePoole Torquay wrote: p. pleater wrote: I wanted some large pots to grow tomatoes and 'cumbers etc............... Instead I bought ten builders quality buckets from Homebase for 99p each Well done! If you're not too worried about aethetics, inexpensive buckets and even dustbins make fantastic large containers and help keep costs down. I keep quite a few large palms in pots and because I'm loathe to leave them here when I decide to move on, I occasionally need very large pots/tubs to keep them on the go. Opting for the conventional way, big tree pots could cost 20+ quid apiece. Dustbins with lots of holes drilled in the base are barely a few quid each and equally as effective. As for my best buy this year, I never thought I'd say it but it was a plant from B&Q of all places! They had a sale earlier (well, one of the many they seem to hold each year) and were knocking out very good-sized tree ferns for comparative peanuts. I picked up a really thick trunk that weighed a ton, just over 5.5ft tall for £59.00. Based upon the normal retail price of around £25.00 per foot of trunk, it was barely a third of the cost you'd normally expect to pay. That was in early April and it was leafless at the time, but the top was stuffed with 'knuckles'. A few months later together with a bit of TLC and it has 19 arching fronds each between 5 and 7feet long, plus several more still to unfurl. Its a brilliant plant and a seriously good buy. I saw them (the tree ferns) in B+Q in Dublin in June and I was sickened by the cheapness. They have suddenly dropped in price. I have spent 8 years growing 7 of them (badly; I did not know how to do it) from spores and the biggest ones are only about 1 foot of trunk max and maybe 1 metre frond length. For relatively little, I could have just bought some and they would be MUCH bigger than the ones I have. My ones have great sentimental value and I have learned a lot but it was a bit daft looking back and a lot of work as they moved house with us 3 years ago and it gets harder and harder to repot the ones that are still in pots. Yeah, but you'd do it again in the morning. I care a great deal more for the grapefruit tree I grew all the way from piphood over 15 years, which has followed me all over Kildare from house to house, got frosted up a few times, which I nearly lost, but nursed back to health several times over, saved from scale insects and from some sort of black mouldy goop annually, than I would for any bought ready-made citrus tree, complete with nearly pretend lemons/mandarins (delete as necessary). And when you're even greyer than today, when your great grand children admire your 20ft tall tree fer grove, you can tell them how you breastfed them yourself. Cat(h) ('tis not all about money and B&Q bargains, you know) |
#32
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My best buy this year....whats yours.
wrote in message oups.com... DavePoole Torquay wrote: p. pleater wrote: I wanted some large pots to grow tomatoes and 'cumbers etc.............. Instead I bought ten builders quality buckets from Homebase for 99p each Well done! If you're not too worried about aethetics, inexpensive buckets and even dustbins make fantastic large containers and help keep costs down. I keep quite a few large palms in pots and because I'm loathe to leave them here when I decide to move on, I occasionally need very large pots/tubs to keep them on the go. Opting for the conventional way, big tree pots could cost 20+ quid apiece. Dustbins with lots of holes drilled in the base are barely a few quid each and equally as effective. As for my best buy this year, I never thought I'd say it but it was a plant from B&Q of all places! They had a sale earlier (well, one of the many they seem to hold each year) and were knocking out very good-sized tree ferns for comparative peanuts. I picked up a really thick trunk that weighed a ton, just over 5.5ft tall for £59.00. Based upon the normal retail price of around £25.00 per foot of trunk, it was barely a third of the cost you'd normally expect to pay. That was in early April and it was leafless at the time, but the top was stuffed with 'knuckles'. A few months later together with a bit of TLC and it has 19 arching fronds each between 5 and 7feet long, plus several more still to unfurl. Its a brilliant plant and a seriously good buy. I saw them (the tree ferns) in B+Q in Dublin in June and I was sickened by the cheapness. They have suddenly dropped in price. I have spent 8 years growing 7 of them (badly; I did not know how to do it) from spores and the biggest ones are only about 1 foot of trunk max and maybe 1 metre frond length. For relatively little, I could have just bought some and they would be MUCH bigger than the ones I have. My ones have great sentimental value and I have learned a lot but it was a bit daft looking back and a lot of work as they moved house with us 3 years ago and it gets harder and harder to repot the ones that are still in pots. Des in Dublin A bit Irish and charming. Des -B&Q were not selling the ferns 8 years ago-don't feel guilty, used or abused:-) |
#33
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My best buy this year....whats yours.
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... The message t from "Mary Fisher" contains these words: Oy! Are you saying my butt is 220 litres??? I know it's big but really! If so, I think I saw you sashaying down Brodick sea front yesterday :-) I wish ... I haven't been that way since 9/11 ... Mary |
#34
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My best buy this year....whats yours.
Cat(h) wrote: wrote: DavePoole Torquay wrote: p. pleater wrote: I wanted some large pots to grow tomatoes and 'cumbers etc............... Instead I bought ten builders quality buckets from Homebase for 99p each Well done! If you're not too worried about aethetics, inexpensive buckets and even dustbins make fantastic large containers and help keep costs down. I keep quite a few large palms in pots and because I'm loathe to leave them here when I decide to move on, I occasionally need very large pots/tubs to keep them on the go. Opting for the conventional way, big tree pots could cost 20+ quid apiece. Dustbins with lots of holes drilled in the base are barely a few quid each and equally as effective. As for my best buy this year, I never thought I'd say it but it was a plant from B&Q of all places! They had a sale earlier (well, one of the many they seem to hold each year) and were knocking out very good-sized tree ferns for comparative peanuts. I picked up a really thick trunk that weighed a ton, just over 5.5ft tall for £59.00. Based upon the normal retail price of around £25.00 per foot of trunk, it was barely a third of the cost you'd normally expect to pay. That was in early April and it was leafless at the time, but the top was stuffed with 'knuckles'. A few months later together with a bit of TLC and it has 19 arching fronds each between 5 and 7feet long, plus several more still to unfurl. Its a brilliant plant and a seriously good buy. I saw them (the tree ferns) in B+Q in Dublin in June and I was sickened by the cheapness. They have suddenly dropped in price. I have spent 8 years growing 7 of them (badly; I did not know how to do it) from spores and the biggest ones are only about 1 foot of trunk max and maybe 1 metre frond length. For relatively little, I could have just bought some and they would be MUCH bigger than the ones I have. My ones have great sentimental value and I have learned a lot but it was a bit daft looking back and a lot of work as they moved house with us 3 years ago and it gets harder and harder to repot the ones that are still in pots. Yeah, but you'd do it again in the morning. I care a great deal more for the grapefruit tree I grew all the way from piphood over 15 years, which has followed me all over Kildare from house to house, got frosted up a few times, which I nearly lost, but nursed back to health several times over, saved from scale insects and from some sort of black mouldy goop annually, than I would for any bought ready-made citrus tree, complete with nearly pretend lemons/mandarins (delete as necessary). I understand that entirely and fair play to you; sadly, other peoples sentimental value plants are usually tatty old wrecks though. And when you're even greyer than today, when your great grand children admire your 20ft tall tree fer grove, you can tell them how you breastfed them yourself. This was the plan ok but now that my kids are almost teenagers, it may not work like that. One scenario is that they will inherit them and then have whisper out of my earshot: "what'll we do with the oul fellah's feckin tree ferns" or they will groan every time I show them off in the same way that they would groan if I told them about a war I had lived thjorugh or about seeing the sex pistols on tope of the pops. They understand money. Cat(h) ('tis not all about money and B&Q bargains, you know) |
#35
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My best buy this year....whats yours.
Rupert (W.Yorkshire) wrote: wrote in message oups.com... DavePoole Torquay wrote: p. pleater wrote: I wanted some large pots to grow tomatoes and 'cumbers etc.............. Instead I bought ten builders quality buckets from Homebase for 99p each Well done! If you're not too worried about aethetics, inexpensive buckets and even dustbins make fantastic large containers and help keep costs down. I keep quite a few large palms in pots and because I'm loathe to leave them here when I decide to move on, I occasionally need very large pots/tubs to keep them on the go. Opting for the conventional way, big tree pots could cost 20+ quid apiece. Dustbins with lots of holes drilled in the base are barely a few quid each and equally as effective. As for my best buy this year, I never thought I'd say it but it was a plant from B&Q of all places! They had a sale earlier (well, one of the many they seem to hold each year) and were knocking out very good-sized tree ferns for comparative peanuts. I picked up a really thick trunk that weighed a ton, just over 5.5ft tall for £59.00. Based upon the normal retail price of around £25.00 per foot of trunk, it was barely a third of the cost you'd normally expect to pay. That was in early April and it was leafless at the time, but the top was stuffed with 'knuckles'. A few months later together with a bit of TLC and it has 19 arching fronds each between 5 and 7feet long, plus several more still to unfurl. Its a brilliant plant and a seriously good buy. I saw them (the tree ferns) in B+Q in Dublin in June and I was sickened by the cheapness. They have suddenly dropped in price. I have spent 8 years growing 7 of them (badly; I did not know how to do it) from spores and the biggest ones are only about 1 foot of trunk max and maybe 1 metre frond length. For relatively little, I could have just bought some and they would be MUCH bigger than the ones I have. My ones have great sentimental value and I have learned a lot but it was a bit daft looking back and a lot of work as they moved house with us 3 years ago and it gets harder and harder to repot the ones that are still in pots. Des in Dublin A bit Irish and charming. Des -B&Q were not selling the ferns 8 years ago-don't feel guilty, used or abused:-) ok, I feel better now :-) Des |
#36
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My best buy this year....whats yours.
wrote in message oups.com... Mary Fisher wrote: Right, thanks. A space would have made it clear, don't you think? Or a capital L ... 220L. Yes, that's easier for old folk to understand :-) Mary Maybe but you'd probably forget within 10 minutes anyway :-) A whole ten minutes, that's a bit on the generous side! Alan |
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