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#16
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Garden re-think. Help please
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 10:21:14 +0100, "Choc-brain"
wrote: Is it sunny or shady? One plant I'd suggest for a sunny spot is Lavatera. It's quite big (tall) but flowers for months (large pink flowers) and is very easy to care for, just cut it all off at the end of the year and it all comes back the next year. Easy to propagate if you want more, just stick some of the prunings in the ground and at least half of them will root. Thanks Choccie (someone after my own heart with a name like that!) I have a sunny corner and I think lavatera would do well there. I have been travelling by bus lately (anyone want to buy a VW Polo?) and have been looking for ideas in gardens I pass. I have seen lavateras and wondered about them. I didn't realise you can cut it right back to base. Sounds like a good one for my list. Many thanks. Pam in Bristol |
#17
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Garden re-think. Help please
"Pam Moore" wrote
Thanks Choccie (someone after my own heart with a name like that!) I have a sunny corner and I think lavatera would do well there. I have been travelling by bus lately (anyone want to buy a VW Polo?) and have been looking for ideas in gardens I pass. I have seen lavateras and wondered about them. I didn't realise you can cut it right back to base. Sounds like a good one for my list. Many thanks. Hello Pam I'm in the process of re-doing my garden (a bit bigger than yours) and I'm trying to choose only plants that are easy to care for and can be pruned back hard because my husband loves pruning things, even if they don't need it! So I've lost a few plants through them being pruned at the wrong time or in the wrong way or just too hard so there's no plant left :-( I'll have a look through my list of plants and see if there's anything else that might suit you. Choccie |
#18
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Garden re-think. Help please
Many thanks to all who responded. Some very nice ideas.
I will ponder on these and incorporate some. I don't have room for all! Pam in Bristol |
#19
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Garden re-think. Help please
Many thanks to all who responded. Some very nice ideas.
I will ponder on these and incorporate some. I don't have room for all! Pam in Bristol |
#20
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Garden re-think. Help please
"Pam Moore" wrote in message ... I have a request for advice. My garden needs a rethink. I have a small garden, 27feet by 15 feet. Yes, that small! Due to macular degeneration I am losing central vision and am in the process of being registered partially sighted. My peripheral vision is normal but doesn't help to see fine detail. Things are rather overgrown and I am having trouble keeping things under control. I need to replace the invasive things. Also I don't seem to have enough colour. I can't advise you about plants but I can sympathise with the MD. Is yours age related or myopic ? I have had myopic macular degeneration for ten years now and am registered blind. It stared in my left eye when I was twenty one and then occured the right eye a couple of years later, and got progressively worse. However I have to say that mine is an extreme case due to very high myopia (-19.50) so don't be alarmed ! Without knowing too much about yours if you've got the more common version - age related - I very much doubt you'll end up quite as "blind" as I am. The eye megrims don't stop me doing what I want to do so much though - you might catch me talking about photography in another thread. My very obsession is extreme macro photography because it lets me see detail I can't (and in some cases, detail the normal human eye can't either) see in real life. I too have to fight the good fight with the overgrown garden but it helps that I have only a small part of it cultivated and the rest laid to lawn. I weed religiously on my hands and knees every day (this is maybe why I have a slipped disc !) and make sure I have plenty of space around the plants to be able to get up close to them in order to weed and see them. I find I can feel the weeds because unless they are established, they just don't feel like "real plants". I can't explain that one so I'm sorry if it sounds abit supernatural - it isn't, it's just a touch thing I suppose. There's that myth that blind or visually impaired people have supernatural hearing or touch - and IME that isn't so, we just make use of those senses better because we choose to. You have to teach yourself how to do it though. I do my seedlings indoors first, where no weeds can get a start in with them, and then transfer to outside once they are large enough to handle - which incidently seems to mean large enough for me to recognise them at arms length by touch. Alot of my stuff is grown in pots too which helps because you can crouch down next to them and really study what's growing in there and what shouldn't be ! If I have to stretch to use the hoe in the two small beds (I sometimes do despite my back screaming) I am in danger of hoeing up the plants along with the weeds, so, I make sure I have some big plants that I can't miss. It also helps that the cultivated part of the garden is in full sun for most of the day - like some plants, we need alot of light to work in, us visually impaired bods. :-) I have a flower bed one side and a edible bed the other - which currently has a few tomatoes and peppers in it. They smell enough for anyone to know them without looking. ;-) I was lucky though - I started this garden from stratch having had eye problems already. I knew what my limitations were from the outset, if you see what I mean. Anyway -- You might be surprised how your brain begins to cope with the eye issues - my peripheral is still good and my brain seemed to learn to rely on that in time. It is a whilst since I've walked into anything and hurt myself, for example, anyway. Don't know how long you've been suffering the eye problems but I consciously tried to use my peripheral in the beginning to help the ole think tank get the idea. I was quite young though and it's said that helps, but you can give the grey matter a hand by forcing yourself to concentrate on the peripheral. It is tiring and a right pain in the fundament at first but it does work, honest. You might learn, like I did, to look at things out of the corner of your eyes. I can't explain exactly how you do that - it's like trying to tell someone how to have a sense of balance on a bicycle - but what I am trying to get across is, don't despair, there are things you can do to get around the issues. You might have been told all this by your eye specialist, anyway. I also find I have less colour - particularly in my left eye (the worst one) which is light and shade only all over almost in black and white. I found yellows went first. I see yellows as whiter, red as black or dark maroon, and blues seem to be more greeny. Or did you mean you don't seem to have enough colour in the graden, not the eyesight ? ;-) I hope you can sort something out in the garden - I see lots of good suggestions here from the posters. The eye issues needn't put a stop to it for you, it can be done, so don't feel too dispirited about it (if you are feeling that way). Best wishes, Rachael |
#21
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Garden re-think. Help please
"Pam Moore" wrote in message ... I have a request for advice. My garden needs a rethink. I have a small garden, 27feet by 15 feet. Yes, that small! Due to macular degeneration I am losing central vision and am in the process of being registered partially sighted. My peripheral vision is normal but doesn't help to see fine detail. Things are rather overgrown and I am having trouble keeping things under control. I need to replace the invasive things. Also I don't seem to have enough colour. I can't advise you about plants but I can sympathise with the MD. Is yours age related or myopic ? I have had myopic macular degeneration for ten years now and am registered blind. It stared in my left eye when I was twenty one and then occured the right eye a couple of years later, and got progressively worse. However I have to say that mine is an extreme case due to very high myopia (-19.50) so don't be alarmed ! Without knowing too much about yours if you've got the more common version - age related - I very much doubt you'll end up quite as "blind" as I am. The eye megrims don't stop me doing what I want to do so much though - you might catch me talking about photography in another thread. My very obsession is extreme macro photography because it lets me see detail I can't (and in some cases, detail the normal human eye can't either) see in real life. I too have to fight the good fight with the overgrown garden but it helps that I have only a small part of it cultivated and the rest laid to lawn. I weed religiously on my hands and knees every day (this is maybe why I have a slipped disc !) and make sure I have plenty of space around the plants to be able to get up close to them in order to weed and see them. I find I can feel the weeds because unless they are established, they just don't feel like "real plants". I can't explain that one so I'm sorry if it sounds abit supernatural - it isn't, it's just a touch thing I suppose. There's that myth that blind or visually impaired people have supernatural hearing or touch - and IME that isn't so, we just make use of those senses better because we choose to. You have to teach yourself how to do it though. I do my seedlings indoors first, where no weeds can get a start in with them, and then transfer to outside once they are large enough to handle - which incidently seems to mean large enough for me to recognise them at arms length by touch. Alot of my stuff is grown in pots too which helps because you can crouch down next to them and really study what's growing in there and what shouldn't be ! If I have to stretch to use the hoe in the two small beds (I sometimes do despite my back screaming) I am in danger of hoeing up the plants along with the weeds, so, I make sure I have some big plants that I can't miss. It also helps that the cultivated part of the garden is in full sun for most of the day - like some plants, we need alot of light to work in, us visually impaired bods. :-) I have a flower bed one side and a edible bed the other - which currently has a few tomatoes and peppers in it. They smell enough for anyone to know them without looking. ;-) I was lucky though - I started this garden from stratch having had eye problems already. I knew what my limitations were from the outset, if you see what I mean. Anyway -- You might be surprised how your brain begins to cope with the eye issues - my peripheral is still good and my brain seemed to learn to rely on that in time. It is a whilst since I've walked into anything and hurt myself, for example, anyway. Don't know how long you've been suffering the eye problems but I consciously tried to use my peripheral in the beginning to help the ole think tank get the idea. I was quite young though and it's said that helps, but you can give the grey matter a hand by forcing yourself to concentrate on the peripheral. It is tiring and a right pain in the fundament at first but it does work, honest. You might learn, like I did, to look at things out of the corner of your eyes. I can't explain exactly how you do that - it's like trying to tell someone how to have a sense of balance on a bicycle - but what I am trying to get across is, don't despair, there are things you can do to get around the issues. You might have been told all this by your eye specialist, anyway. I also find I have less colour - particularly in my left eye (the worst one) which is light and shade only all over almost in black and white. I found yellows went first. I see yellows as whiter, red as black or dark maroon, and blues seem to be more greeny. Or did you mean you don't seem to have enough colour in the graden, not the eyesight ? ;-) I hope you can sort something out in the garden - I see lots of good suggestions here from the posters. The eye issues needn't put a stop to it for you, it can be done, so don't feel too dispirited about it (if you are feeling that way). Best wishes, Rachael |
#22
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Garden re-think. Help please
I can't advise you about plants but I can sympathise with the MD. Is yours
age related or myopic ? I have had myopic macular degeneration for ten years now and am registered blind...The eye issues needn't put a stop to it for you, it can be done, so don't feel too dispirited about it (if you are feeling that way). Best wishes, Rachael I run a site dealing with visual impairment, and am always looking for new articles on the subject. I don't have any on gardening, however. If you're interested, please send me an e-mail at , and I'll send you my site address and professional contact information. Kael |
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