Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

late night seed shopping

I think there are risks entailed in being online late at night. On wednesday I went back to Kew to visit the Chihuly exhibition again, apart from being caught in a series of small but determined downpours it was a wholly pleasurable experience. On the whole I am bound to say that I was less impressed the second time around, I began to feel that the artist was not so much controlling the material as churning out vast amounts of stuff and working out what to do with it after.

The plants, however, were rocking, the palm house and the temperate house were performing to their best, the water lilies especially. My companion had a very nice camera and took some gorgeous photos, which you can see here, thanks hen : )

I saw a couple of plants that I have only seen in exotic flower stalls, protea was doing especially well in the glasshouses, and I was pleased to see that they had a musella lasiocarpa flowering.

I have to confess to a bit of careless shopping tonight though, I was very taken with a variety of strelitzia called juncea, which instead of having long banana like leaves has long whiplash leaves with a little frond at the end, so I was browsing my favourite exotic seed sellers, whatcom seeds. They haven't got S.Juncea, although they have got nicolae and mandelas gold. So, disappointed, I happened upon their protea, and had to have P.Cynaroides and P.Grandiceps, one thing lead to another, and I ordered
Ravenala Madagascariensis, the travellers palm. This is another member of the strelitzia family, the leaves are up to 20 feet long and it resembles a gigantic fennel bulb with huge banana leaves. I hope it doesn't grow too fast, although they claim it can be contained if pot grown.
I'll keep you posted...

http://seedrack.com/

posted by Lampy @ 8/26/2005 11:32:00 pm