Garden Monkey

I guess there’s no putting it off any longer - I'm moving to my new blog site.

I realise that this has been taking some time and the last person to spend so long fannying about before departing was Tony Blair.

Incidentally it's called doing a Dame Nelly Melba because her farewell tour lasted four years.

There was a reason for the protracted delay. I've posting all the Chester Hunt/Dig Brother/Unfounded Rumours bits over there first.

That’s because some people have told me they enjoy these items, but finding the older posts on the AOL set up is a pain in the harris.

So with that virtually done I’m off. I can't say I'm sorry to be moving, but I am a little sad. My new home in case you don't know about it is here….

http://thegardenmonkey.blogspot.com/

.....for those of you kind enough to have a link on your own blog, could I please ask that you update it.

See you there.

More post Christmas blog developments this morning, as I find that Cleve West has zhooshed up his personal blog.

Does this represent a new blog ethos for Cleve?

Will I have to retract the constipated hermit-crab comment?

I do hope so.

http://web.mac.com/clevewest/Cleves_Blog/Blog/Blog.html

You may recall that one of my Christmas wishes was for more interesting/entertaining garden blogs.

It seems the Christmas fairies may have been listening as Hanne has got in touch with me.

She has a blog called Titanarum, which is just the sort of thing I like in a blog. Whilst horticulturally based it’s diverse, interesting and a tad bonkers.

Also she seems to have a gift for finding lost and discarded clothing. So far a scarf and a thong. What next?

http://www.titanarum.co.uk/

Sometimes what seems important on a Friday night is, come Saturday morning, cast aside like many an empty wine bottle. But this VMH thing has really pissed in my slippers and I don't want to moan about it and move on.

I have written to the RHS, as a member, and given them a generous piece of my mind. And it's not like I have a lot to spare - so you'll understand how serious I feel about this.

I urge you to do the same - in fact I will go further. Whether you are A RHS member or not, I want you to copy the following paragraph and email it to one or all of the following RHS email addresses (if you are a member stick your membership number on).

What's more, I charge you with copying it and sending it to anyone and everyone you know who is even only remotely interested horticulture and getting them to do the same.

Dear RHS,

I understand that the customary complimentary tickets for Chelsea Flower Show given to VMH holders has been withdrawn in order to optimise profits.

So few people are involved, and yet they are of the highest echelons and calibre of horticulture, that I find this penny-pinching exercise unnecessary, unbecoming, insulting, and sordid.

Please reverse this ridiculous and shameful decision and issue an apology to the VMH holders.

Yours

Today has been rather a rubbish day (I won't bore you with the details), so in the hope of cheering myself up I bought the latest copy of Amateur Gardening.

It didn't fail, and a couple of bits were laugh out loud funny. Sometimes it reminds me, for some reason, of Viz. I think it's the bizarre characters. Anyway, I may blog more on this in due course.

Readers similarly in need of amusement may like to pop over to my putative new pad, which I'm furnishing with a few home comforts from this blog (see previous entry for link) and where, accordingly, I've posted the first four Dig Brother episodes en block.

Response to this possible new residence has so far been positive, but please let me know what you think.

And while I'm sending you off in other directions, please pop over to Gardens Illustrated and vote in their Presenters Poll. I would say that it's all getting very exciting, but the truth is that it isn't - I am just easily amused.

http://www.gardensillustrated.com/voteList.asp?item_ID=25411

Anyway, I realise that I'm often rude about people who may or may not deserve it, but what I am about to say is I believe THOROUGHLY deserved.

If Amateur Gardening has it's facts right, the RHS has told the holders of the Victoria Medal of Honour - all 63 of them - that they will no longer get a complimentary ticket for Chelsea flower show The reason for this is given as to maximise profits. Considering what the VMH stands for and how few tickets we are actually talking about, words like piss-poor, parsimonious, pathetic, penny-pinching and plonkers spring to mind.

I sincerely hope that whichever grasping bean-counter in the RHS is behind this sits on a rather viciously spined cactus sometime soon.

I would specify a particular species, but cacti aren't my thing. Any suggestions?

I've mentioned before my desire to relocate this blog - wholly due to this AOL set up being rather a huge steaming pile of pants.

Putting the ad banner along the top without a by your leave was, I shrieked, the last straw - I was so incensed that I promptly did nothing.

I was however spurred from my lethargy when one of the ads was for that bloody imbecilic programme with Noel Edmonds.

So I've actually taken some action and set up another Garden Monkey blogsite.

I've only been titting around with it at present and am still not sure whether I want to actually migrate to it properly.

It's a bit like being a teenager who has found their own flat, but keeps coming home for their meals and to get their washing done.

The trouble is that whilst a lot of things are better than the AOL blog set up, others aren't. Such is life I guess.

I've posted the complete works (thus far) of Chester Hunt there, in case you haven't seen them all (there is actually a new one that hasn't appeared here), and I may do the same with Dig Brother, whilst I continue dithering over whether to move, or not.

You can also take part in my poll on Peter Gibbs. Anyway this is where it is....

http://thegardenmonkey.blogspot.com/

……why not have a wander over and let me know what you think

The English Garden

At some point in the past twelve months, I read in The English Garden magazine a claim that they were rivals to Gardens Illustrated. Yea, right I thought at the time - in the same way Plymouth Argyle are Chelsea's rivals.

You see The English Garden (as you would expect) tends to solely feature ‘pretty’ gardens very much in the traditional style, whereas Gardens Illustrated (even though I have moaned about the mag) is much more diverse in both content and featured gardens.

However, something is afoot at The English Garden. In the latest issue they feature a garden that is modern and so clearly departs from their metier. Not only that, their webpages have been zhooshed up. In doing this they have stolen a march on Gardens Illustrated, whose webpages consist of a few competitions, and lists of what's on in current and impending issues.

The English Garden pages work on 3 levels. Firstly those anyone can see, then those that you can look at if you register with them and finally those that you can view if you are a subscriber.

I personally have had some problems with the registering thing and don’t think it’s my fault but it may be, so I don’t feel I can be rude, or give you a full verdict on the webpages, but they look good and I wrote off quite a bit of time looking at the galleries of the pro photographers.

http://www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/

I must say I was pretty impressed, which I didn't anticipate ever saying about The English Garden.

All they need now is a blog.

The Garden’s Illustrated website is a bit poor and there‘s not much to see, but they do currently have a poll on readers'  favourite garden presenters.

I find the results so far both fascinating and a little bit exciting - it‘s like a gardening X-Factor - which probably makes me both foolish and a little bit simple.

Of course one doesn’t have any idea of who the voters are, other than to assume that they are GI readers and so presumably not complete divots, and so one can’t really say much about the meaning of the results. But I will anyway.

I am pleased to see Matthew Wilson out in front, but a little surprised at the size of his lead.

Similarly Dan Pearson is doing well, when one considers that he’s rarely on the idiot box - but then he‘s a GI stalwart.

The lack of votes for current Gardeners World presenters to me speaks volumes. I am not surprised that Carol Klein has the most votes, but Monty only has as many at Alan Titchmarsh who he replaced nearly five years ago. Not a good sign, methinks. All of the GW crew are behind Christine Walkden, which is amazing as she’s not even a real person.

(see here - http://journals.aol.co.uk/funky67/garden-monkey/entries/2007/04/19/garden-monkeys-unfounded-unkind--wholly-pointless-rumours/974  )

Here then are the full results at the moment, but I urge you to go and vote (if only so that I can have something else to blog about, LOL):

http://www.gardensillustrated.com/voteList.asp?item_ID=25411

Matthew Wilson - 23% votes

Christine Walkden - 12% votes

Carol Klein - 10% votes

Monty Don - 9% votes

Alan Titchmarsh - 9% votes

Dan Pearson - 8% votes

Chris Beardshaw - 7% votes

John Cushnie - 6% votes

James Alexander-Sinclair - 5% votes

Roy Lancaster - 5% votes

Sarah Raven - 5% votes

Bob Flowerdew - 5% votes

Bunny Guinness - 4% votes

Joe Swift - 4% votes

Matthew Biggs - 3% votes

Pippa Greenwood - 3% votes

Rachel de Thame - 3% votes

Sven Wombwell - 3% votes

Toby Buckland - 2% votes

Diarmuid Gavin - 2% votes

Charlie Dimmock - 2% votes

Tony Kirkham - 2% votes

Kim Wilde - 2% votes

Anne-Marie Powell - 1% votes

Andy Sturgeon - 1% votes

Chris Collins - 1% votes

Penny Meadmore - 1% votes

Anne Swithinbank - 1% votes

Gardens Illustrated (again!)

Now after this I promise not to mention this magazine for the rest of the year.

I see the latest issue has removed the legend “Your Style Bible for Gardens, Plants & Design”, from their cover and replaced it with “Garden Writers' Guild Magazine of the Year” - this may appear to simply be because they're pleased with their award from the GWG, or it may perhaps be that someone has told them that there is an old, but seldom used piece of statute, still on the rolls, that makes it illegal to use the phrase Style Bible, in a publication if it includes a photograph of Bob Flowerdew.

Anyway, I've been here before, so I'll come to the actual point of this blog entry.

(Adopts hushed tone). They have seem to have given Hugh Johnson/Jampton, the push.

Hoo-bloody-rah! I'm not going to get too excited, as it may well be that he has just buggered off somewhere sunny for the winter and will be back.

If he has gone, I wonder if they will replace him and if so with what? Perhaps with something different from the whole columnist thing, or maybe just a more interesting or entertaining one, in which case my choices would include James Alexander-Sinclair, Matthew Wilson and Charles Elliott.

Knowing my luck it’ll be Peter Gibbs.

I wonder what the collective noun is for gardeners?

This idle thought has been trickling around in my head all day.

Obvious gardeney things, which also can mean a lot of, such as a knot and a rake soon spring to mind.

Pod, came to me shortly after, but whales and dolphins have already dibbed that one.

Other horticultural terms like clamp, mulch, drill, pleach and trug crossed my mind, but were disregarded.

I quite like panicle, but that surely is the group noun for flower-arrangers.

I also quite like crome, which is an old kind of big rake.

I really like strig, the word for a cluster of currants.

What do you think?

And what about the collective noun for a group of garden designers? A ponce maybe.