A name!

We named the house frog end soon after we moved in, but until now hadn't managed to find a good sign. Ian bought me this for Christmas. Can't wait to go home and put it up.

Hazelnuts

I love the big packs of nuts that you find in supermarkets at this time of year. Hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts... they all look so appealing with their shells still on. Whilst it does take much much longer to eat them when you have to crack them open it's all great fun.

I wonder what happens to the nuts between the time they come off the tree and the time they are to be found on the supermarket shells. I ask this because I'm wondering what the chances of me getting them to grow are. Presumably the worst condition that they could have been exposed to is cold, but simulating a natural winter is often necessary to get tree seeds to grow in this country anyway. Unless anyone suggests a reason why I shouldn't I think I shall plant some as an experiment.

An appeal

One of my life goals is to turn a piece of land into a nature reserve, including planting a large area of woodland. Ian also aims to grow and sell topiary to fund the opening of topiary gardens, similar to those in Maryland...

and tamborine mountain in Queensland (unfortunately I can't find a picture on the internet).

Although we've started planting tree seeds and boxwood cuttings we've only managed to do this on a small scale in the garden and greenhouse. Buying a piece of land now would enable us to get started growing box and privet for topiary on a large scale as well as trying out some other commercial enterprises, including growing trees and plants for sale on ebay, trees for the future nature reserve, pumpkins for halloween, christmas trees etc.


As some of you will know we put an offer in on a lovely piece of land near Okehampton a couple of months ago, but sadly our offer was rejected and it has been taken off the market. Today we looked at another piece of land for sale only a couple of miles from our house. It had massive potential as both a nature reserve and a place to grow all we could ever need. Of course it has a couple of ponds and I'm already wondering how many species of dragonflies and damselflies we could attract ;-). Anyway, whatever happens with this piece of land we do aim to buy some in the very near future and we would really appreciate your help in getting started with the growing...


We're going to be growing as many native trees as we can so if you have any seeds or happen to pass an oak, beech, hazel etc next autumn please please could you collect and save them for us. Similarly if you have hollies, hawthorns, rowans etc sprouting all over your garden then rather than digging them up and discarding them could you please pop them into a pot and we'll come and collect them from you. Obviously I'm not asking you to start digging up seedlings in your local park, but if you do know anyone with seeds or seedlings that they don't want please rescue them for us and allow them to be part of a future nature reserve.


Thank you. You will all be most welcome to visit our land when we buy.