Christmas garden gift

If you are shopping for your best friends christmas present and are unable to decide how to follow last years gift of the Obama Caganer, then this could be the gift you are looking for!

An Elephant Poo Planter! Perhaps you could use it to plant your Elephants Ears ?

Fuchsia Futures - Easy propagation & Care.

You may have killed them with kindness. That would be my diagnosis on the failure of your fuchsia cuttings to germinate. If you are new to plant propagation and would like a fool proof method of germinating small quantities of fuchsia plants from existing plants; then the following method may help you.

• Take your cuttings from non flowering stems 3" to 4" long and from just above a leaf joint.
• Pinch out the growing tip and shorten any large leaves by half.
• Using an opaque container i.e. a plastic beaker, to hold your cuttings.
• Place the cut stems in a little water in the container, ensuring that the leaves are clear of the water.
• Change the water every three days.
• After 10 - 14 days you will see roots forming at the base of the stem. Pot up the rooted cutting in your usual manner.

The opaque container will help to diffuse (soften) the light, place it near to a window but out of direct sunlight.

Fuchsias do grow in Spain but are best kept out of the hot summer afternoon sun. If your patio or balcony specimens have suffered from the heat a solution would be to double pot them.

Using a larger pot than you plant is growing in place any inert material such as polystyrene around the circumference of the outer pot and place your potted plant in the middle of the outer pot. You have created a thermal barrier between the roots of the Fuchsia and the outer pot which will absorb the sunshine.

Once the sun has gone down water and feed your plants. Misting the foliage with water will prevent red spider mite. Fuchsia do best if the roots are restricted if you are potting on young plants do so 1/2 a pot size at a time. I find a very dilute feed more often gives the best results.+

Timeless terracotta in Mediterranean gardens

The roads around the Costa Brava carry a steady stream of French people buying garden plants and containers to take home with them. Three and four metre specimen trees are loaded onto trailers for the journey, whilst the containers fill every available space in the vehicle. Prices in France they tell me can be nearly a third more expensive than here in Spain. So if they live within easy reach of the border they make a day of it; food, fuel, spirits and cigarettes are all cheap and when added together the savings are significant.

From the Bay of Roses until it reaches the border crossing to France the road is littered with retail outlets selling pottery originating in Spain. The locally produced pots come from La Bisbal which is easy to find from the N11 or A7 roads.

Though the potters are continually innovating in both design and in decoration a plain terracotta pot can steal the show. Some of the bigger establishments carry a stock of large wine and water coolers designed to be submerged or shaded. They are often seen decorating golf courses, restaurants or hotels.

Only fools and horses

Whilst looking around the local flea market, which is rather more flea than market; I came across my bargain of the season a Morrocan lady was offering 38 plant pots most of which were 10 litre pots for 50 cents each, I got the lot for 5 Euro´s 5 mins. before the market closed. That is 145 euros worth of pots for 5 euros, you know it makes sense