It must be hard work looking after a minimalist home - never forgetting to hide away the paperback you've just put down, keeping every surface spotless. But they come into their own this week. While most rural families face spending hours, if not days, packing away cribs and ancient pieces of tinsel, the minimalist home-owner just has to take down the one or two baubles he has hanging from his cactus and deposit them in the bin.
Indoor cyclamen can survive from year to year if you remember to water at the base. Otherwise a pool of water gathers in the concave top of the corms and causes them to rot. You should also keep removing dead flowers and mouldering stems. Stop watering around April, store the pots upright or on their sides, anywhere convenient - under a greenhouse bench is a good place - and leave them to dry out. Bring them in again in the autumn, re-pot if you like, start watering and give them the occasional light feed.The flowers are in fact quite insignificant and it is the bracts or, roughly speaking, top leaves that give the bright red, pink or cream colour. This has been fostered by imitating a Mexican mountain and keeping the plant in the dark for eight weeks for 14 hours a day and in bright sunlight for the other ten, all at a temperature of exactly 68F. On top of that, poinsettias are deciduous so, love them as you will, once the bracts get brassed off, all that's left is a stalky mess. Try the light and dark regime next autumn if you must but it's probably cheaper to bung the poinsettias in the bucket and buy another next Christmas. Cheaper still: buy an artificial one. It will last forever and no one will ever know the differenceShe asks: My Easter flowering cactus looks fabulous at the moment and all my friends have asked if they can have a cutting. How do I go about it?Besides, doesn't ganja make people paranoid? I wouldn't want to find Peter shivering in a corner, gibbering that Ken Livingstone had come to get him. He's almost at that stage without the benefit of drugs, and I'm hoping our holiday in Barbados will distract him from thoughts of what the rest of the year may hold.For while the festive season may be over when we return to country life, the open season on those who enjoy it will have begun anew, We are just clutter in New Labour's fashion-conscious, urban home.
For while the festive season may be over when we return to country life, the open season on those who enjoy it will have begun anew, We are just clutter in New Labour's fashion-conscious, urban home.
Author: de Lisle, Leanda
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