Melanie Fleur: Garden Blog

Off-topic: Manchester's public transport on a budget

2010-03-10T10:15:00.009Z

This is a one-off posting for the benefit of anyone that needs information about Manchester's public transport. There's a wealth of information out there that seems to confuse a lot of people.. hopefully this might help. :)

Cheapest

Buses are cheap, sometimes get stuck in traffic, and some routes run at night. Most places in the Manchester region will have a direct bus heading to the city centre, but if you're travelling from one suburb to another, you might have to change buses. Have a look at the GM Public Transport website for maps and timetables.

If you're doing lots of bus travel in South Manchester (Stockport, Chorlton, Didsbury, Airport, etc.) then you're best off getting a Dayrider on the bus, which is £3.50 for a day's bus travel on Stagecoach buses. They also work at night up to about 4am. If you're staying longer than a few days, then get a weekly Megarider pass for £11.. buy on the bus.

If you'll be heading around North Manchester/Salford/Cheshire too, best spend £4.30 on an any-bus ticket - this will cover pretty much any bus (Arriva, First, and most of the little companies.) You can also buy bus/local train/tram passes for a little more - this scheme is run by System One Travel, and their website lists all the current ticket prices.

Quickest

Train or tram. Both stop running after about 11pm at night, after which you'll be on buses or taxis. Trains you can buy a ticket on-board, but trams incur a hefty fine if you do this, so make sure you get a ticket before you board. Trams are unbearable at commuting times, and trains aren't pleasant then either. You can check tram times/prices on the Manchester Metrolink website.

For trains, if you're travelling locally (up to around a 40 minute journey), then it's not worth booking in advance. For longer journeys it's worth checking in advance to see if you can get a good deal buy buying ahead of travel: check times and prices on www.thetrainline.com.

London and elsewhere

It's always worth checking to see if Megabus have any cheap seats available. If you book early enough in advance, it's not unusual to get a return to London for £3. Fares increase the closer you get to the travel date, so book as early as possible.

Failing that, there's also National Express coaches if they have good offers on, or trains if you're in a hurry.

If you need accommodation

For conventional hotels, then between Laterooms.com, Premier Inn and Travelodge, you should be able to find somewhere reasonably good for less than £40 a room. There's only one hostel, Hatters. Obviously I'd recommend Couchsurfing, as there's a big CS community here.

Anything I've missed? Add a comment and I'll include it.

(Details correct as of March 2010.)

Things I learnt on my holidays: the Dominican Republic

2010-03-10T10:03:00.005Z

Having finally sorted through our holiday snaps, here are the horticultural highlights of our little Caribbean adventure...

Bourgainvilla looks pretty spectacular growing wild.. reminds me a bit of hawthorn from a distance.

Mother-in-law's-tongue makes a pretty good fedge (fence/hedge).

I really need this Alocasia/Colocasia that grows everywhere around the El Choco National Park.

..and I liked these horizontal trellises that squash plants were being grown upon. Looks like a very good idea to me.

Plants for next year: unusual kiwi fruits

2009-10-23T12:13:00.005+01:00

I've grown kiwi vines (Actinidia deliciosa) from shop-bought fruit's seeds before, and they're incredibly easy and quick to grow. They're not reliably hardy here in the north-west (possibly zone 8a), though my mother has a vine in her Cheshire garden that gets cut back by frosts every winter and it bounces back to play with a golden hop and potato vine every spring. I've not been too optimistic about producing fruit; I've been happy enough with the red-tinged furry leaves and the rambling jungle effect.. until now.

Having read a brilliant article in this month's The Garden magazine, I'm determined to try Actinidia kolomikta and Actinidia arguta. They're both hardier and tastier than A. deliciosa, and there are now some cultivars that have been bred with fruit in mind: A. arguta 'Jumbo' and A. kolomikta 'Tomoko' are the ones I have my eye on, though I suspect seeds will be hard to come by. We shall see..

In Praise of Cosmos bipinnatus

2009-10-14T17:00:00.002+01:00

One of the most underrated plants has to be Cosmos. It's never the super-trendy feature of a show garden. And yet when the garden's looking a little shabby at the start of September, and when the mid-summer blooms have gone, and the snails have eaten all your dahlias, the Cosmos is only just getting going. It's also super-easy to grow from seed; even if you end up with wimpy leggy seedlings, you can rescue them by repotting as deep as possible and moving them somewhere cooler.

Admittedly it does spend half the year bulking up its feathery foliage, but once it gets flowering, it's non-stop until the frosts hit. My favourite has to be 'Candy Stripe' as it makes an excellent cut flower, but next year I'll be branching out into the red shades.

Seriously, try it next year. It's lovely.

Chorlton Plant Swap / Manchester Food festival

2009-10-07T15:41:00.004+01:00

For those that are local to Manchester, we're doing a little autumnal plant swapping on Saturday.

When: Saturday 10 October 2009, 11am to 2:30pm
Where: Outside Chorlton Library on Manchester Road
Swapping:
- plants, please stick a label on them
- seeds, pop them in a labelled envelope
- bulbs
- produce
More info: Chorlton Plant Swap

By the way, it’s Chorlton Food & Drink Festival this week: we've timed our swap to coincide with the Roots & Fruits Competition in the library.

Review: The £20 Plastic Walk-in Greenhouse

2009-10-07T14:49:00.008+01:00

These get slated regularly on garden forums, but I'm terribly fond of mine as I wouldn't be able to plonk a proper metal/glass greenhouse in our rented garden. It needs to be looked at as more of a disposable greenhouse, though - don't expect it to survive longer than a year. I opted for a 3' x 6' walk-in one: it has oodles of shelving, plus space up the back wall to grow a decent amount of cucumbers.

Pros:

The shelving is brilliant.

It's really cheap, and easy enough to assemble.

It's meant that I've been able to grow a decent crop of tomatoes and cucumbers this year, plus plenty of summer ornamentals from seed.

Daytime temperatures are reliably 5/10 degrees warmer than outside.

Cons:

It needs tying to something fixed. Really really. The guy-ropes aren't good enough, and weighting it down with pots won't work. Trust me: you really don't want to be found weeping into a pile of broken greenhouse and dead plants.

The plastic will disintegrate, so you'll find new air-vents occasionally.

The zip will inevitably break after a few months.

It doesn't keep frosts out, even with the door zipped up. Also, temperatures can soar to over 40 degrees in summer.

Review: Tomatoes of the year

2009-09-29T15:03:00.003+01:00

I'm really pleased with my tomato successes this year. Apparently sowing at the correct time, prompt repotting and regular watering does wonders for the things. Who knew? Maybe next year I'll get around to feeding them better, as this year I only had slow-release granular feed to hand.

Best

Red Alert
Early, prolific and delicious. Lovely deep red, juicy, and decent-sized.

Black Plum
Possibly the tastiest tomato I've ever eaten, produced in decent quantities. Really pleased with these.

San Marzano
Tasty, juicy and big. The plants were happy to grow outdoors, even though we had a miserable summer.

Worst

Gartenperle (or Garden Pearl)
I just can't get over their weird pinky colour, and the flavour doesn't impress me, either. I'll be going back to Tumbler next year.

Gardening in a rented garden

2009-09-29T11:09:00.008+01:00

Until we're able to get a mortgage, we're stuck with renting our little home. And that's fine, apart from living with an uncontrollable urge to have a garden of my very own that I can fill with obscure plants and ponds and goats and chickens and bees.

Interestingly, whilst there's a clause in our tenancy agreement that we shouldn't remove any plants, there's nothing to stop us planting a bamboo forest. Or Japanese Knotweed jungle. We've mostly behaved very well, apart from tearing up a bit of Hypericum (because it's hideous), and planting a dwarf apple tree (because it's the burial place of Molly the rat.)

Having lived here for over a year, I've come up with a strategy for not being too upset when we move:

Containers
Horribly heavy when you end up moving house, but it does mean you can have shrubs and perennials without leaving them behind.

Annuals
Successes this year have ranged from calendula, cosmos, morning glories and petunia to cucumbers, tomatoes, and salad leaves. If you need to leave them in the ground when you move, it's no big loss: they'll only last a season anyway.

Bamboo
Bamboo will tolerate living in a large pot, and if you have a friend or local plant swap, stick a few pot-fulls of bamboo in the corner to mask the unsightly and provide a decent backdrop for other plants.

Height
Wigwams and trellises are essential for that lived-in look: pop a trellis behind a container and plant a climber. Or you could try a tall rose - we've had Queen Elizabeth growing in ours successfully.

That Weedy Corner of Lawn
I can't imagine your landlord would mind it being turned into a veg plot.. Besides, it'll be prettier and easier to maintain than a patch of brambles and ragwort.

Christmas glamour, Strictly Come Dancing stylee

2009-09-28T16:39:00.015+01:00

Less than 100 days to go until Christmas, and this year I'm getting more excited than usual. To start off the anticipation, have a look at some photographs I sneakily snapped at a local garden centre last year. It inspired me to go with a sparkly pink/purple theme, but it wasn't quite the same without the black artificial tree.

Best Gardens: Fletcher Moss Gardens, Didsbury

2009-09-14T16:04:00.006+01:00

In case anyone's wondering where my header photo was taken, it's from Fletcher Moss Gardens in Didsbury, South Manchester. It's in a perfectly secluded spot, tucked behind a few busy pubs, and few folks realise it's there.

I love the naturalistic planting, particularly the pond area in which candelabra primulas and irises thrive. There's also a hefty collection of Rhododendrons. It's a lovely spot to visit on a sunny afternoon and have a picnic.

Bloom Day: June 2009

2009-06-11T14:24:00.011+01:00

I love June, and I also love plants that flower in June. I love the bees, the first sunny weather of the year, the barbeques, and not having to wear a coat everywhere. And did I mention the sun? Here's a selection of my favourite photos from this month (sadly lacking in cats):

Bluebell woods in Warrington

2009-06-11T14:16:00.004+01:00

Earlier this year, I had a job interview in the depths of Warrington countryside. On arrival from my two-buses-and-a-train trek, I was delighted to find this little bluebell wood on site. What could be better than eating lunch at a picnic table surrounded by bluebells? Not much.

Sadly, I didn't get the job, but I did get some good photos and a relaxing pre-interview lunch amidst the bluebells.

Salad Musings: American Land Cress

2009-06-06T09:42:00.003+01:00

2/5

I'm really not impressed. I feel like I've cultivated a pot full of hairy bittercress.

I do love the flavour, and I suppose the dark green rosettes are quite attractive.. but the plants are so small, it seems hardly worth devoting good soil space to something so tiny-looking.

Unless I can figure out a way of having a vertical wall of land cress, I think I'll stick to eating weeded bittercress instead.

I would insert a photo, but the plants are looking somewhat embarrassing right now.

Globe Artichokes in Containers

2009-06-06T09:36:00.002+01:00

Earlier in the year I had a good Google on the subject of globe artichokes in containers. What little information I could find seemed to suggest I was pretty stupid for even considering the idea. I prefer the word 'optimistic', at least.

Five months on, my artichokes are looking surprisingly happy, even in a relatively shallow container. I suspect I won't get much in the way of flower buds, and the plants' longevity will probably be reduced, but still.. £2 for 3 plants from Wilkinson, a very good deal indeed. I love their silvery grey sheen and um.. architectural pointyness.

The downside is that they need a lot of water, as they can't throw tap roots deep into the ground: we've had a few windy, sunny days lately and they've needed a good drenching once a day. (You can tell when they're thirsty, as they flop dramatically until they've had a drink.)

Planted in a plastic crate with some shallots for company:

Chorlton Plant Swap

2009-06-01T12:35:00.001+01:00

Another plant swap has been announced for the Manchester area: run by Chorlton Plant Swap, it'll be held on 11th July 2009 at Chorlton Park Festival. There'll be a stall for swapping plants and seeds, as well as an extra seated area for those that fancy being sociable.

In addition to the plant swap stall, there'll be a fun dog show, various craft stalls, and the usual Chorltonesque eco-friendly concerns. I went last year; the weather was beautiful, and it was a good fun family event.

I should be helping out with the plant stall later in the afternoon, so feel free to drop in and say hello. Here's a map of Chorlton Park in case you need directions.

Salad Musings: Mizuna

2009-05-26T12:03:00.004+01:00

Salad rating: 5/5

I can't rave enough about this oriental salad leaf. It has a flavour light enough that it can form the base of a salad, and as a cut-and-come-again it's productive enough to be eaten with almost every meal. It's also good to use as stir-fry greens.

Did I mention that slugs and snails aren't interested in it? And that it's a surprisingly attractive leaf? If you don't already grow it, head on down to Moreveg*: a snip at 50p per packet.

*Not a sponsorship deal, just my favourite seed supplier.

A Mancunian Rented Garden

2009-05-26T11:22:00.001+01:00

So.. it's the end of May: the bulk of the sowing, planting and pruning has been completed. Barring any disasters such as a late frost, or gale-force wind toppling the greenhouse, I seem to be free to sit back and quietly blog.

Over the past year we've been working within the constraints of a rented garden - this pretty much means 'mostly a container garden, but digging up a few sneaky bits of lawn where we can'. We've been lucky to inherit a decent structure: a raised bed with established sage, rosemary and oregano shrubs; a squishy moss-infested lawn, good for lounging; more hardy geraniums than you can shake a stick at, good for plant-swapping; and a decent surrounding hedge for a little privacy and wildlife habitat.

We're sited on a leafy estate in Chorlton, Manchester - winters tend to be moderately mild, though we still get the wind and rain that you'd expect up north. Growing some tender plants can be a pain, the victim last winter being a bargain Oleander bought for £2. It was possibly a little optimistic..

I'm a fan of organic gardening, wildlife gardening, bargain-hunting and plant-swapping. I enjoy growing obscure ornamentals, both cottage garden favourites and tropicals. More recently I've got into growing unusual fruit and veg. I like to forage for wild food, make home-brew wine, and cook good food. I'm also a big fan of rock music and regularly go to gigs. Some of this is outside the realm of this blog, however!