Overwintering a bedding plant - Nicotiana 'Lime Green'

Strangely we appear to be 'on trend' with the RHS and its April theme of Inside Out Gardening.  We look out onto our patio through a collection of houseplants such as  pelargoniums from various sources, sansevieria from a college where my husband once worked, a strelitzia from my family.   But the prize must go to the tobacco plants, an outdoor variety from seed gifted by a friend that flourishes indoors.  

If we possessed more up to date 'tech' I would take a photo of this and send it to the RHS 'Readers' Letters'.  They were sown in a warm place and planted out in a front bed by my husband.  With their large tender leaves they seemed to be succumbing to slugs and snails so he dug them up and they overwintered in our back room.  Within the last month they have started to blossom and produce lime green flowers.  The sweet faint scent is more pronounced in the evenings 

The practice of using bedding plants as house plants is not without precedent.  Dr D G Hessayon has a section in The House Plant Expert.  (Our edition is thirty years old but the series originally dates back to the 1960s).  The nicotiana he recommends seems to be a more compact version  Nicotiana hybrida.  Ours are growing tall, with support.  I cannot tell if this is the light conditions or just the variety.

I hope we continue to enjoy them throughout the coming months as they flourish in our below average conditions (18 degrees Centigrade).  Modern homes might be too warm to sustain this practice.  I look forward to the RHS revisiting this theme in months to come. 

A Guide for a 'Bad' Birdwatcher

 It was my good fortune this week to find a copy of the American edition (2005, $17.95) of Simon Barnes' book How to Be a (Bad) Birdwatcher displayed in our local charity shop.  At £1.50, in hardback, retaining its original dustjacket it was a bargain.  I think what drew me was the cheeky title and equally cheeky engraving of the little bird on the front and back.

Simon Barnes is almost a contemporary - I checked on the Internet and was relieved to find he is still alive.  He is a journalist and writes in the accessible style of the devotional or self-help guide.  I could reset that enormously loaded opening phrase 'to the greater glory of life' and then read his short pithy chapters with pleasure and profit.

The whole point of a devotional or self-help book is to move to action so I began by taking Simon's advice in chapter six.  We already have a bird book The Mitchell Beazley Birdwatcher's Pocket Guide.  This has probably been in my family since the reprint of 1986.  I picked it up and added my own name in it (in pencil) for continuity.  

Two things struck me when I read this pocket guide more carefully.  Firstly the introduction was extremely sensible and in line with Simon's advice which was not surprising as he has a longstanding connection with the RSPB.  I wonder if the very small print had previously put me off.  Secondly, and this is somewhat galling for a person with a post-graduate teaching qualification, I realised that I had not ever studied the section entitled 'How the Guide Works' or the Species List.  I had been flipping through at random trying to find the Nuthatch for example, and wondering why I landed on page 112 with the Tawny Owl.  

I am so glad that these two books have come together.  In true 'devotional' fashion I already had what I needed but needed a nudge to use it and appreciate its value.

Both will now find a place on the coffee table in our back room where we look out on our bird feeder through the patio windows.  On the floor rests a pair of binoculars but that is a post for another time.