The Bees Are Getting High In The Poppies Again!

I posted in April about the early arrival of the poppies this year. Last year I seem to remember that the poppies came out later in May and then into June. This year I blogged about them on April 22nd. Much earlier. To be fair in has been a very warm and early Spring so it is to be expected.

One thing that I had not seen this year was the bees going absolutely berserk in the poppies. Last year the bumble bees were going seriously mental in the flowers, lying on their backs and buzzing like chainsaws on heat as they soaked up the pollen! They were seriously mental and completely oblivious to me!

This is until this weekend. On early Saturday morning and early Sunday morning we finally had some overdue rain. Saturday we had 2.5 mm and Sunday 5 mm. On both mornings, as can be seen above the bees had returned to the poppies. I am wondering if the rain provided a catalyst to release some of the pollen in the poppies, or at least magnify their scent? Not sure, but the onset of the rain certainly had the neighbourhood bees congregating round my place this weekend! The heady days are back for the bees! Time to party!

Another picture of this years poppies below

As mentioned before I am a huge fan of the poppy, and clearly the bees are as well! Pictures from last year of the bees getting a dose of poppy pollen!

Have fun,

Cheers

m

P.S. It has just be highlighted to me that noting I am a huge fan of the poppy, might not be the best thing to say. It is just the flower and how the bees interact with them that is of interest to me. Any other poppy use is outside the scope of my fan-ship! ;-)

Brentham Foxes Have A Flip Flop Fetish!

OK so the picture is not quite of a flip flop, it's more of a sandal, but as a headline 'Brentham Foxes Have A Sandal Fetish' rolls off the tongue like a brick! So please work with me people! ;-) The 'Flip Flop' above, read sandal, is the last remaining one we have due to, we assume, scavenger Brentham foxes!

In September last year we went prawning off the beach just east of Yarmouth, on the Isle Of Wight. It was really a treat for my Grandfather as it was his birthday and below is an image of the catch we were able to get him. Not too shabby. Trouble is prawning involves wading through thick sticky mud, that stinks to high heaven, which is basically impossible to remove from feet and shoes that come in contact with it. Consequently we wore our sandals, which we thought would be easy to clean afterwards. Turns out this is simply not the case and the sandals still stink, or still stunk I guess as most of them are no longer with us, 8 months later!

It turns out the stench of these sandals seems to be somewhat loved by the Brentham foxes! Gradually over the course of the last month our sandals have been disappearing one by one! Although I have not actually seen them being taken by foxes I am hoping that this is the only explanation? I guess there could be some other creature with a foot fetish, but I have not installed Infra-red cameras to find out. The fox explanation seems most plausible and for comforts sake it is the one I will stick to!

After finding out that my pair of sandals had disappeared, for some reason, possibly excessive tiredness impacting my logic circuits, I didn't think it an obvious thing to move Mon's sandals inside to prevent them from going the way of the dodo as well. To be fair they still stank so inside wasn't an option, but this should have at least triggered a thought that the foxes might be interested in these as well. It didn't, so one of them was missing early last week. Then this morning I wake up to see the final one in the middle of the back garden as pictured below! Perhaps the fox was interrupted while trying to get this one? Who knows!

Oh well, I didn't actually like my pair of sandals so no great loss for me. I am not particularly sure that they would fit the feet of a fox, but each to their own I guess. Mon however did like hers which is a real shame as now she has to hop around for the rest of the Summer ;-)

Have fun

Cheers

m

P.S. If you see a Brentham fox about wearing three sandals, could you at least ask them to leave a note next time they borrow something? That would be great. Thanks!

The 50 Foot Green Aphids Are Back!

Little buggers!

OK again, not quite 50 foot, but as happened last year, the green aphids are back! This time, as can be seen above, they are hacking apart my Old Timer red rose. The below picture is one of the Old Timer roses in full bloom, from last year. Actually on closer inspection that would be two Old Timer rose. My eyes are deceiving me in my old age ;-) Such a beautiful flower though. Worth protecting from the green aphids!

Although not quite fully out this year they are definitely on their way! More on them when they are in full bloom. Will post an article about the development of all of the roses in our garden when they are all out. Not to far off yet. Only the last climbers to go.

Again, as with last year, not wanting to use chemicals to get rid of the aphids, I have resorted to using a pressurised water spray containing lukewarm water and a teaspoon of washing up soap. This is supposed to coat the aphids resulting in them not being able to breath. Sounds a bit harsh really but, it's either them that go, or the plant! It's a little less harsh than covering them in chemicals! Again their lack of pain receptors apparently means it is all relatively painless for them.

Below is what green aphids class a Weapon Of Mass Destruction - the pressurised water spray containing dish washing liquid!. As yet there has been no government scandal about not being able to find these WMD. If you really want to find them they are prominently on display in my garden shed. Although not visible to spy satellite snooping I will be happy to show anyone there exact location ;-). I have let all of the WMD scientists, who developed the spray container and spent minutes researching the lethal aphid spray, go onto bigger and better things. Last I heard they were trying to figure out how to get rid of all of the pesky elephants that seem to be getting in the way in Pitshanger Park. To be fair seems like they have done a reasonable job as I haven't seen any elephants there for some time.

Anyway, will see if the soapy water contains the aphids again this year, and also if they come back elsewhere! If you see me hunting around my garden with the above pressurised water spray bottle WMD be warned! You might just get coated in warm soapy water if you inadvertently dfisrupt me!

Have fun.

Cheers

m

Links To Purchase Pot Grown Hedge Plants

Just in case my cuttings don't work, I will use this blog entry to save details about where I can buy hedging plants online if needed! Note links here are not an endorsement of said sites, merely a reference for me to have a look later if needed!

• Pot Grown Hedge Plants from turfandstuff.com

That's it for now.

Cheers

m

Group Messaging Apps Are This Years Check-In Apps, But Where Are The Mobile Networks?

So where do the mobile networks fit into the group messaging ecosystem? Well so far absolutely nowhere! Mobile networks (and really do feel free to highlight where I may have missed a mobile network actually doing something in this area. I genuinely would love to know!) are doing their best it seems to simply give the messaging space away to application developers. Why not I guess? Mobile networks have successfully lost:

• location
• debatably payment and
• debatably identity
• and they are fighting tooth and nail to not lose voice to VoIP

Why not simply let messaging go the same way? For years mobile networks have had millions of subscribers all of who are happily prepared to send SMS to each other. However group messaging apps have shown the mobile Customer that there is more to messaging than simply texting a single friend. Sure you can text multiple friends at the same time, but SMS fails with group messaging in that there is no 'reply to all' functionality built into the mobile network. This has given rise to a wealth of group messaging apps that fill this gap admirably:

• GroupMe
• Beluga - now acquired by Facebook
• BBM
• WhatsApp
• Kik
• Fast Society
• Disco - Google's attempt
• Yobongo
• HeyWire
• even the iPhone, on some mobile networks, supports group messaging. Of course this requires your friend to also have an iPhone with group messaging also turned on. Last time I checked not everyone had an iPhone!

to name jut a few! All filling a gap that the lack of a reply to all function with SMS doesn't provide. I probably like GroupMe's effort best as this can be used on any phone at all, using SMS as the message transport mechanism. That being said, installing an app does prevent the need for an SMS.

This being said I don't see the need to bypass SMS as a transport mechanism. SMS works on almost every single mobile phone and is a known quantity for almost every single person who carries a mobile phone. For some stats about SMS's I posted a blog last year, SMS Is Not Dead, that highlights some of the usage figures. With billions of users sending trillions of messages why change how SMS works? The reason is that if products don't evolve they will simply be replaced by products that do. Even SMS has a limited lifespan if it doesn't evolve.

In all this time though, the mobile networks, collectively or singularly, have done almost nothing to evolve how their Customers can make use of SMS. They provide trillions of free SMS to their Customers but they then do nothing to encourage or promote their use. In a true bit pipe fashion they let third parties do this for them.

With the onslaught of development environments for mobile, and the gradual decay of mobile carrier Customer assets, to external third party developers, the mobile networks could do really well to provide the tools for their Customers to communicate. Group messaging is an area that a mobile network could truly excel in. The group messaging apps try to remove SMS as the message transport mechanism. Why? SMS is familiar, known and currently used excessively by mobile phone Customers. It is the only messaging format that would truly allow group communications across all mobile phones. Mobile networks have access to the necessary network infrastructure to really make a play in this space. It's not too late to embrace group messaging, supported by SMS that is truly available to every single mobile network Customer irrespective of what mobile phone they carry.

Sure SMS has an associated charge, for some mobile Customers, however it doesn't prevent people from using the service. So why should cost be a blocker to using SMS as a group distribution mechanism? Group messaging SMS costs could either be supported out of Customer SMS allowances or even intelligently (i.e. not spam!) placed advertisements! SMS advertising doesn't work? Hmmm somebody should tell the mobile advertising company 4INFO!

Mobile Networks could truly make a difference in the group messaging space, if they want to.

Happy to discuss further the use cases to support this if you like! The mobile network can play in this game, or alternatively they can again be bypassed! In fact it only takes a single friend, within a group of individuals, with an unlimited SMS allowance, to support an entire group messaging ecosystem! But more on this later ;-)

Have fun

Cheers

m

P.S. Not everyone has a smartphone. This doesn't mean that people don't want to communicate with groups of friends ;-) SMS IS NOT DEAD!

Trying Out Some Rose Campion

I was given three Rose Campion by a work colleague. As yet I have really struggled to find an appropriate place for them in the garden, although I really do want to try them out. For now I have re-potted them, pictured above, and I will try to get them into the garden proper a little later in Spring or early Summer. I think I have a spot but I need to find time to clear it a little to give these the room they need to grow. Apparently these will grow about one to two feet.

I have a feeling that I will be re-potting them again, in larger pots, in about a months time, unless I make the time to get that spot cleared!

Will come back to these a little later if I get them to take and flower properly!

Although I have now found a place in the garden for them after clearing out a corner for them. If given half a chance I will try to get them into the ground this weekend.

Have fun!

Cheers

m

More Conventional Hedge Cuttings

Over the long weekend, and thanks William and Kate for making this a 4 day long weekend (although Peter really did not seem fussed by your antics! See picture below), it was simply too windy to finish off trimming the hedges. It is possible to cut hedges in higher winds, it's simply not that much fun! Instead to keep things trundling along I decided to take 10 more hedge cuttings, and this time prepare them in a more conventional manner to see which would work better.

So the first lot I took, as described here, were prepared quite crudely by simply adding them to pots with regular garden compost. Nothing special. Simply trim them off the hedge and trim the lower leaves off the cutting and whack them in the soil and give them a good watering. Simple!

The second lot that I have prepared I decided to add a little more gardening science to the mix to see if that would help the process.

So the method for this second bunch of cuttings was as follows:

• Take the cuttings and place them immediately in water.
• Prepare small pots, that are just large enough for the cuttings, with a 50-50 mixture of vermiculite and cutting compost. Give these pots a good water and set them aside to drain.
• A couple of hours later take each of the cuttings and give the rooting end in dip in some rooting gel and then plant into the drained pot.
• Once all are planted give them a good watering and place in a shady warm location.
• Arguably you should then cover these to keep them in a humid environment. I have not done this, but I will make sure that they are kept moist by regular watering.

So that's the job lot. Will keep both sets of cuttings regularly watered and will check back in a month or two to see which lot have faired better. Will most likely post results here! ;-)

Have fun

Cheers

m