Showing posts with label pervertable. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pervertable. Show all posts

Sunday, 15 January 2012

Botany and bottomy

Pervertables, when you're in the mood they're everywhere, aren't they? I went into the garden centre yesterday to get pet food and Significant Other phoned while I was there.
Could I get hedge plants? There's a bit of a gap in the garden hedge and SO wants to put in more plants to fill it. I wonder around for a while and then decide to ask someone.
The only assistant in sight is young and male. I explain what I'm looking for and he says: "Oh, you mean whips." Did I blush like a giddy teen? I'm afraid I did.
It turns out that in the trade they call the little twigs with roots on 'whips' and sell them by the bundle. So it turns out that what I need is a couple of bundles of whips.
Of course, by then I was lost. We stood there while he explained why hawthorn might be better than hazel or hornbeam, but I couldn't concentrate.
So off I went with whatever he thought best (hawthorn - cheap, quick-growing, prickly enough to keep animals in or out), but I drove home with a different sort of botany - bottomy? - going on in my head.
I have some experience here. Hazel, flexible and knobbly. Willow, straight and slender and extra-stingy. Apple, good texture and very whippy. Haven't been able to try the classic hickory switch of American tradition, sadly. Can you grow it here in the UK - I suppose that's a question for the guy at the garden centre.