Botanicalls - plants that keep in touch!

Lots of people in my world are talking about this real-life mashup of a houseplant, a mobile phone, and an online messaging service called Twitter. The geeks over at Botanicalls have created a very interesting application that tells you when your plant needs water. When it's thirsty it sends out a Twitter update that reaches you anywhere in the world. And once it's received water, it sends out another to say thank you!

Pretty cool stuff i'm sure you'll agree. If you feel inclined to try it yourself, Make Magazine has created a tutorial (it's not for the technically challenged though) and here's an example of a plant on Twitter so you can see what it looks like.

I feel guilty enough about not watering my houseplants without them nagging me about it. Besides, I get nagged enough by the wife :)

National Nest Box Week

This week is national nest box week, a scheme which tries to focus attention to the provision of nest boxes for bids and other wildlife. If I get time this weekend I'm going to have a go at knocking up a replacement for our rather shabby looking nest box on the apple tree. It's been there years and may contain dead bodies for all I know.

Anyway take a look at the box week site, which by the way is really daft as they don't tell you what week the scheme runs unless you hunt around.

Salcey Forest Near Olney

We went for a long walk around Salcey Forest near Olney today. Considering we've lived in the area for the last couple of years I'm amazed we've never been there before. It's a managed forest and very well kept, a great place for walking and cycling. A full circuit around the forest path is about 6 miles given the rain we've had it was still very muddy but it adds to the fun in my opinion. Loads of people hadn't foreseen the mud and were sloshing around in their trainers and we even saw a guy there in white trousers!

If you're in the area and stuck for something to do i'd highly recommend it.

More planting

After a week of awful weather this weekend saw the wind die down and the clouds break to give us a beautiful warm and sunny weekend. My plant orders are coming through thick and fast now so I spent Saturday repotting up the last of the storm damaged container plants and planting out my latest purchases.

I've planted out loads, from Lilies and Dogwoods to Helleborus Niger and a climbing Rose. It's great to see the garden start to fill up.

In other news my local Nursery is shutting down which is a shame, but I think they've sold the land as a Garden Nursery so all being well another will replace it. We went to look around the closing down sale but I think we were a bit late as the place had been stripped bare. I'd been eyeing up a willow tree there for the last year or so and was hoping that this might have been the time I bought it but alas I was beaten to it. Never mind.

Taking advantage of the warm weather we also gave the dogs a bit of a strip and their spring bath. They're both sitting next to the radiator giving me evil looks as I write this.

I hope this early warm weather is pointing the way to a long hot summer.

Storm Warning

The garden has been battered by high winds and rain over the last few days. All in all it's come out of it looking pretty good. The only bad news was the carnage I came home to on Friday last week. I arrived home after work to see the table that we normally have on the decking upside down half way down the garden and every terracotta pot between the house and where it had come to lay smashed. I was so upset. I'm now trying to rearrange what's left so that I can re-pot the plants as soon as possible but I think I may have to buy some replacement pots to accommodate them all.

Just goes to show you can see everything coming. The table has now been taken down and stored in the outhouse. I guess I should probably have done this before but you don't expect the wind to take something as heavy as a table.