The plantbook

2024-10-23: Working on the plantbook, refining and updating the information. It is more and more telling a story. I think I somehow need to change the angle of the plantbook to give a voice to the plants rather than to tell my story. I gathered many images over the years and perhaps I need to spend more time to wove the story of the image into the narative, rather than just using the image for plant identification. I also need to reduce the number of duplicate and redudant images.

2024-10-04: A few months later. since July my entire focus was on rebuilding the greenhouse, so little happened in my plantbook. However, through the months I realised that I need to get bak to my book, if it is only for reminding on of the plant names and details. Going into the winter and next season, I hope to get back to updating my plantbook.

2024-06-15: The new structure is really coming together. Since switching to Visiual Studio Code to integrate restructuretxt and Powershell the ease of updating and working with the book has improved. For the first time I am truely focussing on the content rather than technical problems.

2024-02-19: Made a big decision today regarding my plantbook. My endevours to find a platform to keep my plantbook and allowing me to continously add and use the book has lead into may different attempts. Organising it, maintaining it, allowing access to it when not at my computer, all played its part. Approximately six or seven years ago I ventured into using codeontime to create a database driven web portal. Much effort has gone into it. The main drawback was that codeontime is very technical and cumbersome to maintain. With the advent of discovering the ease of using markup language and my growing experience with powershell, I managed to find a way to make codeontime obsolete. For a while I maintained both, but now I have reached a stage where my ability to resolve issues with codeontime has overtaken me. Going forward, my plantbook will live in RestructureText markup language with a combination of Python, Sphinx and powershell to publish it to the website. I hope that I am not going to regret this decision. There is no turning back. to codeontime.

2024-01-08: Reviewing and updating my plant story, reminded me of a Bonsai book I received in Jan 2001 as a gift. I dug the book out from the shelves and started to read it again in all eagerness

2024-01-07: Looks like including the notes in my plant journey is coming together, It really is starting to look good and useful to review and plan the garden. The story is coming together

2023-12-30: Spending some time on the garden diary, categorising the diary notes from 2000 to date to allow for the diary to be shown by category and date

2023-10-17: after a period of struggle with an ankle that is not responding and little activity in the garden, I am back

2023-07-09: It is a month on, and needless to say the last two months have been an ordeal from a garden perspective, however, I am improving and slowly building up focus and activity in the garden again

2021-10-10: Not yet sure that my plant book is serving my purpose. However, it is a good repository for the journey, and I can mould it as I go on.

2021-02-13: The new planting season is coming into view. My Plantbook and diary is almost in a place where I can start to use it. I can actively use the plant and image sections, and start to add more notes and plan the season

2020-12-26: Finally the application is ready to update data again. I am looking forward to document my plants journey in my gardens. I will be updating the information gathered in the past 20 years, and creating new posts

2020-11-15: 10 years later and I am back updating my diary. I made progress with re-creating the Plants Apps and it is again possible to use it. Looking forward to capture an re-capture my journey with the plants around me

2020-11-05: The idea is borne. I am looking at each plant afresh - every plant, however small and insignificant, or grandiose and full of showmanship has its own journey through life. It starts in it genes, embodied in the seed, bulb, cutting or what ever way it has chosen to encapsulate itself. At some point it will reproduce it self, perhaps with a bit of help, and then grow with all the splendour it can achieve. Just to reach the end, going back to where it came from - the earth. My understanding of each plant’s journey will enrich its existence and reward me with a bit more insight in the wonders of the journey.

2007-04-12: Arrived at Down end Road. A new garden, a new home. I am somewhat pre-occupied with work, and is likely to leave the plants to look after themselves for some time.

2005-10-28: Foxgloves, you have served me well. I will love you for always, but today I need to close the gate for the final time. We are moving to a temporary place. I am taking with me all the knowledge, experience and many hours of tendering your plants. You have become my friends and companions. I need to leave you now to be looked after by the new owner of the house. I wish you all the best. Be kind to them and show them only your very best.

2003-06-18: Dear diary, I have neglected you badly. I have been very busy planting and sowing and growing and did not get much time to think what to write. However, yesterday I finally took a major step forward. All my experimenting with greenhouses and growing seed has finally inspired me to get a large3*6m greenhouse with two rooms, one for cold and one for warm conditions. I am currently preparing the site, which in inself is a huge job. I need to remove trees and fences, level the site and remove old structures. I am really looking forward to my new toy. Although it would be somewhat late for this season, it will be in time for the preparation of 2004.

2003-03-02: several months had past since I made my last diary entry. Strangly enough, in the past, winter was the month that I spent most time writing about my garden because I get so busy in summer. However, this time around I had many distractions, including the fact that I started to convert our home videos to digital form. In itself it is a massife undertaking and very time consuming. I am also working most of the time in Switzerland, which takes my eye off dreaming about the garden a bit. An finally, I am just battling to get into the garden this year. I have a very low volume of inovation, has not even started to sow seed or plant, are behind cleaning out. Notwithstanding all of that, the garden is still quite stable and beautiful - the bulbs are appearing everywhere and all the hard work of last year is somehow paying off.

2002-09-24: I attended an executive training week, and ask what I dream about, I said: ‘to grow my own variety of plant’. I never thought about it before, it did not even come into my mind. Saying it almost came as a shock to me, and then it grew, rapidly. This is almost one of those impossible dreams - but an inspiring one - one that I do think I can work for.

2002-09-05: During the holidday I managed to identify and classify another 90 genus and varieties on plants in the garden. Going through it I also realised that there are still many plants that I do not even have photo’s for. I know have 378 known varieties in the garden.

2002-09-03: I spent some time again with my plant database, working with the images and all the guides. Everytime I do it I learn more, understand better, and start to read things that I have never read before, although it had always been there in the books. At this stage I am learning more about all the species and sub species, noticing that in many situations I have been cultivating plants incorrectly, keeping some as perennials although they should be treated as biannuals, or even annuals. No wonder the flower show is really poor on them - take the dianthus barbatus (sweet williams) for instance.

2002-09-03: One aspect of my garden book that I have just not cracked to satisfaction is the location planner. After failing to get a graphic program that is easy enough to work with, but powerful enough to suite my needs, I resorted to a database solution - dividing the garden into hundreds of sections and classifying each section. However, I find it equally difficult to work with, it is just not visual enough, difficult to imagine the beds, and to ‘see’ the result. One day, when I have enough time, I will find or create a solution.

2002-09-02: Holiday in Cornwall. I time to reflect, fix my plant database where necessary, update, upgrade and just enjoy the the development of the garden - both in writing and in pictures. I am quite nervous for the plants and seedlings at home. Gawie is looking after them and promised to be diligent. It would be interesting at the end of this week to see how successful the two weeks of low tech care have been. The area that I am most concerned about is the seedlings in the lean to greenhouse. Fortunately it does not get too hot in the greenhouse as it does not get sun, but it is possible that the seedlings, especially those in the heated propagators will dry out.

2002-09-02: I have managed to identify and created 290 different genus and species with pictures in the database - all in my garden. In total I have 1200 photo’s already. There are still many more species that still need to be sub classified, especially amongst the roses, daffodils, and rhododendrons which still need to be identified and divided. There are also a handful of plants that I just cannot manage to find in any book, garden or magazine. The fun is to continue trying because one day, with great satisfaction I will notice the plant somewhere with a corresponding name. Both the plant database and my plant diary is very precious as it is almost irreplaceable. I must take special care to ensure that I have backups.

2002-08-25: Visited today the Clowance estate and country club and walked through the gardens with a guide. It is quite astonishing to experience what the aristocracy did in the times of old. It is amazing to see the elaborate gardens and landscapes that they created as part of the demonstration of their wealth and stature. Today is very different. Nevertheless, it was an opportunity to identify one or two plants that I have not been able to do up till now.

2002-08-09: Well into August, and I have not made lots of entries in my Diary during this summer. The garden is exceptionally beautiful this year with many new features and breakthroughs. The gladioli, planted in the front garden in full sun is particularly beautiful. The dahlias also is just continuing to bloom and bloom. Even the pelargomiums that I planted in the window boxes found there special place. So many things that I tried and prepared has worked out so well, very rewarding. I should make individual notes about some of the highlights, and maybe not so high lights.

2002-05-14: I realise that record keeping in my garden is at a very basic level still, it is about first level information gathering, and identification with little information on the long term impact, features and options. Everything is about first try, hit and miss. I am confident that I will get to a stage where it is much more considered.

2002-05-10: It is wonderful to see how the garden change and develop. It is also interesting to see how I develop with the garden. The first year was one of complete overwelming; and experimenting with some basics; then I ordered thousands of bulbs to get them in; and did not want to disturb the beds - first wanted to see what is in it. The next year I started to dig in some of the beds, actually messed some of them up because tall things are now in front and short things at the back. I also extended the container culture and got hundreds of them. I started to make some new beds, got a handle on the compost. There was just so many places that had no cultivation, it was completely overwelming. The third year was the one in which I really made a breakthrough with my plant database and remembering the names. I can now recall the majority of the plants, have a comprehensive database and record keeping mechanism. The fourth year, the one we are in now, is the one that I planted out every single container that I had. I still have no baskets, no containers for this season, everything went into the beds. The beds are really full, and I had to make many more, but I can see that this summer will burst with colour and life outside, and when the many perenials that I planted out grow larger, it will fill the garden rapidly. I am also giving more and more attention to the lawn, which is quite difficult and hard work to get sorted.

2001-03-07: Got my first feedback from people on the Garden Scrapbook on the web - they say it is great.

2001-03-04: Spent much time to integrate my Garden Scrapbook with the family home page.  Then published all of it on the web.

2001-02-26: Today I contemplated how much I learnt in the past two years. I am starting to identify plants much easier, remembering at least the names of some, have successfully propagated some plants (and lost many), and flowing with the rhythm of garden.

2000-12-26: Today I have recreated my garden book - and called it ‘My garden Scrapbook’. Much have happened since the last entry in my diary, 2 May 1999. I will endeavor to fill in some of the blanks to record the many exciting events and learning through the past year. I have learnt much, both in terms of gardening, and how to work on the internet. Thus, this diary is now maintained in my electronic garden scrapbook, on the internet.  You will find many pictures and other details in the pages to my scrap book.

1999-12-20: I created a garden library, including my diary in access, spent much time in loading plant names, details of where they are located, and also updated my diary.  To my utter disgrace the whole file with all the content is lost, and that was the end of recording detail for this year.

1999-05-02: The plants is now growing everywhere and the big challenge will be to ‘organise’ the garden. It has become completely overgrown with many things everywhere and not in any real order. It is really not doing very well from that perspective. So I think a big challenge is going to be to organise and sort out the plants in all the different directions, making detail notes of what needs to happen where.

1998-11-01: This weekend was the start of the recreation of my great love for gardening. In coming to the UK, the one thing that attracted me immensely to Foxgloves was the beautiful garden and the potential that it had. I knew that I had to get something that will take my thoughts completely off work, and everything else, something that I can loose myself in, and decided to recreate that in my love for gardening. The reality is that I know very little, and that I feel somewhat stupid about it, but it is something that I will pursue with passion, and can see myself developing over many years. It is between me and the garden.

1998-11-01: I need to find a way to organise my thoughts, make notes of what I see and experience, and record some of the tips, tricks, and information that I gather from all over. My biggest challenge is to remember the plant names, and being able to identify the plants