Two years ago I told you so. Read Yellow Menace, one of my favourite posts from July 2016. A bit of Barmeath, a bit of Barons Court and a great number filmed on the Thames at the end.
Well it’s ragwort time again and the 2016 plants have reproduced in abundance. That’s the bad news. The good news is that they are contained by the mowing policy. Look at the mown grass on the middle-left of the picture and there is no trace of tansy ragwort – one of its more attractive monickers. I disapprove of ragwort because it’s a poisonous weed but on the other hand it is colourful and apparently brimful of nectar. The other really good news is that the Friends of Margravine Cemetery have managed to keep alive the whips and saplings they planted recently. I only noticed one fatality, I admire their diligence and feel a bit guilty that I don’t assist in the watering.
I told you so in April 2016, before the referendum, in A Delicious Paradox. I didn’t know that we would vote to leave the EU but I did know that if we did parliament would do everything to obstruct that decision. Wrongly, I imagined that In/Out was a binary decision but now we all know better. Well, it may be Out in which case we should be stockpiling comestibles but look on the bright side – those tasteless Dutch tomatoes won’t be on the shelves.
Really the world is going mad. Apparently almost everyone goes on the web to find an assassin for their spouse but this is a twist. A retired family doctor from Bournemouth is alleged to have turned to the internet to hire a hit-man to kill his financial adviser. He sought advice on his £1.8 million portfolio, did not follow the advice and lost £300,000. Even if he had followed the advice he could have lost £300,000, probably in fees. His financial adviser has been exonerated and most of the loss seems to be in tax penalties. If Dr Crichton is an idiot maybe we should feel sorry for him but he is a retired family doctor. Heaven knows what advice he gave to all those elderly widows in Bournemouth. I think his medical background should be investigated. This picture from The Times of the debonair doctor makes me suspicious of how he came by that £1.8 million but I should point out that Dr Crichton has been acquitted of attempting to solicit murder.
My own financial advisers are all “execution only” and the doctor should have opted for that.
https://youtu.be/P3A7B6qtUpU
AA Milne famously said ‘weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them’. Nevertheless I seem to be constantly fighting a losing battle against Jacobaea vulgaris. They are always more vigorous in the fields where the horses graze and, having tried the authors method of pulling them, I have resorted to the use of a herbicide: a good blast of Forefront does the trick. A more difficult problem has been the bindweed devouring the walled garden. I have spent a week trying to unbind it from the Virginia creeper.
Post Brexit, Britain will be the same garden- only minus the weeds.
It’s not a good idea to have it spreading indiscriminately, but ragwort has a definite place in the ecology of the British Isles as a host plant to the cinnabar moth and others. Whilst we don’t want it appearing in pasture land, grazed by cattle and horses, its real danger there is only when cut and dried as stock won’t eat it in its green state. We have a three pronged tool that digs it out very well (available from e.g. Ebay). A place like Margravine Cemetery, which is not grazed by any susceptible stock, is an ideal place to let it flourish.
Thank you for your informed comment and I’d like to buy some of your produce. However, I have searched the internet for Tod Hall Farms to no avail.