Friday, April 4, 2008

THE DEMISE OF THE CLEMATIS

There's a great heap of stars in my garden.

I've taken the clematis down.

The wind, Ceres, Robert and Cadis finally did for it - so the snails have lost their home.

Suddenly there's light.

The dark glossy leaves have been eating up sun - but now . . .

now it's a skeleton with thin bits of new-growth on top - all wispy.

Like the apple.

(The shape. Not the wispy bits. The apple hasn't got wispy bits.)

Didcott is making a fuss. He says we've forgotten his birthday.

(Birthday?)

Worthing has gone back to ten for the day - specially to help him complain.

They want us to take Mrs Rustbridger's grandson to town and go to a café and eat chips (to celebrate).

So . . .

What I want to know is this - why are seed leaves so different from those which follow?
and - how can I propagate Bay?
.

_____

4 comments:

Barbee' said...

I wish I could write like you (sigh); yours is delightful. As for your questions: bay can be propagated by cuttings, but they must be taken with a bayonet or else they won't take. Leaves: now we see it this way, then we see them that way, but they really are all the same - we just see them differently - to make us ask questions.

Colleen Franklin said...

I do know that the seed leaves have all the nutrients in them that the plant requires (I think I heard that they don't photosynthesize-is that right?) until the true leaves emerge and take over with photosynthesis. I was taught to always handle a seedling by the seed leaf, not the stem, for the accidental loss of a seed leaf is nothing to the loss of the stem (the seed leaf is going to drop off anyway.) So why are they so different? Does it have to do with the shape of a seed? Sometimes in the cross-section of a seed you can see the nacent seed leaves. I'm casting around here, I really don't know!

Colleen Franklin said...

Good stellar imagery with the clematis, by the way. Did Ming want to plant red things to remind him of his red home planet?

Zoë said...

Imagine by the shape of the leaves in your sketches, its Clematis armandii you have taken down? I love the smell of the flowers, but it is a bit of a thug and need a big space. I valued it for its evergreen leaves too, but in the end gave it the chop, because it was in danger of making a bid for world domination - and it isn't even a Bush hehe!

I assumed you meant Bay as in culinary herb. There's some useful tips on propogation here: http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_september_3_bay2.asp