Show us your recent purchases.

I sowed them, and covered with vermiculite, in a shallow pan on ... [checks spreadsheet - how nerdy is that?!] ... 19-Jan. I put the Pan in the unheated, but frost-free, conservatory to "stratify". Pricked out a few weeks ago - they were decent sized seedlings by then.

 

I have think its just your common Angelica? have had plants up to 7ft tall!!! and always covered in all sorts of insects, I swapped the seed on a swapshop, it seeds around like a triffid given a chance, I do love it but much prefer the one you've bought Spruce,love the colour, am I right in saying the seed doesn't germinate well if stored and best sown fresh, seem to remember the lady I swapped with telling me that, every year I say I'm going to have a go at candied Angelica but still haven't got round to it , anyone else ever done it? haven't seen any in the supermarkets for years.

 

If it flowers ? I should imagine it does I will put you on the top of the list for seeds.

Its had VIP planting so should romp way, its the only one they had the lady told me at the nursery and she knew straight away I was a keen gardener just by me choosing it and just walking past all the other "normal plants" that every body else goes for to be honest at one point I thought she was going to tell me I coudnt have it but the colour of my ££ soon changed that .
Spruce

 

Aaaaw thankyou Spruce
I bet it'll get huge with all that manure mine don't get that treatment and are still massive, don't forget the picture when it flowers

 

Quite a lot of my plants wind up with RIP planting

 

I may have accidentally on purpose bought another two Rhododendrons
I bought a Rhododendron Rabatz and a deciduous Azalea Anneke

I also bought a couple of Mahonias from another site.

 

Hi just ordered 3 Assam orange hedychiums. Have no idea where they are going to go mind you. Garden is quite full already and still got loads to plant

 

Just Googled it and it's a striking looking plant!

 

Recently when I was shopping in Tesco, I saw a pot of rosemary in the reduced produce box due to reaching its 'display until' date. After a bit a hesitation, since I wasn't sure if these 'living herbs' had any proper roots at all, I decided to take a gamble as it now only cost £1.29 and our own rosemary bush died suddenly last month so a replacement plant was needed.
On returning home, I gave the pot a good watering, then the following day I separated the plants into individual pots and pinched out their growing tips. The plants have settled down very nicely and I now have 4 very healthy bushy plants.

 

Geranium phaeum "Samobor" for the shady spot.......................


It's a good sized plant and cost just £1.50 from a local couple who sell plants outside their house for charity...............

 

That looks lovely, longk, and a definite bargain to boot!

 

I have had Canon PowerShot cameras since 2005, maybe earlier. An A70 then, followed by an S3 both of which died a death at some point. I then treated myself to a more chunky "bridge" SX30 - which was intended to bridge between Compacts and SLRs. I loved it ... The software that came with them suited me too.

Quite by accident I stupidly read a review of the SX50 HS on Sunday. Silly me ... it arrived in the post on Tuesday Blinking amazing. You'd struggle to get it into a pocket, unless you were wearing a coat with poacher's pockets!, but its no bigger or heavier than the previous one and the features are remarkable.

The "50" in SX50 refers to the lens which zooms to x50 optically (and x100 digitally). That's 24mm to 1200mm in old money. I can remember buying a 100mm-300mm zoom lens for my SLR back in the 70's or 80's and thinking that was impressive. Pah!

It also has some pretty impressive image stabilisation which means you can use it at full zoom (in good light) hand held without a tripod. Here ... I'm dying to show you

These are uncropped images - i.e. exactly what you see in the viewfinder (just reduced to 800 x 600 to upload here, and image quality/size reduced too), so this is the full frame.



24mm wide angle mode. See the statue at the end of the path?



this is full optical zoom

and this:



is full Digital zoom.

Needless to say it has a few other features to play with too

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-powershot-sx50-hs

 

Very impressive!! Even that digital zoom is pretty sharp.

We also have a Powershot A70 which we still use occasionally because I think it has got a good lens but the postage stamp size viewing screen is a definite limitation.

We bought a Lumix FZ28 18* zoom a couple of years ago and thought at the time that it was fantastic but that just gave us a taste for trying to take photos of things further and further away.

A few days ago we were in Currys/PC World and were idly browsing the cameras (we went in to look at microwave ovens!) when a Canon in-store representative came up and started chatting. He showed us the SX50 as well as an SLR kit which was on "special offer" but we didn't make a decision to purchase at the time. We're definitely not impulse buyers!

One of the limitations of our Lumix is its abilities to take good macro photos as it's often difficult to focus on things very close up. Have you tried your new Canon yet on close-ups?

 

I too have the Lumix ZX 28 plus an extra long lens thingy and agree that the macro shots are difficult but long range is good. I have an old Fuji Finepix that is excellent for those macro sort of shots.

Very interested in your new cam though Kirsten - would absolutely suit me as I love taking distance pics of the local birds we have round here. Well Jell !!! In fact so Jell I have looked on Ebay for a second hand one - might just treat myself - I definitely am an impulse buyer !!!. Thanks for sharing

S

 

That's the way that I see it!

Got to show this off - my order from Other Fellow Fuchsias..................


And the Salvia from them too (with the trusty Expert book for scale).............