Greetings and garden oddities

Hi I am new here (obviously) and hail from Staffordshire. Moved into my house about two years ago and I am really enjoying having a garden of my own for the first time. It is a 1930's house and the garden was semi-wild when we took it over and is still a work in progress. One thing though looking out of my window this morning I noted that all the gardens around have the exact same established plants. They all have a Rhododendron (I suspect Cunninghams pink), a forsythia, a holly, a large fushia and a lilac. I wonder if these are the vestiges of some 30's planting scheme that came with the new houses or if they were just fashionable at the time?

 

welcome to g.c athens

 

Hi Antheus (how did you get lost?) welcome to GC. It is possible that the plants are a hangover from some years ago. Certainly all those plants were fashionable in the 30s but then they've never gone out of fashion. I don't know if a fuchsia would last that long though. Perhaps someone else can tell you.

 

I think a lot of people look at their neighbours' gardens and like the look of the plants so follow suit. My walk to the train station is punctuated by more hydrangeas than I've ever seen before. A road up near Osterley Park House has maybe a dozen mature Magnolia x soulangeana trees in the front of the houses.

Welcome to GC!

 

I actually went to horticultural college many years ago as a day release from work. After training me up my employers issued cutbacks which effectively removed any aspects of horticulture from the job and lost the contract on the sports ground I was maintaining. I am only now rediscovering my lost knowledge which has somewhat atrophied over the years.
Not really sure how long a fuschia would last. The one I have has obviously been there a long time and I would guess has spread from an original plant which is no longer there.
It is brilliant to have a garden to work on though )

 

Hmm that smiley when a bit weird

 

to Sarraceniac
I like your Roger Kettle cartoons. What size are the images you up load? Then I could post up my own strips.

 

I convert my cartoon strips to .gif format. That way they only take up about 50k.

 

John do you still remember the 30s? :D

 

Antheus,welcome to GC hope you enjoy,

 

Thanks Kathy

 

Do you know what the pixel dimensions are? So I can resize.

 

I use 600 width by 216 height at 96 dpi.

 

Hi Antheus and welcome to GC.

 

Hi Daisy
raining here now which is good as I fed the lawn yesterday.