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First aid tricks for trailing vines

Even after all these years of using this computer I still lose things, such as the first portion of the article for the next issue of the newspaper.

I know it’s in there somewhere, but no way am I going to be able to access it, I’m just too baffled by all the steps you’d need to go through to find it. I have tried for the past 15 minutes without success, so what to do? Start again I guess, and I won’t spend any more time weeping (and cussing) over my loss. I gave the computer a good smack, but all that did was hurt my hand, but I think it made me feel a little better.

A warning is possibly in order right now. It is still too cold to put out things like geranuims.

Buy them while the selection is still good, but keep them inside on a window sill where they will get good light until the weather is warmer. I talked to a woman who said she had to scrape her car windows before she left for work. It is cool, man.

Yesterday was a great day for me. Cher arrived for lunch bringing me two varieties of lettuce seed, some peat pellets, some delectable looking goodies, some just-picked rhubarb, and a reasonably good appetite. And she put together the deck-sized greenhouse she had given me for Christmas. It is now standing on the balcony weighted down with a bag of potting soil (I don’t want it blowing away).

In it I already have two pots of lettuce seed, my sprouted begonia tubers, and a pot of lilies just breaking through the soil. I’ve left the front open for the day which is sunny, but will zip it down this evening, so things will remain cozy overnight. What fun!

My grand plans to plant the clematis at one end, and the honeysuckle at the other end of the railing on the balcony has come to a grinding halt. That railing is iron, and the balcony faces due west, so during summer days will get very hot.

I have given it serious thought, and decided the railing will have to be covered with some sort of soft cloth wound round like a bandage, and since at one time I used elastic bandages (and still have them) wouldn’t they do the trick? When the plants get going they will be hidden, and if they do show, and people enquire what they are, I can pretend I just didn’t like the colour of the railing.

Helen Lang has been the Peninsula News Review’s garden columnist for more than 25 years.