Flowers & foliage August 2023

lesley & grindle , thanks very much & I'm glad you like them!

This is turning out to be the best year for some years for Morning Glory! I just hope, & pray, we don't get too much wind in the coming month or two as we had one year at least, some years ago. We had a bad storm & the wind brought my beautiful display down to the ground. I could have cried!  

I have used new string tied to the top of the balcony railings & to a wire that goes along the length of the balcony above. I have tried other much stronger materials in the past, including one year steel reinforced washing line! That was far too hard & didn't give the results I get with string. It was impossible to cut to length & I ended up looping it around the top of the railings & over the wire above. The plastic coating on the washing line just slipped along the wire above & I had to tie each length to the wire with string to stop them sliding around! A lot of strenuous work! Especially when you don't have a ladder & have to use a chair!

Besides I have to think of what might happen if there were a fire that stopped us getting out of the flat. Being on the ground floor we could go over the balcony railings but if the supports for the climbers can't be easily cut to allow us out in an emergency then we might be in very real trouble! Since I started thinking of that possibility I've gone back to using string! I keep a couple of pairs of scissors on the edge of a hanging basket that can be easily reached from the balcony floor in an emergency to cut the strings & the stems of the climbers.