BCSS Macclesfield & East Cheshire Branch

Newsletter September 2005 - Chairman’s chat

Just a short note from me this Newsletter as I’ve been pretty preoccupied the last couple of weeks with my other half not being so well and he had a spell in hospital while they were doing some tests. He was discharged on Monday and I’ve been running around like a demented Tasmanian devil (I don’t look quite the same, I hope)

We have been lucky with the weather this year and have had a good crop of tomatoes and mini-cucumbers in our greenhouse. There are some "demoted" cacti in there also, along with assorted tortoises, and some of the plants I thought had died, suddenly sprung into life. I had a very old scruffy looking ?? (not sure) which has decided to put a single yellow flower on top, quite a surprise, and a succulent that my auntie gave me several years ago which lived in the conservatory for a while - never flowering - got demoted to the greenhouse because I got fed up picking up the dropped leaves. It has flowered beautifully in the greenhouse - just goes to show!

As you may know, I don’t have a lot of flowering cacti but my Parodia is flowering again. I have a couple of Stapelias (not our Editor’s favourite). Geoff H gave me an interesting tree like plant a while ago and it’s going mad. I may have to build an extension for it - it’s called a Brachytrichon. Also, an unusual plant I bought from Chris Hynes now has two shoots, having had just the one originally. It’s called Amorphophallus kunjac. I can’t wait for the flower on that one, it’s supposed to be "interesting".

Well I’m going to finish there. My parrot is having a mad moment, chucking bits of fruit and nuts he doesn’t want at me. He thinks it’s a good game. The more I pick them up, the more he throws back out.

Hope you’re all enjoying the lovely weather, it makes such a difference, doesn’t it?

So long for now,

Christine Foye