Neem Oil - Who Knew?

Last week was all about research, a number of people had asked me recently if I knew how to stop box blight or other infestations, unfortunately I had no idea. Some google research led me to the natural Gardener an organic, sustainable, biodegradable couple who are just “growing nature’s way”. On their website they sang the praises of Neem Oil (for virtually everything, including shampooing your pets). I remember Neem Oil being recommended for a particularly resilient bout of nits in my younger daughter’s hair, it worked but the smell was rather pungent. I spoke to the natural Gardener and ordered a trial bottle as well as some coir pots. If you want to come and get some Neem Oil we’ll have it in next week. As I was ordering I found out that supplies of coir pots are coming intermittently from Asia the supply and production have been affected by Corona with organisations opened one week and closed the next. I told him that I’d been collecting very few flowers from my normal supermarkets and he said that the usual Eastern European labour who would plant and pick cut flowers wasn’t here for our lockdown. I did remember Prince Charles’s heartfelt plea for people to come and pick and I’d romanticised about a new era of the Land Army unaware of the outrage he’d sparked on Twitter but now I wondered just how many people had answered his call. Our floral misery is further compounded by the fact that Colombia, Ecuador and Kenya’s flower producers for the high end and mass market are all struggling with transport and safety issues. According to The Florist Magazine some experts are predicting it won’t be until early August that Dutch chrysanthemum production is back to normal and as they are the staple flower of funerals they’ve been described as the new “gold”. So with all this in mind you can imagine my surprise when I was asked to drop in to Morrisons yesterday to collect their surplus flowers (see picture) and plants. Have a great week. Ursula