Hydrangeas & uranium

The hydrangeas are just about finished – they were beautiful this year and kept flowering for months.

I've been looking into creating a Second World War era "Victory Garden" for Floriade this Sept/Oct - in the course of my work yesterday I came across an interesting gardening tip that I read in the Australian Women's Weekly 1943 - to bring back colour to your washed out hydrangeas "if you can get hold of it" use uranium – it "works wonders". Chemicals were a whole new wonder back then and if people could get hold of them over those war years they would use them - luckily for that generation (and the next) such things were in short supply.

Everything looks a bit hot and bothered at present in my garden – it’s a full sun garden and could do with a bit more shade. On the fruit front one of my black grape vines is ripening and my pears won’t be too much longer.

I don't know how I managed to do it but I’ve used more than 10,000 litres of water on the garden in the last month - I emptied my tank which was completely full twice - that doesn't include all the emptying that I did when we had all that rain. I'm using town water now and am much more conservative.