Most weeks of the year a broken broom handle or 2 turns up in or beside our communal rubbish bins. Greek women must clean hard.
Most of the broken handles are fairly light hollow metal tube ones and they seem to break close to where they'd join the mop or broom they had been driving.
F and other 'women of mature years' who poke about in the garden out front use the broomsticks to stake up plants - like the sunflowers leaning at rakish angles. They amass a collection of the broken broomsticks only to have them suddenly disappear - cleared, we assume, by one of the scrap metal collectors who sees not plant stakes but a wasting money source.
Wooden handles hang about a bit longer but they seem to be fewer and far between.
This Spring someone sowed a few seeds around the edge of the garden. The plants that emerged looked, at first, like runner beans. It soon became apparent that they were not and as they set about smothering the aloes, geraniums, rosebush, azalea and kumquat that were clinging to life in the corner of this challenging garden, F scavenged enough broomsticks to build a frame for the plants to climb on (and fortunately they took to it so well and so quickly they covered it before anyone coveted the metal that was holding them up)
....and look what we have now....
Looks a bit like Convolvulus ….some people call it Morning Glory
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteIpomoea!!! Or Morning Glory if you prefer. That stuff is rampant - but oh so beautiful. Anything that grows successfully is to be treasured... I do not subscribe to the call of some... "weed!!!" No, weeds are only homeless flowers. Now, like the stray cats, F has offered succour. Hugs and whiskeries, YAM-auntyxxx
Gorgeous colour. A great addition to your neighbourhood
ReplyDeletelovely flower and super idea to build that trellis. i much prefer wooden broom handles with straw from sweeping, the metal rusts really quickly here from our humidity. bob collects them and never uses them he says for just in case, and that has never happened. now that i am IN CHARGE of everything, i will put them in the recycle pick up.
ReplyDeleteI’ve broken a few handles myself. It’s good to hear I’m keeping up traditions
ReplyDeleteHere in the land of oz
Not sure what the flower is called but I have seen them here and they take over everywhere
I’d definitely pull it out before it sets seeds
Hi all - thank you for your comments. Yes we know it is Morning Glory, and regarded as a weed by many, but it isn't difficult to destroy (stop watering it will do that in this garden, pull 'em out works well) - in the meantime we enjoy the pretty flowers, and the green is refreshing. And anything that covers the ground and reduces the moisture evaporation rate at this time of year is also a good thing (despite the fact that locals seem to prefer scrapped bare earth.... we can't seem to keep any earth protecting mulch in place. Within days of mulching it has been scrapped aside and thrown into a bin).
ReplyDelete