Tuesday 10 June 2008

TRANSPARENCY STATEMENT














I do not wish to be accused of hypocrisy at a later date, so this afternoon I feel it is best to come out and make public my decision, made earlier today, to remove a rosemary bush from my property. 



I believe that my behaviour was entirely consonant with the new parliamentary guidelines on removal of rosemary and other plants of mediterranean origin. 



However I am aware that my actions, at this delicate time, might appear to have been out of keeping with the high standards that are expected of me as a candidate's election manager. 



I would like the following circumstances to be taken into consideration: 


1) The rosemary is dead. Kaput. A goner. Been eaten by rosemary beetles since the year before last, and is about ten years old into the bargain. 
















2) The removal of the rosemary makes loads more room for the cannas and the baby echiums that have seeded all over the muddyfungstering place.



3) I bought a new replacement rosemary at the weekend from a plant sale. 


















4) I took cuttings!





























 5) The said Cannas have really good Hungry Caterpillar holes in their nice green leaves, and the kids in my street really like the Hungry Caterpillar. (me too.) Bringing new meaning to the phrase "full transparency". 

7 comments:

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Alex Johnson said...

Are there really such things as rosemary beetles? I'm shocked.

emmat said...

Are you kerrrraaazzeeeeyy? They eat everything, they are totally evil. They are this brilliant zingy green-black, which totally camouflages them, and they do that lily beetle thing of suicide-jumping onto the ground as soon as they hear you coming, so you have no chance to squish them.

I spent the whole of last summer shaking the bush then stepping on them on the pavement. They completely stripped it. They do it to rosemary too.

Evidently you are only safe if you are surrounded by a 10ft high brick wall - the only place locally which remains untainted is Kew Gardens...

VP said...

I've actually had to go out rosemary beetle collecting in Mallorca in the interests of nature conservation!

emmat said...

tell us more! That sounds really interesting. How come? Which bit of nature were you conserving, the rosemary or the beetles?

Arabella Sock said...

I've got the rosemary beetle too - it turned up in 2006 on my lavender but quickly migrated to the sage. Despite the rosemary being next to the sage in my herb bed they don't seem bothered with it. They don't actually seem to do much damage (yet) although I removed about 15 from the sage a month or so ago.