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An open note to all Shops big and small,

An open note to all Shops big and small,

Please Think of the wheelchair user this christmas 

Don't leave boxes in the way ,we got to be-able to move around all this stuff 

i know you want to sell as much as you can ,but if i decide i can't get around your shop i won't buy anything !

So please think before you fill your floor space !!

A wheelchair user ........

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Posts

  • RIGHT GOT IT ON NOW  PHEW 

  • I do hate the way most garden centres seem to turn into Santa's Grottoes at this time of year.     But then, if it keeps them going, why should I complain?    I just avoid going to them until January.

  • I agree gardengirl6, I visit garden centres for gardening things not to meet elves. but over winter it cant be easy for them to turn a profit.image Roll on new year!!

  • pansy2pansy2 Posts: 28

    You are so lucky to have garden centres!  Be grateful and put up with grotty santas once a year.  Here we have "pepineristes".!  It's the same old, same old boring plants, the tried and tested , never anything new or interesting.  And they are closed on Sundays.  Most of the plants are pot bound and so dry you are taking a risk buying them.   Having said all that , in my local supermarket, i have just bought a camelia for 3 euros.  It is pot bound, very dry but desparately still alive.  I felt sorry for it so I bought it even though my soil is nuetral not acid so it's not going to be easy. Wish it luck please.

  • Hello Pansy2,

    To give your new camellia acid soil, you can plant it in a pot. Here's how to do it:

    http://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/pots-containers/trees-shrubs/camellia-pot-display/1143.html

    Camellias will take being in a pot quite well. Don't let it dry out in the summer though as they need plenty of moisture when forming flower buds.

    'Rescue plants' are always fun. You get a great sense of achievement having made something of a plant that other people couldn't be bothered with. Does anybody else have a habit of rescuing plants?

    Emma

    gardenersworld.com team

  • My best rescue was a bamboo from reception at the school where I worked. It got thrown out when it started to look a bit tatty. I took it home and it grew well for several years, looking lovely by the pond. Then one day,  disastrously, I saw it was starting to flower. (I read somewhere that some bamboos were all clones from a single specimen brought to this country, and so all tended to flower at the same time as they were the same age. Don't know if this is true though.)
    However, when the old plant was sadly dying, I was delighted to find some seeds and planted them. I now have another lovely bamboo which is the offspring of the original one.

  • SFordSFord Posts: 224

    My best bargain was four very sorry looking twigs which were sold 'box plants' at Asda.  On sale for 99p each.  About 4 years later they are very impressive looking box balls in my garden just over a foot in diameter each.

    Made the mistake a couple of years ago by popping to my local garden centre on the very day that santa was arriving to take up residence in his grotto.  Was inside for approximately 30 seconds before deciding that hoards of excitable children were not conducive for a gentle wander and quiet cup of tea!  (Nothing against excitable children generally, just not when I want to relax with a bit of retail therapy!).  However, I did get trapped in the car park and had to wait for the sleigh to depart before I could leave!

  • SFordSFord Posts: 224

    I agree.  I have been to events with a friend on crutches.  People are very impatient and careless - I have had to catch her a few times as people have pushed by and caught her crutch from under her on the way past.

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,064

    I went to Chelsea 2013 in a wheelchair as my new feet weren't yet up to a day on crutches.  Most people were incredibly kind and helpful about letting me get to the front to see gardens and displays both outside and in the floral marquee but some were really stupid and unpleasant.   I also found most of the big gardens very difficult to see from wheelchair height and one had actually put up a bar fence at wheelchair eye height!

    Negotiating the tube was an eye opener - plenty of stations with lifts but all still with some stairs to negotiate before getting to the platform.  If I'd been a real invalid it would have been impossible.

    Earlier on I went to a big building and renovation exhibition in Brussels and found most of the exhibits inaccessible because of narrow accesses or hard to negotiate bumps up where they had installed fancy flooring.   Negotiating Antwerp on crutches in sleet and snow wasn't fun either with people rushing past and knocking me off balance.

    Viewing the world at general bum height is an eye opener too but for other reasons!

    I know old buildings can be hard to convert but all new and recent buildings designed for public access from offices to shops to museums, cafés, restaurants and so forth really need to take disabled access and toilets into account right from the start.   Disability could happen to any of us on a temporary or permanent basis and is hard enough to cope with without unnecessary obstacles and lack of consideration from others.

    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
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