I Thought I Would Put A Couple Of Horticultural Post On The Blog Today,

starting with the old saying 'roses are red, violets are blue',

but in this case the roses have gone a bit technicolour, a Dutch businessman developed the roses by dyeing each bloom in the colours of the rainbow, the dyes are produced from natural plant extracts and are absorbed by the flowers as they grow, the happy flowers, as they are sometimes called in the UK are available at the 'Happy Roses' page,

the roses were designed/made/coloured by Peter Van de Werken, who owns a flower company close to Den Bosch in southern Holland, the firm sells only multi-coloured roses and chrysanthemums but is also looking to do pot plants, Mr Van de Werken, 36, said: 'We used to only sell single colour flowers but the market for them took a dip,' so I guess in times of financial trouble it pays to think out of the box,

but a much more sinister second part of this post, in a case of plant murder most foul, a deadly banned weed killer has deliberately been spread over tons of soil in the village of Cayton, North Yorkshire, the village of Cayton is a regular among Britain in Bloom finalists, but this year, a sinister mystery has left the community's gardeners distraught and may have shattered their hopes of further success this summer,

tests showed the substance was sodium chlorate, a weedkiller banned last year because it is too toxic for use by amateur gardeners, they say the devastating damage will cost up to £20,000 to put right because of the tons of contaminated soil that have to be removed, it is a case of 'who done it!'

Les Hutchinson, chairman of Cayton in Bloom, which last year won Yorkshire in Bloom for the third time, said: 'People have had little hassles with us in the past, obviously someone has got a downer on Bloom and they want to wreak havoc, the police are looking into one or two suspects.' a North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: 'It is very disturbing that someone has gone out of their way to commit such a calculating and malicious act, someone out there knows who is responsible.'

and there was me thinking that country life in a typical UK village was so uneventful! but in all seriousness, it was a rotten thing to do, even worse if a pet or child swallowed some.