Head of Regional Agency at Strutt & Parker, Guy Robinson, shares his top tips to ensure you get the most from your open house day In an age of online house hunting, don’t be misled into thinking buyers won’t take up an open house day opportunity. From looking online, to viewing a property in person […]
The post Top tips to prepare for an open house appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.
Here are four good ways to help plants withstand outside attacks – all cheap, easy to apply and natural
Plants are amazing things. Tethered to the spot, unable to run or hide from environmental threats, they have instead developed an arsenal of chemical weapons to help shield themselves from the everyday onslaught of the outside world. With a few tips and tricks you can hijack these defence compounds and put them to use with the other plants in your plot to help them withstand almost everything the summer might throw at them. Here are my top four favourites.
I have yet to meet a gardener who has not bemoaned the night-time raids of slugs and snails. Fortunately, nature has a simple solution. Allicin is a defence compound created by garlic bulbs which both repels and kills slugs and snails. To harness this, simply put a bulb of garlic in a litre of water and blitz it in a food processor. Leave to stand for 10 minutes for the chemical reaction that creates allicin to complete, then strain off the solids and pour the liquid into a spray bottle. OK, as you might have guessed, this stuff does have rather a strong salad dressing smell, but has proven incredibly effective for me – much more so than turning my garden blue with slug pellets. All you need to do is spray it liberally over the plants you find most susceptible just as night begins to fall.
Continue reading...When a kestrel comes early to sit on our poles and scan the site, it feels like a benediction
The fox trots. Notices me. Stops. Stands, framed by stairs. It looks at me inquisitively. We share a moment. It is early morning. I am no threat as yet. It turns, no hurry, takes cover. We are still. It sneaks a peek through a gap in the leaves to see if I am still there. We are both unconcerned. Reassured I mean no harm, it moves off through the allotments.
The blackbird alarm call had alerted me. Indignant shouting, not song; warning off the predator from its low-hanging nest. I see the fox many mornings now: it’s young, fluffy, bushy-tailed. The patch of scattered pigeon feathers signals its early activity.
Continue reading...Moving to Morocco fired an LA couple’s passion for making tiles with a modern twist
When Caitlin Dowe-Sandes and her husband, Samuel, first moved to Marrakech 12 years ago, they lived in an 18th-century house that could only be accessed via a mosque. “We wanted to be in the medina,” says Dowe-Sandes. “It felt like the right place to experience authentic Marrakech.” Their nail-studded front door was adjacent to the prayer hall. Each morning before dawn, they were woken by the muezzin’s call to prayer. “It was a special house with a real soul, but if you’re living in the medina, you need a reprieve from the madness of the souk,” she says. As the pair worked on their first home – “diminishing the patterns and the colour palette” – the idea for a new business, and with it an entirely new life, began to emerge.
The couple arrived in Marrakech from Los Angeles in 2006 for a year-long sabbatical. “We were mid-life, mid-career, and we thought we should have a new experience.” Caitlin worked in PR, Samuel in film. “We decided on Marrakech a bit haphazardly,” she admits. Neither had been to the city before, but they both spoke French and had an appreciation of Moroccan food and design.
Continue reading...
