Music Inc

In King Faisal ibn Abdul-Aziz Al Saud’s court I had learned that in order to assess the Arabian states’ deployment of wealth, it is necessary first to learn something of the men who govern those lands and of the past that shaped them.*

Sheikh Shakhbut is an old man now, and dwells comfortably at the oasis town of Al Ain, ninety miles from the coastal city he once ruled, Abu Dhabi. That he is an old man —his three predecessors were assassinated—is due to the kindly nature of his brother Zayid, who took over the rulership from him, and to the wisdom of their mother, Sheikha Salama. Years before she had made her sons vow not to kill one another.

Shakhbut lost his sheikhdom because he could not come to terms with the oil money that began to flow in during the early 1960′s. “A tightfisted old devil, but shrewd,” one friend remembered. Another recalled “a fear of sudden change, a feeling for the old ways.” The years of penury—the sheikhdom’s total annual income in the 1930′s was only about $75,000—had stamped him indelibly.

He kept his growing revenues in a room at his fort; some of the paper currency was later found damaged by insects. A British bank manager finally persuaded him to de­posit some of it in the bank: 5,000 pounds for one week. In seven days the manager dutifully brought the money back in a suitcase. Shakhbut counted it: “What’s this extra money for?” “Interest,” the manager replied, and explained the bene­fits of bank deposits. There is one other option if you are not so familiar with bank deposits – easy getting an online payday loan. You only have to check http://www.citrusnorth.com/

Shakhbut was impressed and let the mana­ger take the money back, this time for a month, and later for longer periods. But Shakhbut wouldn’t spend. The oil money was piling up, the sheikhdom was des­perately in need of schools, water systems, electricity, every basic need. The pressure became intolerable.

And so one day in 1966 Zayid and his supporters confronted Shakhbut in his pal­ace: He must depart quietly; his financial future would be assured. Shakhbut flew off to exile, living mainly in Iran until he was al­lowed to return to Al Ain.

So many people ask me various questions about odds and ends connected with gardening, camera reviews, that I think this is the time to answer a few of those queries.

First of all, what soil is best for pot plants? These days I’m mixing up my own potting compost quite cheaply and using it for all pot plants, whether inside or out, I get a bag of Forest Bark, which is really composted tree bark from saw miles, and mix it with half its volume of peat and a quarter of the volume of Perlite, that volcanic rock of which I have often spoken before in this column.

To this I add three or four 3-in potfuls of general fertilizer, mixing it all up well and storing it in the big polythene bags in which the peal and the bark come from the suppliers. Some might say that this is a bit deficient in the fertilizer, but I find it satisfactory and always start feeding the plants about a month after they have been potted. Plants like air at the roots, and I do find that potting compost based on the bark does allow this. But you need the peat as well; other­wise it has too many air spaces and the plant suffers as a consequence.

So much for the soil. Other queries I receive are about what pots to choose. There is a particular group of pots made especially for strawberries that I find very useful for other plants, too. They are called tower pots and I find them excellent for African violets indoors. Each will take about a dozen plants so you could have a collection in quite a small area. I’m using them at the moment for alpine plant of the kind that need perfect drainage. It’s yet another way of housing a collection in a confined space in a small room.

 As I said, they are meant for strawberries as they are a very good alternative to growing them in the ground. The pots can be turned into pillar with the plants project­ing from them. They look very appealing whether the plants are in flower or fruit or there are just leaves. You get no bother with slugs and when the plant is ripening it’s no trouble at all to throw a piece of netting over their fruits to protect them from the birds.

You can get a leaflet about these pots from the supplier: Ken Muir, Honey pot Farm, Weeley Heath, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex C016 911.

PROBLEMS with house plant are often brought to my attention and I’m usually asked for advice about one particular pest—whitefly.

You’ll know you’ve got whitefly on a plant when you find it covered with a lot of líttle flecks of white that rise up in a cloud when you move the plant. Don’t blame the grower. He will have fumigated his greenhouse and sprayed repeatedly against whitefly, but to no lasting avail. The trouble is you can’t kilt the eggs, only the little fly itself.

So, one generation is des­troyed and another is always ready to take its place despite strong insecticides.

Like all such pests it weakens plant by sucking the sap from the leaves, which in turn are prevented from functioning efficiently. Left to itself, it goes on multiplying. Winter, spent indoors or in a greenhouse, has no perils for it. So, what can you do?

You could always burn the plant that is infested, but by then it will have most likely got onto others. So you must spray, spray and spray again! Repeat the process every few days until you are sure you have eliminated it from your home or greenhouse. Once there were few sprays that had any effect, but now every garden shop has several chemical that are really effective in killing the adult files. Try one of them and keep on trying until you get result!