ALL DEALS 
February 6, 2016 Punjab bypoll is now a one-horse race
Photo Credit: Narinder Nanu/AFP 17.4K Total Views It was being seen as a semi-final, an acid test for the main contenders before the Punjab assembly elections next year. But the Khadoor Sahib assembly bypoll is now turning out to be a damp squib, with two of the three major parties pulling out of the contest. […]
ALL DEALS February 6, 2016 What flight attendants really think about when they first greet you
Photo Credit: Tom Purves/Flickr 15.5K Total Views I’ve been a flight attendant for 25 years. Greeting passengers at the door requires concentration on several levels. Of course the objective is to make you feel welcome and comfortable, but that’s only one aspect. While I’m trying to give that impression, I’m evaluating you very closely, and […]
ALL DEALS February 6, 2016 David Cameron is to blame- Indians are falling out of love with British universities
Photo Credit: Pool New/Reuters 4.6K Total Views A record number of Indian students are enrolling for higher education in the US – in just two years, it rose by 71% to 181,051. But the trend’s been just the opposite for the UK. In the last five years, the number of Indian students opting for British […]
February 4, 2016 Hepaticas: early spring jewels
Petal power: Hepatica flowers come in all shapes and sizes. Photograph: Michael Myers Robbie Blackhall-Miles Alongside the first of the green-flowered hellebores and the early flowers of thefetid adders tongue, hidden among the white canvas of snowdrops in the woodland garden, there grows a plant that takes some closer inspection. Hepatica transsilvanica(dark form). Photograph: Michael […]
February 4, 2016 Alys Fowler: variegation isn’t always a bad thing
‘What about that nice variegated Solomon’s seal?” I point to a lovely patch outside a Greenwich brownstone as we wander about Manhattan. “Surely that’s an acceptable variegation.” “Nope,” my friend says emphatically. “I do not like variegation.” (“I do not likegreen eggs and ham,” I whisper to myself out of earshot.) I point at […]
February 4, 2016 Gardens: plants that live on air
Something in the air: Tillandsia plants have specialised hair-like structures on their leaves that act like sponges. Photograph: Alamy James Wong Over the past 20 years, a growing body of scientific evidence has suggested that simply being around plants can have an important impact on mental and physical health. Even while sitting at your desk, […]
February 4, 2016 Gardens: all hail the vulcan palm
Branching out: the stately vulcan palm. Photograph: Joel Sartore/Getty Images/National Geographic Creative James Wong For houseplant obsessives like me, offerings in garden centres can be a bit samey. In the face of two decades of declining sales, retailers are sticking to an ever-shrinking palette of safe options. But every so often you come across a […]
February 4, 2016 Gardens: chamomile lawn
Gardening can be expensive. Even if you side-step the ready-grown plants at the garden centre and start from scratch, some seeds can cost as much as £1 each (think F1 hybrid tomatoes). Others, such as the tiny dust-like seeds of begonias, can literally sell for more than their weight in gold. For plant geeks on […]
February 4, 2016 Gardens: grow a mini grove
As an urban gardener with a tiny plot to play with, poring over the fruit tree sections of the gardening catalogues can verge on heartbreaking. But if you long to fit more in than the textbooks recommend, a novel technique adopted from commercial agriculture called high-density planting might be your salvation. The idea is simple: […]
February 4, 2016 Gardens: drug therapy for plants
With spring just around the corner, now is a great time to get an early start on taking hardwood cuttings, like figs and roses, as well as sowing seeds of long-season crops, such as chillies and aubergines. If you are keen to up your chances in the dark days of February, there is an easy […]
HOME & GARDEN 
February 4, 2016 Flower power: the gardens that caused modern art to bloom
In Seebüll, in the northernmost German state of Schleswig-Holstein, not far from the Danish border, the wind ruffles the reeds of the low-lying marshes reclaimed from the sea. The trees bend on the horizon like crouching animals. A low autumnal sun gleams over barrel-shaped red barns. All is quiet. The man who made Monet: how […]
February 4, 2016 Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse review – ravishing visions
Renoir painted Monet painting his garden in 1873. The two pictures hang next to each other at the start of this exhibition. With their abundance of red dahlias and creamy clouds, their blue-shuttered houses and soft summer light, each painting looks remarkably like the other – except that where Renoir portrays his friend, Monet is […]
