peony – derrickjknight

Flo’s Fairy Garden

As the temperature continued to rise and no rain fell on yet another very hot day, Jackie and I were relieved that we managed our gardening tasks in the earlier part of the day. While she occupied herself watering and planting, I, inhaling the glorious scents of the roses, weeded and dead-headed.

This peony, clearly self-seeded and flowering for the first time, without the strength to lift its head from the Brick Path, stretched out from the weeded area of the Dead End Path Bed. Gave it a lift with a green tie.

On the opposite side of the lawn, suspended from the peeling eucalyptus, Jackie has planted a cluster of mesembryanthemums in a basket.

Clematises and a day lily claimed their own gallery,

while roses, Paul’s Scarlet, Ballerina, The Generous Gardener, Mum in a Million, Summer Wine, Rosa Glauca, Special Anniversary, Winchester Cathedral, Félicité Perpétue, and Compassion (all entitled in the gallery) warranted their own;

it was appropriate for Hot Chocolate to reach her peak on such a day.

Later, Flo put some finishing touches to her delightful Fairy Garden, which will reward enlargement by clicking on one of the pictures.

This evening we dined on roast chicken thighs seasoned with garlic; sautéed new potatoes with onions; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts and flavoursome gravy, with which I drank Collin-Bourisset Fleurie 2021 and no-one else did.

Worth The Effort?

This afternoon, changing the category of the second to Garden, I converted these two posts from Classic to Block edits:

Scarecrows

The Name Of The Rose

Later I joined Jackie continuing watering and planting in the garden; my task was weeding and dead heading – she has provided me with a Helping Hand which enables me to reach sticky willies otherwise beyond my span.

I photographed a few roses to demonstrate that dead heading is worth the effort;

and a peony because I felt like it.

Hopefully the edit conversions are also worth the effort.

I am familiar with neither the sight nor sound of a hornet, so when Flo, at the first buzzing drone, dived under the dining table apparently shielding her daughter from an air raid, and Jackie cleared all food off the table as we began our meal of the mild curry leftovers, and went on the rampage with an insecticide spray, I didn’t react any more than I would at the sight of a bee or a wasp – on the premise that if you leave it alone, it will leave you alone – and our granddaughter, while the creature was sticking itself to the skylight above, and Mrs Knight was squirting toxic particles up at it, warned that it would land in my glass of Calvet Prestige Bordeaux 2020; suddenly, like a body thrown over a balcony onto a car below in a thriller movie, the writhing menace thumped onto the table beside the wine, to be scooped up by Jackie and tossed onto the patio – now named Rasputin, the creature refused to die and wriggles still as I draft this post.

New Heights

Before lunch Jackie and I swung gently into our matutinal garden

tasks – planting in her case; weeding and dead-heading in mine.

The yellow Welsh poppies are in regular need of decapitation.

When I ventured out with my camera this afternoon I made sure to neglect neither the

clematis Montana cascading over the front wall nor the established pink climbing rose festooning the trellis.

One of the owls I righted a couple of days ago was returned to its perch alongside the Shady Path while another peeps round a clump of campanula alongside the daisy-like Erigeron.

Some peonies remain at their best while others bear sculptural seed heads.

Other clematises include the close-up Doctor Ruppel and the one I cannot name sharing its arch with a blue solanum. Magenta valerian is a focus of the Cryptomeria Bed; Leather leaf viburnum stands in shade beneath the copper beech; irises thrive in the West Bed; and these aquilegias are found in the Rose Garden, of which

these are further views, the last of which contains

both Gloriana and For Your Eyes Only.

Meanwhile Arthur Bell has reached new heights this year.

This evening we all dined on tender roast lamb; crisp Yorkshire pudding; boiled new potatoes; carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli al dente, and meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Moerbei.

Garden From 2014 To Today

This morning I converted the following posts from Classic to Block edits, changing the categories of Fag Ends and Gauntlet to Garden:

The Siren Deer

Fag Ends

Tales From The Window Sills

The Gauntlet

A walk in the garden sunshine this afternoon produced

these photographs, each of which bears a title in the gallery. In particular we have rhododendrons, peonies, aquilegias, wisteria, ajuga, and ferns; and I must point out that the shrub with clusters of white flowers is not a philadelphus as I recently incorrectly named it, but a viburnum plicatum.

The featured image did not exist in 2014.

Beckie joined us this afternoon to stay for a few days.

At 7.30 p.m. Jackie is preparing mozzarella sticks, halloumi cheese, and salad to accompany her own baked potatoes and Flo’s coronation chicken for us all to eat on plates on our knees while watching the Eurovision Song Contest which Dillon and I have been prevailed upon to watch for the first time in our lives.

Summer Time

Just before lunch I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/05/18/a-knights-tale-133-the-official-welcome/

This afternoon, while Jackie and Flo toured the garden centres in successful search of trailing plants for hanging baskets, I pulled up a few weeds and photographed

some of our flowers, all of which are titled in the gallery.

The New Wheel Inn is the now privately owned and refurbished incarnation of the Wheel Inn Community Pub, our favourite which was a casualty of the first Covid lockdown. This evening we dined there. The changes to the building are minimal, but all fresh, clean, and in keeping with the original.

We dined there this evening. Food and service were good. I chose sirloin steak with all the trimmings which was cooked as I had asked; Jackie’s main course was meaty belly of pork with perfect crackling and green cabbage; Flo’s, fish, chips, and peas. Flo and I each followed this with orange bread and butter pudding with brandy custard; Jackie’s dessert was cheesecake. Jackie drank Heineken, Flo, J2O, and I, Ringwood’s bitter.

Twelfth Night

Although the day was dispiritingly dull, damp, and distinctly breezy we did not receive the forecast p.m. 40+ m.p.h. gusts which had prompted us both to garden in the morning. They came this evening.

Jackie completed her redesigning the Ace Reclaim Bed (so-called) after the bench we had removed from the spot), and I continued Elizabeth’s work on weeding the Heligan Path. The Head Gardener is very proud of her effort of transporting and placing the owl’s perch.

When the weather was more cheerful a brief visit from a robin set me thinking this was maybe the spirit of Nugget; and the buzzing of the bees and the chirping in the trees introduced

the spirit of Burl Ives.

A very heavy squall sent me scurrying faster than I would have believed possible back to the house at midday.

When this ceased I nipped out to photograph yesterday’s smiling peony, now looking blond and hirsute.

When dunelight sent me the link to this song from Twelfth Night

it sent me back to my copy of

As with each of these Shakespeare editions, the illustrations are taken from the stage costume designs – these being from Stratford on Avon’s 1958 production. The frontispiece depicts Orsino.

The rest, in turn, are Sir Toby Belch, Maria, Viola, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Olivia, Malvolio, and Feste.

I won’t attempt to match Sir Peter Hall’s eminent introduction.

This evening’s dinner was a repeat of yesterday’s, including the accompanying beverages.

In The Greenhouse

Reportedly only for a couple of days, the wind had stilled overnight. The day was dull and warmer, with very little rain.

Jackie spent much of the morning rescuing tossed pots and loosened climbers.

After lunch I gathered up numerous small broken branches, then cut the grass and produced a few pictures, one of which shows

the pieris between the Nottingham Castle bench and the planted chimney pot.

Florence enjoys this view across the lawn to North Breeze.

Jackie’s latest owl purchase remained safely perched on its log, surveying the view across the Dead End Path.

We also have aquilegias, violets, dicentras, peonies, and a few lingering camellias.

A number of blue irises grace the Weeping Birch Bed and elsewhere.

Some plants, like the osteospermums in the Cryptomeria Bed have suffered from wind burn.

The Gazebo Path; and the Dragon and Palm Beds have recovered well.

Jackie spent much of the afternoon potting up in the greenhouse, where she was decorated with libertia reflections.

Later I scanned the next seven of Charles Keeping’s inimitable illustrations to Charles Dickens’s “Nicholas Nickleby”.

‘Mr Tix transferred his admiration to some elegant articles of wearing apparel, while Mr Scaley proceeded to the minute consideration of a pimple on his chin’

‘The two combatants chopped away until the swords emitted a shower of sparks’ is a typical balanced depiction of action from Mr Keeping.

‘There bounded onto the stage a little girl in a dirty white frock who turned a pirouette’. Nothing less than a full page would suffice for her.

In ‘Two strong little boys were dragging the phenomenon in different directions as a trial of strength’, Mr Keeping has shown how balance is maintained by their planted stances.

To depict the distance between the higher admirer and the performer on stage in ‘The warmth of her reception was mainly attributable to a most persevering umbrella in the upper boxes’ the artist has used the different levels of the double spread.

‘Lord Verisoft threw himself along the sofa in order to bring his lips nearer to the old man’s ear’

In ‘ We come on a mission, Mrs Nickleby’ ‘ the success of the smarmy flattery is clearly apparent.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty liver and bacon; firm boiled potatoes and carrots; and tender cabbage and runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.

The Prime Suspect

Jackie spent much of the morning watering the garden and tying up roses. After lunch I joined her and dead-headed roses and Welsh poppies while she continued.

When the heat drove us in for a rest, the Head Gardener watched Gardeners’ World and I scanned another 21 pages from

H.E. Bates’s “Down The River” illustrated by Agnes Miller Parker.

Later I took a few photographs and joined in a another watering session.

Here are a few images from upstairs, featuring the blooms of the Cordyline Australis; the eucalyptus; the yellow Bottle Brush plant; and the red Chilean lantern tree receiving attention from Jackie.

Even this last mentioned small tree was wilting in the heat. The two-toned pink peony can be glimpsed just above left of centre in the first image.

For several days now Jackie has discovered pure white eggs, of a size too large to have been laid by our garden birds, either secreted among the flowers beds or lying on the lawn. Yesterday evening she noticed one on the grass bearing a small hole through which she discerned yellow yolk and clear viscous albumen. She left it intact.

This morning this is what it looked like. Our neighbours on the corner beside the pub keep ducks. Clearly someone is nicking their eggs, depositing them in our garden, and enjoying a meal later. To our mind the prime suspect must be a fox, but we haven’t seen one. Maybe Russell Crow.

Certainly not this tiny mouse that Jackie watched feeding on borage seeds.

Mr Chan at Hordle Chinese Take Away opened up again today. That fare, is therefore what we ate for dinner. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and drank more of the Carles.

Old Curtains Or Blackout Fabric

Jackie continued refurbishing hanging baskets

and containers such as those she is watering here.

At the moment most of these involve cuttings she has preserved over the winter. We have heard today that garden centres are likely to open again next week, thus offering the opportunity for more variety – not that the Head Gardener has, thanks to Ferndene Farm shop, been completely devoid of bedding plants like these

calibrachoa awaiting a resting place.

Oak leaved geraniums and

Palmatums have survived in the open.

The burgeoning red climbing rose is now rapidly overhauling the fading wisteria;

while the nearby Chilean lantern tree is nicely lit.

Snow White Madame Alfred Carriere now relaxes with Summer Wine rouge above the Rose Garden where

the tiny Flower Power is having its strongest showing yet,

and the lyrical Shropshire Lad has found his rhythm.

A bustling bumble bee, hastening to reach its pollen count, scatters the microscopic yellow grains.

This afternoon I received an e-mail from our sister-in-law Frances wondering whether Mum had made Chris and my VE Day street party suits

from old curtains or blackout fabric. I had always thought velvet, but to ascertain the material’s origin I suggested Mum might remember.

Later I scanned ten more pages of Agnes Miller Parker’s

elegant illustrations to H. E. Bates’s “Down The River”.

While I was working on this, Jackie began preparing the Cryptomeria Bed and found herself virtually surrounded by what seemed the whole robin family. Nugget, Lady, and two or three fledglings were all in attendance.

This evening I produced a meal of fillet steaks, mashed potato, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and runner beans. Modesty prevents me from mentioning its quality. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Shiraz.

Whispering In The Wisteria

Late this afternoon I listened to the deceptively sweet trilling of a rival robin issuing war cries from a tree in the garden of No 5 Downton Lane whilst I stood in the Rose Garden photographing

lemon yellow climber Summer Time;

aptly named Altissimo glowing against the clear blue sky;

Madame Alfred Carriere draped over the entrance arch;

pinkish Penny Lane scaling the potting shed;

glorious Gloriana;

clustered Crown Princess Margareta;

and florid Festive Jewel.

On my way back towards the house I admired the species tulip and Japanese maple juxtaposition in the Palm Bed

and passed another peony opened in the Dragon Bed.

Down the Head Gardener’s Walk I rounded the greenhouse which still accommodates plenty of pelargonium cuttings,

and came upon Nugget, too currently domesticated for battle, gathering supplies from his food tray, now suitably wired against blackbirds.

He briefly whispered in the wisteria before heading off to his family.

Soon we will dine on chicken Kiev, roast potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and green beans. I will refrain from eulogising the quality of the cooking just in case the menu items turn out to be soggy or burnt, especially as Jackie is currently drinking Heineken and I am busy finishing the Shiraz.