weigela – derrickjknight

June Delights

On a day that returned us to warmth and full sunshine, Jackie spent much of it

examining her floral babies and stretching to care for them, while I mostly wandered in and out of the garden with my camera.

We have a number of clematises;

numerous roses;

freshly blooming rhododendrons;

and more welcome alliums.

The Kitchen Path runs alongside the Pond Bed towards the arch bearing a blue solanum.

The Gazebo and Brick Paths are colourfully bordered.

Jackie’s new planting in the Shady Path Bench Bed is burgeoning nicely.

The Byzantium gladioli are standing in several beds, including this one in the Rose Garden; the pink cabana Jumbo emerges from a blue pot; the red Japanese maple still dominates the Pond Bed.

Geranium palmatums, cosmos, dandelions, convolvulus, companula, pansies, and poppies are other thriving blooms.

Florence at Fiveways stands in front of our newest bench; the Nottingham Castle replica is the oldest.

Weigela and two different erigerons overlook the concrete patio.

This evening we dined on more of the marinaded chicken with boiled new potatoes, and tender runner and green beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Shiraz.

Refreshment

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED

Jackie carried out much knowledgeable weeding and planting this morning, whilst I cleared up the discards and conveyed them to the compost pile.

The early sun lit libertias standing in the Weeping Birch Bed,

and enlivened the burgeoning Rose Garden.

Various clematises,

including this wonderfully scented Montana festooned over the front wall;

the weigela winding down the south fence;

ubiquitous aquilegias;

the pink rambler on the front garden trellis;

Libertia, geraniums Ingwersen's Variety, campanulas

borders everywhere, like this corner sporting campanulas, libertia, and geraniums Ingwersen’s Variety,

and the long Back Drive hosting splendid golden irises, relished their welcome refreshment.

A fly alighted on one of the front tub’s primroses.

This afternoon I added a little more to my biography of an era including me. I now have a working title: ‘A Knight’s Tale’. I took more text, and

this photograph from ‘A Sneaky Weekend’

I then made some prints from recent posts for Louisa.

After this I joined Jackie in the weeding, concentrating my efforts on uprooting the more obvious infiltrators, namely the smelly white alliums, clinging ladies’ bedstraw, and golden buttercups occupying the wrong beds.

This evening, there being no table available at the Crown in Everton, we dined at the Smugglers’ Inn at Milford on Sea. Having starters was a mistake. The platefuls were excellent. Mine contained battered whitebait, plentiful fresh salad, and thick wedges of equally fresh bread. Jackie received a huge plateful of bread and olives. Each serving was a meal in itself. An even bigger mistake was, in my case, ordering succulent sirloin steak, still more fresh salad, a mountain of perfect chips, onion rings, and fried onions, mushrooms and tomatoes. Jackie was treated to a huge bowl of cannelloni. more salad, and an equal number of chips to mine. Neither of us could finish our food, and we did not require a look at the dessert menu. The food was, I hasten to add, all extremely good, and the service impeccable. We both reminisced that, in our prime, we would have managed all this. Jackie drank Amstel, and I drank Doom Bar..

Regeneration

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN GROUPS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE BY SCROLLING DOWN THE PAGE AND CLICKING THE RELEVANT BOX.

Today I was mostly digging up brambles and pruning dead branches from a yellow Japanese maple in the Palm Bed,

Garden view across Cryptomeria Bed stepping stones 2

Garden view across Cryptomeria Bed stepping stones 1

seen here beyond the Cryptomeria Bed stepping stones.

The red one was looking rather splendid in the morning light.

The magnolia Vulcan, one of a row of shrubs lining the fence shared with Mistletoe Cottage, is about to flower for the first time. Like the others this was choked by the jungle that was the garden when we first moved in.

Similarly a poor, spindly, little rhododendron that Jackie brought back to life, now shines its beacon in the middle of the Palm Bed. The roots of this were, like those of so many shrubs we inherited, pot-bound, and not properly planted.

The pink rhododendron

and the yellow tree peony, have tied in the race to full bloom.

I am happy to say that my weeding of the Back Drive borders has freed rows of irises.

The viburnum plicatum is now brightening the West Bed shrubbery,

and weigela drapes the south fence.

Today’s final example of our efforts at regeneration has been affected by the light frosts we have been experiencing recently. The apple blossom suggested the tree has benefited from pruning, but the petals are now somewhat charred.

Hardly credible in April, the traditional month of showers, Jackie has today performed a considerable amount of watering.

The Raj is the current incarnation of the Indian restaurant constantly changing hands in Old Milton. Tonight we dined on their good quality takeaway food. My main choice was prawn Ceylon with special fried rice. We shared poppadoms, paratha, and onion bhajis. I drank Château Plessis grand vin de Bordeaux 2014.

Kingston Connections

AS USUAL, IMAGES MAY BE ENLARGED BY CLICKING ON THEM. REPEAT IF NECESSARY.

Given to me by Barrie earlier in the year, Neil Grant’s book ‘Village London Past & Present’, which I just finished reading, was a perfect adjunct to David Lawrence’s ‘Bright Open Spaces’.

The author’s style is both informative and entertaining, and the book is lavishly illustrated with photographs from the past and what was, to Mr Grant when published, the present. Much is made of the pace of change at a time when the Millennium Dome and the London Eye were both buildings of the future. Indeed, when studying photographs labelled ‘today’ in 1991, I found myself asking questions. Even my own ‘Streets of London’ series begun in 2004 is now history.

100 years ago, the metropolis was indeed a series of villages, and residences of, say Wimbledon or Dulwich cling to that term today. It is hard to believe that the un-idyllic Camberwell once harboured an eponymous beauty in the form of a butterfly.

Having lived and worked in various of London’s villages for most of my life, I am familiar with most of the book’s coverage. I have chosen just one area of the capital to illustrate this post and outline my connections.

Let me begin with 1966, the year when, as an Assistant Child Care Officer, I entered Social Work. My post ‘An Attachment To The Gates’ tells of what I did to the gates of Kingston’s Guildhall. For a good laugh, it is to be highly recommended.

An important town in the Middle Ages, Kingston has probably the oldest continuing market in the country. It was in August 1972 that Jackie and her friend Linda set up a stall i n this market, displaying their own hand-crafted goods. I encouraged my work colleagues to admire the contents.

Sometime later in the 1970s, Matthew was seriously into fishing. It is perhaps possible that it was somewhere near this bank of the Thames, seen in about 1890, that I accompanied him on such an outing. I was somewhat relieved that we didn’t catch anything.

Kingston was also where we carried out most of our mudlarking.

Today’s heavy rain had desisted by mid-afternoon revealing

a humble white allium paying obeisance to a weigela;

bejewelled Jacqueline du Pre;

sparkling Absolutely Fabulous;

fungus breaking out on the dead tree root;

the dianthus Sweet William;

and clematis Doctor Ruppel.

Anyone having read last year’s posts may be aware of a slight difference of opinion between The Head Gardener and her serf about the wisdom of welcoming cow parsley into our garden. This year Jackie has reinforcements. Apparently these plants are now in fashion. Naturally I now offer not even token resistance.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s choice chicken jafrezi, mushroom rice, and parathas. She drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Llidl’s Bordeaux superieur 2011.

New Arrivals

IMAGES MAY BE ENLARGED BY CLICKING ON THEM, TWICE IF NECESSARY

This morning we all joined the other customers in the cafe. Poppy did actually eat most of what was on her plate.

An hour or so later, Jackie and I set off back home, reaching there early in the afternoon.

Aaron had moved a clump of ornamental grass further back in the Palm Bed,

and removed rust from most of the furniture in the rose garden and painted it with Hammerite. Here we have a reclaimed armchair seated under the arch with a church candlestick behind it.