Identification Required

Last night Jackie came up with an excellent idea for recycling some of the IKEA wardrobe sections in the creation of the garage library/laundry room. This was going to need the use of a saw, and we only possessed the hacking kind.

A further trip to B & Q in Christchurch was therefore required, especially as we needed some more of their curtains and dowelling for the rails.

We bought all these and stopped off at Fergusson’s inHighcliffe to collect a mirror that came with one of the chests of drawers we had bought. While she was at it, Jackie added the hand-painted screen seen on the left of the photograph, to our purchases.
There were long mounting brackets attached to the mirror. I had travelled from B & Q in comparative comfort, with two eight foot dowelling poles over my left shoulder. The journey from the House Clearance shop was a little more complicated. The dowelling was now being kept company by one of the mounting brackets, whilst I held the screen close to my right cheek.
We also wanted to go to New Milton to visit the bank and buy some mounting card and Glu Dots for the photographs I featured yesterday, but thought it sensible to go home and unload first. Glu Dots are a Blu Tack product which hold the pictures in place and are removable when required. We found them in New Forest Stationers which is very well stocked with all art and writing materials.

Now, the IKEA sections have spent a week in the rain on the skip pile. They are also spiked with various bolts, screws, and fastenings. I therefore took a screwdriver to them, and undid what I could before we trundled the requisite number back into the garage whence they had come from.
We have a number of containers packed with domestic items surplus to our requirements that may be useful for younger home makers. Before we could get the IKEA kit back in the garage we had to make room for it. This involved carting those other boxes to the shed at the bottom of the garden.
After this exercise Jackie put up two more pairs of curtains in the kitchen, and I flopped for a while before wandering around the garden realising exactly how little we know about its plants, many of which are clearly unusual specimens. Of those we think we have identified, we would welcome readers’ confirmation. Of those we can’t, all offers will be gratefully received.

There are many decorative trees, almost none of which we know. For example, this one in the front garden:

or this in the back:

The aquilegias and dianthus  we are confident of,

but this flower, on long tall stems, has us beaten:

as do both the pink and white ones here:

The very prolific white plants we think are scillas. Could the pink flowers be tierellas or heucherellas?

Perched on a table near a water butt is a potted cactus.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious lamb jalfrezi (recipe) with savoury rice. I drank sparkling water.

P.S. 31st July 2014

Jackie has now identified the white flower that had us beaten. It is libertia, like so many of our plants, a native of New Zealand.