Veritable Carpets Of Offspring

Aaron this morning cleared more brick paths of weeds and began painting the Ace Reclaim bench with white Hammerite in order to combat rust; Jackie continued planting, weeding, and general maintenance work;

Landscape Bark

and I finished off spreading the Landscape Bark around the rose garden beds, thus offering The Head Gardener, who had begun the job yesterday, a certain minimal assistance. We need a few more bags to complete the task.

Each day now, we have more emerging varieties of

Tulips

tulip,

Daffodils

daffodil,

Pansies

pansy,

Primulas

and primula.

Fritillaria

Speckled fritillaria Jackie planted in the autumn thrive in the cryptomeria bed.

For ground cover we have such as

Celandines

buttercup-yellow celandines

Periwinkle

and deep-blue vincas.

Many self-seeders need to be kept under control. Cropping up everywhere we have, for example,

Honesty

purple honesty,

Hellebore seedlings

and multi-hued hellebores which drop veritable carpets of offspring. Unmanaged, this dense  brood would choke the rusty heuchera to death and cover the brick path onto which it is already encroaching.

We are still marginally ahead of the game in the race to have the garden ready for spring, but nature is catching up by the day.

This evening we dined at Lymington’s Lal Quilla. My choice was king prawn Ceylon, and Jackie’s, prawn bhuna. We shared egg fried rice, an egg paratha, and an onion bhaji; and both drank Kingfisher.

41 comments

  1. I haven’t seen purple honesty in a while. We used to grow it especially for the seed pods, the center membranes of which are those translucent, white moons some people call the money plant, and are so beautiful, dried and displayed indoors in winter.

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      2. Years ago, Margery made a picture of an owl, using the seed pods to represent feathers. I like them, too.

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  2. I find my honesty dries up regularly! You photos have inspired me to get a plant I had forgotten about: the polyanthus. The first photo shows promise of becoming glorious over summer.

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  3. Oh, I see how things pop up in pretty but unpredictable ways, Derrick. The gardens look really great. The white painted arch and chair look lovely and summery, too. 🙂

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  6. Cynthia and I are so often on the same page! I still love Honesty – but have no room to grow it now. I used to have the dried seedpods in vases throughout winter ………. The garden is looking very tidy!

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  7. Well, since so many commented on Purple Honesty, I’ll just say that I’d never heard of it!
    A good days work, followed by a delicious meal and drink.
    Perfect!

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    1. Laurie, a lot of people here call it money plant–it has those translucent white disks that show up in dried arrangements looking like silver coins. I just read something about Americans being more inclined to call plants by descriptive names rather than official ones and I think it might be true.

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  11. At last I know what my garden is largely full of…purple honesty. I wish they were all speckled fritillarias though. What a beautiful, delicate plant.

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  13. Your gardens are springing up some wonderful colors and specimens Derrick. Purple Honesty is so delicate and beautiful. Always look forward to seeing how things are progressing.

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