Perseverance Rewarded

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Until 2.30 p.m. when Jackie drove us to Brockenhurst to collect our friend Sheila who is staying with us for a few days, she continued sterling maintenance in the garden while Aaron and Robin continued with the fencing.

Erigeron

The erigeron outside the French windows featured as part of yesterday’s kitchen door shot. Here is a close-up of some of them.

Walking down the back drive to open the gate for our two marvellous garden maintenance men, I admired, on the bordering beds,

Snapdragons

snapdragons;

Wallflowers and valerian

wallflowers and valerian;

Rose Félicité Perpetué

and rose Féliticé Perpetué, now draping the dead stumps.

Rose garden 1

Rose garden 3

The heucheras in the Rose Garden provide stiff competition for the roses themselves.

Rose garden 4

Here, the geranium palmatums lead us in,

Aquilegias, Schoolgirl and Golden Showers

and aquilegias front Schoolgirl and Golden Showers.

Rose Ballerina and honeysuckle

 Ballerina dances with honeysuckle alongside the entrance arch.

Rose Hot Chocolate

The rose Hot Chocolate in the front garden is, however, just ahead of that in the back.

Rose pink climber

Rose deep pink climber

Festooning the front trellis are two different depths of pink roses.

View from Crytomeria Bed

Here is a view across the Cryptomeria Bed to Elizabeth’s Bed.

Rose peach bush

The peach coloured rose photographed yesterday is further open today.

Hoverfly on For Your Eyes Only

The smallest hoverfly I have ever seen landed on For Your Eyes Only.

Bee on stick

I have striven for a long time to capture a bee in flight. Today my perseverance was rewarded.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s lemon chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, and carrots. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, I drank more of the Fleurie, and Sheila drank water.

70 comments

  1. Fleuri – great choice but when do you make a BAD choice? Are you even capable of it? 😉 Does Jackie have a clone who she can send me to make exquisite dishes of similar excellence? I feel terribly ordinary and dull over here my friend! 😉

  2. Lovely post. The bee in flight cracked me up 🙂 For once I believe I may actually know the name of a rose. I think you might have meant to write Félicité Perpétue

      1. Welcome. I find it amazing how Jackie and you are able to maintain the roses completely insect free aside from the bees

  3. Derrick, your garden is a delight for the soul!

    In my small garden – I live in an apartment complex – in drought-ridden Southern California where we have to ration our water use, I’ve started growing succulent plants in small pots. [http://www.california-cactus-succulents.com/]

  4. I love the owl keeping watch over the bed, Derrick. I’m curious do any of your neighbors have a garden as beautiful as yours? Wonderful shots today!

    1. Thank you, Jill. Our Western neighbour has a large garden covered in gravel at the front. At the back it was lawn and decking. The decking has been taken down and is now being paved over. The Eastern side is the North Breeze jungle which was once a beautiful garden. The south is very large, mostly lawn and shrubs. Across the road to the North is a large field.

  5. Derrick, your photos are lovely, and after visiting your blog, feel that I have taken a walk through your lovely garden

  6. An excellent photograph of the bee! Don’t underestimate Valerian, by the way. Friends have told me it is extremely poisonous.

  7. Thanks for the pic of ‘Hot Chocolate’. I bought it a month or so back but haven’t seen it yet. She has fat buds though 🙂

  8. Your bee in flight cracked me up, Derrick.
    The rose garden has so much to look at! While the geranium are so brightly capturing my eyes and attention today. Sorry, I realize I fell behind. . .

  9. A question ; considering all the many different flowers you have is there one special flower you don’t have (for any reason) that you would love to have. I’ll wait whilst you ask the head gardener.

      1. It is a most beautiful Clematis, So why don’t you get one. And don’t say ‘cos they get too big. You can prune them vigorously.

          1. I hope you don’t think I was being a bit patronising but by coincidence a friend had just returned from a wedding in Ireland and went to the Chelsea flower show and got a cattle dog from RHS and explained that instead of looking up RHS to look up the exact flower and the RHS site gave a list of all the nurseries that were actually stocking the plant. Anyway I could get you one here in Melbourne but you probably wouldn’t be allowed to import it.

  10. A beautiful garden, and yes, perseverance works. And now maybe I’ll try some of that Fleurie. Happy trials, Harlon

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