Jattie’s Sculpture

A pair of bullfinches visited the garden this morning. They are shy birds, and scarpered pretty sharpish, before I could snatch a

photograph, so I nicked these images from the internet.
Today we made two trips to Ron and Shelly’s home in Walkford to collect more of the plants they have been carefully fostering for us.
It is Jackie’s birthday in three days time. She had expressed a desire for solar powered lights for the garden. She also wanted a tower for a clematis she has planned to put in a large stone planter in the bed outside the dining room window. This afternoon, therefore, we made a journey to the splendid Stewart’s Garden Centre in Christchurch. Started in the eighteenth century the concern is still in the ownership of the founding family. There we bought the tower and a pair of lights, of which we ordered six more. As she drove away Jackie realised she hadn’t got a clematis after all. That meant a trip to the Ferndene Farm shop where she bought one of the Marie Boisselot variety and a couple of heucheras.

We had always thought the flowers of bottle brush plants were red. Ours turns out to be a bright lemon yellow which is already attracting bees.

The recent clearing has revealed a number of comparatively small hidden plants, one of which is a tiny delicate peach coloured rose, whose bush is barely a foot tall with even less of a span. This actual bloom is about one third of the featured image. More visible also now is a very delicate and elegant scented palm, the precise identity of which we do not know.
Some twenty years or so ago, Jessica’s much-loved aunt Janet, known as Jattie, Ellen took up sculpture and revealed a considerable talent. My late wife gave me one of her early pieces –

a reclining nude, who has perched on my desk for some time. Having always had a penchant for garden sculpture I thought she might go well in ours. Jackie created the very spot in the patio corner. The climbing rose above the young woman is a complementary peach, and the heuchera to her right is one of those bought this afternoon with the sculpture in mind.
We had fun assembling the tower which was less straightforward than it looked. It didn’t help that we kept dropping the nuts and having to search for them. The one that fell into the gravel was an interesting challenge.

This photograph of the bed in which the clematis has been placed also demonstrates the change of heart we have had about the ginkgo. It will stay in its pot in front of the clematis. That way, apparently, it will not grow into a forest tree.
This evening Jackie departed from Hordle Chinese Take Away with our dinner, which we soon enjoyed eating. She drank Hoegaarden. My wine was Cotes de Bordeaux superieur 2012.