Garden – Page 16 – derrickjknight

Smelling Smoke

Early this morning I optimistically joined Martin in the garden where he enjoyed rather more success than I did.

Despite Jackie’s popping out to replenish my diminishing supplies of firelighters I was unable to breathe life into the damp garden refuse which could not recover from several days of soaking.

Even the bench on which I rested collapsed beneath me.

Eventually I gave up trying and returned inside to nursing knees repeatedly bent in a lost cause, smelling pointless smoke, and ruing the tiny brown-rimmed hole in my shirt that one of the myriad of otherwise useless flaking sparks had managed to penetrate.

Martin, on the other hand, successfully continued his careful clearance of beds and surrounding paths;

and recycled some of the old patio paving as supplementary stepping stones through the Weeping Birch Bed.

My failure was compounded by being unable to access my site to draft this post until 5.30 p.m.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s tangy piri-piri lemon chicken and colourful savoury rice with which she drank Hoegarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra red wine.

A Close Look

This morning, I converted the following posts from Classic to Block edits:

A Fascinating Collage

Nearly There

Twelfth Impression

Not Lost After All

For those who are wondering, the reason I have to do this is that anyone now clicking on the Classic edit pictures, perhaps to enlarge them, will access a message claiming that there is Nothing There.

On a bright, sunny, yet cool afternoon shared with various flying insects, I took a close look at the flowers in the garden.

Each image, including cherry blossom, bees on euphorbia, a damselfly on a leaf, camellias, magnolia Vulcan, primulas, honesty, daffodils, tulips, muscari, epimedium, wallflowers, cowslips, spirea, Japanese maple, and weeping birch catkins, is labelled in the gallery.

One tree that we inherited from our predecessors has never before produced more than one blossom in the ten years we have been here. Today it has a fine display. We think it is a plum.

This evening we all dined on succulent roast gammon; crisp roast potatoes; piquant cauliflower cheese; crunchy carrots; tender cabbage and cauliflower leaves, with which I drank The Second Fleet Coonawarra Cabernet Merlot Petit Verdot 2021, Jackie abstained, and the young family all drank fruit juice.

Trees Toppled

It was all go at Old Post House this morning. At 7 a.m. Ian and a companion from CSG cleaning services pumped out our septic tank; between 9 and 10 Ronan of Tom Sutton Heating had another attempt to stir our last radiator on the system into life; at 9.30 Martin arrived for whole day’s shift in the garden.

Despite, or maybe because of the bright sunshine, finger-tingling-chill crisped the air.

More tulips are blooming.

Varieties of daffodil keep on coming. The up-market cat, perhaps Persian of some sort, from No. 5 Downton Lane remains persistent in dislodging the fence planks along the Back Drive intended to deter marauders. We hope it reduces rodent infiltrators.

Mahonia thrives on the more sunlit side of our rear entrance. Hellebores are ubiquitous.

Wandering along the paths I noticed several of Camellia’s pink carpets, and that the Weeping Birch will soon be in leaf.

Soon after we arrived here some of our small trees gave up the ghost and we shrouded them with climbing plants, such as clematis and roses.

Recent storms have finally toppled two of them.

Here, Martin concentrates on a prunus pissardii, first clearing it, then strengthening supports for the plants that had festooned it. The last picture in this gallery is “Where’s Martin? (4)”.

This evening we dined on another of Jackie’s wholesome cottage pie; crunchy carrots, and firm cauliflower and broccoli, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Puglia Nero di Troia 2020.

Clean Air Blooms

This morning, after mending the wooden side gate,

Martin continued working his way along the West Bed. He cut back dead plant stems, weeded, and dug up brambles and other such invaders, bagging them for burning when the weather is dry enough.

I wandered around photographing garden views and flowers, each of which is entitled in the tiled gallery.

Perhaps the most pleasing flowers are those fashioned by the lichen clinging to the Nottingham Castle bench. This replica has travelled with me for three decades in various residences from Newark to Downton via London. As a tribute to the clean air of the forest this is the first home in which it has scattered its blooms.

I spent the afternoon on picture recovery of:

Islington

Durmast House Gardens

A Knight’s Tale (52: My Secondment)

I recategorised the second as Garden.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetable stewp and fresh baguettes, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Shiraz

Ready For Spring

In bright, warm, sunshine this morning Martin cleared more of last year’s dead garden material.

Here he works around the patio and Dead End Path;

The Pond Bed is now ready for new growth,

such as the tree peony in the Palm Bed, to emerge.

Daffodils, for example the tête-à-têtes, are really proliferating.

Summer and Autumn seasonal statues continue to gather lichen,

while Florence casts her shadow across the Shady Path.

Hellebores are beginning to hold up their heads; berberis, sometimes somewhat nibbled lingers on; and a hyacinth which began life in a gift pot returns year after year.

This afternoon, I facilitated enlargement and provided header pictures for the following posts:

Eureka!

Beyond Rancid

The Knocker

Along The Shingle

Essentially what I am doing with these Classic Edits is converting them to Blocks.

Elizabeth visited this afternoon toting a large bag of very good clothes for Ellie which had once served Ella or Jack. She stayed for cups of tea and conversation including swapping recommendations of TV programmes.

Later the rest of us dined on flavoursome pork bangers and creamy mash with tender cabbage, crunchy carrots, fried onions, and meaty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Shiraz.

Her Pride And Joy

Late yesterday evening Jackie raced round the garden with her camera, gleefully photographing

her pride and joy. Petunias, pelargoniums, phlox, fuchsias, clematises, alliums, agapanthuses, dahlias, verbenas, campanulas, erigeron, lilies, Japanese anemones, diascias, begonias, eucalyptus, roses, and no doubt many I’ve missed. As usual, clicking on any image will produce the gallery, each member of which is separately labelled and can be viewed full size by clicking on the box beneath it, and further bigified with subsequent clicks.

As if that weren’t enough, the Assistant Photographer dashed out later to capture

the full moon, and again this morning to add

crocosmias Emily McKenzie and Solfatare,

and finally Lycesteria.

I had my work cut out today to select from 56 images, load them into the iMac, edit and crop them, then transfer them to WordPress retyping each title. I left my own camera alone, and for the first time ever rejected the offer of a forest drive, otherwise I would have been at the computer until midnight.

This evening we dined on Forest Tandoori takeaway fare with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.

A Sad Sign Of The Times

Jackie had a reasonably smooth shop this morning, after which she worked in the garden until the temperature became too hot. The Co-op was selling bedding plants, some of which she naturally bought, although she will have need of

all her pelargonium cuttings in the greenhouse.

After lunch I took a tour with my camera and deposited some debris into the compost bin.

Even these white daffodils turned their backs on the bright sunlight.

The younger tulips in the patio pots are in hot pursuit of their elders,

more of which are fully opened;

others continue to grace the Rose Garden

and the foreground of this view from the concrete patio leading towards that area.

The species Lilac Wonder attracted a rather small bee,

This is time of year when, before coronavirus, we would have visited local bluebell woods, however we do have

plenty of our own.

Lavinia Ross spotted pot marigold calendulas in yesterday’s post. Here is another variety of the genus for her.

Our Magnolia Vulcan is now coming into bloom.

Camellias brighten many views like this one of the Brick Path;

they form a sympathetic backdrop to the red Japanese maple;

and come in a variety of hues.

Spirea sprays spread across the Palm Bed;

pieris leaves flame over the lawn;

self-seeded Erigeron has leaped to cascade from the Kitchen Bed obelisk;

and spring daffodils nod to summer snowflakes across the Cryptomeria Bed.

Caterpillar-like catkins wriggle on the tips of Weeping Birch branches.

Tiny epimedium blooms cast their shadows on the West Bed.

The borders of the back drive contain unusual daffodils, sympathetic snapdragons, and vinca colour-coordinated with honesty.

The far end of this drive stands opposite the car park of The Royal Oak which bears a sad

sign of the times, advertising their spring menu for which no-one is able to stop and enjoy until the pandemic rules are relaxed.

This evening we dined on tempera prawns with sweet chilli sauce, diet garlic bread, and fresh salad with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Mezquiriz. We had planned a houseful for Easter so stocked up on items such as these before panic buying had cleared the shop shelves.

Agriframes Destructions

Our Ace Reclaim arch in the corner of the Rose Garden has not survived the storms. Already rusting and having lost one of its important bars it was probably only being held together by the roses it was there to support.

Aaron this morning broke it up in order to replace it with an Agriframes bower.

Now, longer term readers may remember our struggle with The Agriframes Arch which had driven Jackie and me to distraction. Agriframes products are very good; they are resilient, rust resistant, and guaranteed for 15 years.

But – and a very big but – they demand self-assembly – not by the structures themselves, but by the buyers; furthermore their printed directions, termed like many, ‘destructions’ by Aaron are so difficult to follow that it has taken more than five years for us to contemplate buying another product.

This time, we have Aaron of A.P. Maintenance. He is a professional, had already assembled a few flat pack arches for us, and should surely be able to meet the challenge. Not so. His ‘destructions’ were both confusing and confused. He was thrown by the leaflet at one point stating that he should have six particular components for one section. He had only four. Later, the destructive instructions stated four. Some words had been omitted from the text rendering the meaning unintelligible.

A crucial clamp seemed impossible to apply. At one point the section Aaron is seen working on above fell apart and he had to start again.

Have I mentioned that he was beset throughout by light rain and heavy winds?

I thought not. This would never normally stop him working.

Our friend enjoys a challenge but at the end of his allotted time he was back where he started. The ‘destructions’ sheets were sopping wet and so was he. There was no option but to throw in the towel. Next week Aaron will bring a colleague to help.

This experience sent Jackie to research reviews on line. Those on independent sites were almost all negative. One from Facebook is relevant:

‘Three professional landscapers were unable to assemble your Sussex Bower in my clients garden and wasted 2 days trying to to so. They spent many weeks trying to negotiate a refund for this item and you have only agreed to give them a small fraction of the price they paid for it on the basis that it was ‘used’! Your assurances on your website do not bear out and your customer service is very poor.’

https://www.reviews.co.uk/company-reviews/store/agriframes is another source.

Knickerbocker Glory

I did a little bit of dead-heading in the Rose Garden this morning, and watched the Wimbledon men’s semi-finals this afternoon.

Between matches, I took a break and wandered around the garden, particularly to see how the agapanthuses are coming along. The first image shows them against the backcloth of the Palm Bed, on the edge of which they are situated; the second looks out from that bed; and the third down the Gazebo Path.

Here is another view of the Palm Bed,opposite which we have this scene from the corner of Margery’s Bed.

Saint John’s wort glows at the entrance to the Rose Garden.

A fly also took a break on a white sweet pea.

Continuing with ‘A Knight’s Tale’ I added some new material and edited extracts from ‘Mugging’

and from ‘Tom’

The picture of Tom has been extracted from this school photograph featured in ‘Did You Mean The Off Break?’

This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb steak and onion pie in proper short crust pastry, with new potatoes, crisp carrots and spring greens. I drank more of the Fronton, then became rather excited when I thought dessert was to be knickerbocker glory, but it turned out to be

hydrangea in a vase, so we settled for a Magnum each.

Quiet Reflection

After a morning clearing shrubberies and watering window boxes, we took a trip to Efford Recycling Centre. Although we did dump more sections of aluminium frames, probably the last of the alleged ‘greenhouse, unassembled’, the real purpose of the trip was to seek out mirrors from the sales section.

Jackie found two perfect specimens.

Yes, we know each would be an acquired taste, but for what we had in mind they were perfect.

Penny Lane is a climbing rose. Just about a foot tall at the moment it will climb to 8′. The first new bud emerging early this morning was fully opened by the afternoon.

Margaret Merrill, equally virginal crisp and fresh two days ago, glowed, blowsy, in the morning light.

This gloriously hot and sunny afternoon I wandered around the garden whilst Jackie went off to do some shopping.

From the second armchair in the rose garden one can see past tall roses in the Oval Bed to the gladioli in the former compost bed, around flutter numerous butterflies like this Small White:

Leaving the rose garden let us walk through the arch and turn right on the pergola path where agapanthus nods to petunias and montbretia hides in long ornamental grasses.

From the grass patch to the left, looking over the top of the Dump Bench, so called because it was an early purchase from the recycling centre, the stable door is glimpsed.

We have quite a lot of montbretia. It likes shade but doesn’t always hide,

although these pink hollyhocks are attempting to do so.

Later, we hung our mirrors. Now, please don’t run away with the idea that we have both been struck by an attack of narcissism. There is enough seating in the rose garden now to encourage quiet reflection.

The mirrors are positioned to reflect the sunlight into darker corners. One, with the armchair, and the clock, provides a cosy corner for reflection in both senses.

In the third Test Match, Australia rallied and set England 121 to win. The home team lost two wickets in reaching the target.

Our dinner this evening was provided by Hordle Chinese Take Away. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I made further inroads into the beaujolais.