Tag: Amistad salvia

Lin Brook In Spate

On a day of sunshine and showers we each took our cameras into the garden during brief sunny spells.

Madame Alfred Carriere seems to think it is spring, despite sharing the Rose Garden entrance with hips from Summer Wine. Everlasting sweet peas are equally confused. These wear raindrop pearls

which glisten over the Gazebo Path and bejewel leaves of iris and New Zealand flax; seeds of agapanthus; fuchsia Garden News; and pansies topping the iron urn.

Another fuchsia which continues to thrive is Hawkshead; skeletal honesty plants display their seeds; Penny Lane still soars over the Gothic arch; Puerto Rico dahlia proliferates; and Amistad salvia continues to delight.

The mauve dahlia alongside the Dead End Path is even more prolific but has collapsed beneath the storm although it should recover.

This lime green Japanese maple does not usually produce such a range of autumn hues.

Jackie’s contribution to the garden photographs was her cobaea scandens hanging beside the greenhouse.

This afternoon we set off for the north of the forest and remained beside the

swollen Lin Brook which had burst its banks across the ford at the bottom of Hightown Lane and its junction with Gorley Road.

Vehicles had no option but to traverse the flood. From the road I photographed both a white van and a blue car in the process, while Jackie pictured the car from the window of hers.

The Assistant Photographer added her perspective on the water lapping the road; a splendid oak; a woman striding along the field in which I had photographed the horses; and a bonfire in a garden on the dry side of the road.

We passed landscapes with varying overhead skies, then Jackie

parked the Modus on the verge of Hightown Lane while I wandered over banks

of golden brown bracken, mossy roots and colourful autumn leaves streaked by the late afternoon sun.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s potent pork paprika; creamy mashed potatoes; and carrots and green beans al dente, followed by her splendidly aromatic apple pie and cream, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Malbec 2019.

A Change Of Diet

The morning was dry with bouts of sunshine when

Jackie wandered around the garden with her camera. She went out to photograph the Amistad salvia but got carried away and also pictured agapanthus seeds, dahlias, rudbeckias, roses, clerodendrum trichotomum, begonias, fuchsias, sedum, phlox; and a fly, wasps, and a shield bug perched on ivy flowers. As usual individual titles appear in the gallery which can be enlarged by clicking on any image.

On our afternoon drive we witnessed dramatic skies releasing a number of heavy showers as seen descending from the louring clouds in two of these images and producing at least one rainbow. The last three of these pictures were taken from Beaulieu Road on our way home. The first two from Coombe Lane, Sway where

sunlight picked out the autumn colours in the trees as a lone horse walked down its sloping field.

The first shower sent a group of ponies alongside the Brockenhurst road to shelter as close to the trees as possible.

Pannage pigs munching on sweet chestnuts brought a number of visitors’ cars to a halt in order to disgorge their drivers and passengers to watch and photograph the animals delighting in their change of diet from the more available acorns.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious sausage, liver, and bacon casserole; creamy mashed potato; firm and flavoursome Brussels sprouts; crunchy carrots; and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Cotes du Rhone.