As the early morning sunshine made way for the later gloom I assisted the Head Gardener in some tidying of the garden whilst also
recording the current state of affairs. Along with various views I photographed dahlias, fuchsias, clematises, roses, nicotiana, leaves of Weeping Birch and Virginia creeper, asters, a bee, and begonias. Clicking on any image will access the gallery which provides individual titles and aids enlargement.
Later this afternoon because we were promised sunny periods we went in search of some, finding one bestowing its charms on Ibsley where
an assortment of pigs frenziedly competing for mast rocketed along the leaf-dappled verges and to and fro across the roads grunting, snuffling, occasionally squealing in isolated panic and frantically dashing about, perplexing the be-rugged field horses and amusing visiting drivers.
The forded stream is now reasonably full,
and the surrounding landscapes rich in autumn colour.
A solitary pony at Appleslade sported.a caramel coat.
We began early this morning watering, dead heading, clearing debris and adding to the compost bins before attending Milford on Sea GP Surgery for flu jab appointments. A large number of patients were vaccinated smoothly at one minute intervals. We queued 2 metres apart for no time at all and were directed to our colour-coded injection chamber. All was extremely efficient except for the jam of jabbed individuals swapping details of their experience and other age-related ailments causing something of a bottle-neck at the rear exit. This was a bit of a slalom with no opportunity for the correct social distancing; however, everyone wore masks, and we were back in the car after five minutes, giving us time for a brief drive in our rather Saturday-crowded environment.
Seasonal confusion was first evidenced in our own garden with windburn to Japanese maples and Summer Wine pouring down the entrance arch to the Rose Garden. More was displayed in
Sandy Down with pink roses,
rhododendrons,
and cyclamen lining the verges; and
the leaves of a silver birch beginning to display the Midas touch.
This afternoon after some more chopping and composting of refuse I wandered around the garden with my camera.
Dahlias and begonias, some sharing beds, are in no doubt that it is their season.
Nasturtiums, gauras, and diascias are still going strong.
Small White butterflies and hard working bees are not conceding that their time is over.
Clematises, like this lost label purple one and Dr Ruppel, sharing the Gothic arch with red Super Elfin and pale pink Penny Lane roses, linger on,
as does a rather ragged Shropshire Lad, swaying in the Rose Garden to
a white symphony of begonias, nicotiana sylvestris, and Hawkshead fuchsias.
The eucalyptus still suspends filled hanging baskets flanked by pelargoniums and rudbeckias. Is it really autumn?
This evening we dined on poached smoked haddock; Jackie’s piquant cauliflower cheese; creamy mashed potatoes; firm carrots; and tender runner beans, with which we both drank Awatere Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2019 – a crisp, aromatic, white wine from New Zealand.
This morning I e-mailed a drawing to a fellow blogger as an offering to illustrate one of his posts.
While I sat in the car waiting for Jackie to emerge from Tesco with a fortnight’s shopping that I would load into our vehicle and into the kitchen at home I finished reading
Lent to us by Giles, this is a truly inspirational book charting the despair following a catastrophic turn of fortune partly brought about by physical- and mental ill-health; a loving relationship and the struggling creativity that, phoenix-like, surmounted disaster and contributed to remarkable success.
Depression, anxiety, unemployment, severe physical pain, all experienced while raising a young family are all honestly described. Sub-titled ‘A Story of Despair and Redemption’, this work is about the emotional turmoil the writers have experienced; it is also a tutorial on planning and planting a stunning garden; a journey through the seasons and the effects of sunshine, light, water, and soil. The constantly repeated cyclical patterns of each year from gloom to brightness and back again could be seen as a metaphor for the couple’s journey through life.
In his dynamic media presentation of such as BBC’s ‘Gardener’s World and in his writing Monty Don has been the public face of this partnership. Sarah, however, in their collaborations, of which this work is one, produces equally eloquent descriptive prose. I must refrain from giving away any more detail but ‘The Jewel Garden’ supports the phrase ‘behind every great man there is a great woman’.
Finally, I would suggest that anyone – TanGental, for instance – planning a garden event at any particular time of the year would do well to read this book.
After lunch I finished pruning the poplar, the chopped branches of which, supplemented by a few more of Jackie’s rose clippings, filled another bag for recycling.
I managed to knock this dahlia from its stem while wheeling the barrow of poplar cuttings. Never mind. We have an accident pot indoors.
Petunias still proliferate,
as do the ubiquitous Japanese anemones.
Today’s roses are represented by a pink carpet variety; a paler pink Generous Gardener, planted to scale the lopped cypress; and Shropshire Lad, bearing the freckles formed by raindrops.
This pink gaura is the most successful we have tried in this garden; the white begonia has always delighted.
Just one hollyhock bloom has so far resisted adding to a column of seed pods; clematis Julia Correvon has shed her colourful petal-like leaves.
At the end of the afternoon Jackie finished trimming the lawn.
This evening we dined on plentiful scrambled egg on toast.
The moon was out of bed this morning when Jackie took her camera into the garden, yet cloud cover soon rolled in. She crouched low to offer the Cobaea Scandens cup to the lingering orb. Fennel seeds, sweet pea pods, and mahonia completed the collection of silhouettes. The Assistant Photographer finished with pastel shades of verbena bonariensis against New Zealand flax.
This afternoon I cut the grass for which the expression ‘mowed the lawn’ would be a little pretentious. It seemed somewhat ambitious to hand-clip the edges so I will live to fight them another day.
The hanging basket in the top centre of the first picture contains a bright lime-green heuchera.
For a little light relief I transported Jackie’s clippings from her weeding and taking cuttings to the compost bin and bagged up some of the woody material.
Beside her the Dragon Bed’s Polish Spirit clematis and hanging baskets petunias display vibrant colour.
Bees, like this one in geranium Roxanne, went about their business undisturbed.
This variety of rudbeckia has prove quite prolific this year, whereas several others have failed.
Recents storms virtually stripped this pink climbing rose of its leaves, yet buds keep on coming,
as do those of Flower Power, Lady Emma Hamilton,
Absolutely Fabulous,
and Crown Princess Margareta, who encourages the coexistence of different generations.
The Weeping Birch Bed, like most of the others, still contains a variety of colourful blooms.
There aren’t many without a dahlia or two.
Preferring the ebb and flow and artistry of Test matches, I am not fan of T20 cricket, but, as I watched England’s innings against Australia on TV this afternoon I began to wonder whether my apathy might be a teeny bit prejudiced.
This evening we dined on Mr Chan’s excellent Hordle Chinese Take Away fare with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.
On this further dully overcast and windy morning we virtually finished the front garden pruning.
I photographed a few hanging baskets in the rest of this area, involving bacopas, lobelias, diascia, begonias, petunias, pelargoniums, and gladiolus. These have all regenerated well after the recent heavy winds.
Here are the bags of woody clippings which we will need to take to the recycling centre. Unfortunately we now have to register our vehicle and make an appointment to dump this material.
On my way through the garden I photographed more views which are each identified in the gallery. The second-flush kniphofia in the last picture is proliferating.
The first apples Jackie picked polished up nicely.
This afternoon we visited Mudeford harbour where, now the area has been left to the locals, I was able to wander across the green and photograph a sailboarder whizzing among moored boats;
gulls, including a preener;
and a low-flying murmuration of starlings for whom the race was on for dropped morsels of food.
As is her wont, Jackie photographed the photographer against the backdrop of his subject.
This evening we dined on lamb chops in mint and rosemary gravy; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots and broccoli; and swede and carrot mash, with which Jackie drank Beck’s and I drank more of the Malbec.
In an earlier post Tangental asked for suggestions for flowers that would be blooming in the last week of August when he hopes to host a family event. Although, he, the Textiliste, and Dog themselves have an enviable garden I promised to let him know what we have currently flowering. Needless to say they will be aware of most of what I have to offer, but, here goes.
This month does not finish until next Monday, the 31st, but this will be the last full week. We are predicted to be hit by another fierce storm tomorrow so I decided to post what we still have today.
The second of these two pictures demonstrates that gladioli are vulnerable to gusts of wind and need to be supported with stakes strong enough to see off Count Dracula.
Carpet roses come in a variety of colours and drape everything in sight. The red one might be appropriate for the special occasion.
Super Elfin is a fast growing prolific climber.
Given the occasion, the red Love Knot, might be appropriate; this one, and the sweetly scented peachy Mamma Mia and yellow Absolutely Fabulous survived our heavy pruning yesterday. The latter two are most prolific repeat flowering.
This is all that is left of For Your Eyes Only, the most prolific rose of all, but so resilient is it that all our snips will have prepared the way for plentiful new shoots within the next sennite (Archaic English WP).
At this time of year Rosa Glauca converts clusters of delicate pink and white flowers to rosy hips.
A variety of hydrangeas still thrive,
and hibiscus,
seen also with red and white dahlias and tall, strongly scented, bronze fennel, has come into its own.
This is of course the time for dahlias, of which we have a range.
Our Japanese anemones come in two shades of pink and in white. In the third of these images they blend well with pink pelargoniums and fuchsia Delta’s Sarah.
Pelargoniums and geraniums will grace any hanging basket,
as will begonias of any shape, size, or hue;
likewise sometimes scented petunias.
Provided you keep up with dead-heading, as with most of these plants, sweet scented phlox of many different colours will continue to delight.
We find rudbeckia hard to grow a second year, but this Goldsturm variety returns.
A number of crocosmia, like Emily MacKenzie and the yellow one we can’t identify for certain, are still blooming, although others such as Lucifer have finished, but, like Arnie, will be back.
The daisy-like erigeron and yellow bidens offer points of highlight throughout the garden. Erigeron thrives in paving, steps, and stony soil; all our bidens are self seeded survivors from last year.
Sedums begin to blush towards the end of the summer. The second picture has a backdrop of ornamental grass, some of which puts us in mind of Cousin It from the Adams Family. All good space fillers.
Eucomis, or pineapple plants, are a fun talking point;
nasturtiums trail everywhere until the first frost.
Nigella is a little blue flower.
This white solanum has flowered consistently for more than twelve months, far outstripping its neighbouring honeysuckle, now transformed into not very attractive berries. The solanum comes in blue, too.
Jackie produced a dinner this evening consisting of her special savoury rice served with prawns, some of which were spicy, and others tempura, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Saint-Chinian.
As I sit drafting this post bright sun shines, speeding clouds scud; wild wind howls along Christchurch Road sweeping through the garden, rustling the kitchen door curtain and setting tinkling charms jingling.
We are now into our third consecutive day/night of fierce breezes. Tentatively I ventured out to survey the damage and was able to report to the Head Gardener that she was in for a pleasant surprise.
Even the patio chairs had stayed upright, while its planting, and that of the Pond Bed, remained intact. Bigifying the third picture in this gallery will show that the whirling ladybird with the white wings enjoys full gyration whereas her red-winged sister has been somewhat restrained by an amorous verbena bonariensis.
Other views of the Pond Bed are equally encouraging. Dahlias remain strong and a solitary bee was attracted by the hibiscus;
Japanese anemones feature there and elsewhere. The Brick Path in the second picture here needs no current sweeping, although that is not a task we will undertake until the wind drops.
A few trugs have been blown about, although this bright green one remained static whilst being photographed from two separate angles. The first of these two pictures shows an empty brick plinth with the pot that should stand on it having been blown down. The container is a bit chipped and the planting spoiled, but it will no doubt recover.
Of the very few other broken plants we have this pretty, elegant, gladiolus, and the unfortunate Mum in a Million.
The tall red climbing rose in the Oval Bed has bowed enough for me to photograph it head on;
The yellow crocosmia has also dropped a little, but remains intact.
Rose Alan Titchmarsh has drooped a little and a stem of Super Elfin has come adrift from the Gothic arch where
a somewhat aged Doctor Ruppel remains in place.
The weeping birch, the copper beech, and the cordyline Australis, although swaying somewhat, are not shedding too many twigs.
White begonias shaded by the wisteria, and similarly hued petunias in the rose garden still have all their petals.
This final triptych shows the Oval Bed pictured earlier from the corner of Margery’s Bed; nicotiana sylvestris towering over the rest of the Dead End Path planting; and a small owl toppled beside the Shady Path.
All in all we are getting off surprisingly lightly.
This evening we dined on baked gammon; crisp roast potatoes, the sweet variety being soft-centred; piquant cauliflower cheese; crunchy carrots; and tender cabbage, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Saint-Chinian 2017.
On another sweltering, humid day we made short trips into the garden largely for the purposes of watering, mainly plants in hanging baskets.
Speaking for myself, I needed to wait until I had stopped soaking my T-shirt and recovered from my efforts before I was almost fit enough to wander around to admire our work and produce a few photographs.
As usual the images are titled in the gallery which can be accessed by clicking on any one. They include various petunias; a golden sunflower; a variety of dahlias; a bee on a geranium Rozanne; a bunch of begonias; mauve Japanese anemones purple and red fuchsia Mrs Popple; roses Margaret Merrill, Special Anniversary, For Your Eyes Only, Lady Emma Hamilton, Mamma Mia; and pelargoniums.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious liver and bacon casserole; boiled potatoes; and crunchy carrots and cauliflower, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hop House Lager and I drank more of the Carles.
At midday I accompanied Jackie on the big Tesco fortnightly shop; sat reading in the car while she did the business; unloaded the trolley into the car; emptied the purchases into the kitchen, then washed my hands.
This afternoon Jackie took the sprinkler on a whistle-stop tour of the garden, while I took my camera on another.
I pictured begonias, petunias, allium, hemerocallis, phantom hydrangea and phlox, all images of which are named in the galleries that can by accessed by clicking on any one. Each photograph can be viewed full size by clicking on the box beneath it, then further enlarged if necessary by repeated clicks.
Bees have shown themselves to be partial to these alliums.
Outside Bramshaw, on a drive to the north of the forest, we encountered ponies ignoring flies; sheep steering clear of the equine droppings; and donkeys keen to approach us in the hope of treats.
It was the Lamb Inn at Nomansland that had the honour of providing us with our first meal out since the recently partially relaxed coronavirus lockdown began.
My main meal was a tender rib eye steak with a bucket of chips and French fried onions; Jackie’s chips in a bucket were of sweet potatoes served with her haloumi burger. Mrs Knight drank Diet Coke and Carlsberg while I drank Timothy Taylor’s Landlord beer.
Naturally Jackie photographed the hanging baskets and
the sign in the outside dining area which had me wondering whether I was meant to use the letter box.
On a sunny and mild morning I spent some time dead heading and transporting clippings to the compost bins.
Jackie pruned and tidied the lawn area, keeping me supplied with bags of refuse.
The eucalyptus has now been adorned with its pendant baskets.
Nugget played his game in “Where’s Nugget?” (84) and (85). A click on either image will access the gallery each picture of which can be viewed full size by clicking the box beneath it on the right and further enhanced if necessary.
Later, Jackie added twelve begonias to the now weeded bed above. This activity, of course, produced more robin fodder.
My dead heading took me through the Back Drive entrance arch scaled by clematis Margaret Hunt and along these borders containing fuchsias, poppies, antirrhinums, phlomis, and much more.
In the Rose Garden I focussed on the strongly scented Absolutely Fabulous, Deep Secret still bearing the raindrops that fell overnight, and Crown Princess Margareta; the bright magenta petunias in the urn; and the gentler, drifting, scent of Rosa Gallica.
Elsewhere the red bottle brush plants and various hemerocallises bloom.
It is well known that Jackie finds birds becoming imprinted on her.
What do I find?
Well, this afternoon, as I left the kitchen to offer the Head Gardener some water, I heard a buzzing in my hair, which has not been cut since the lockdown began. I could feel nothing, but gave it a good finger rake and shook it all about. I walked through the garden, still hearing buzzing. I raked once more. I returned to the house, poured some water for Jackie, carried it outside, returned, and settled with Virginia Wolf on my lap.
A fat, drowsy, bee dropped from my locks onto my shoulder. I flicked it into the fireplace and forgot about it. It must have been three quarters of an hour later when the creature clutched at my T-shirt. This time I flicked it onto the carpet and continued with my book.
When Jackie came in it was still crawling about. With the aid of a glass and a birthday card she carried it into the garden whereupon it flew into a spider’s web. You just can’t help some people.
After the excitement we dined on Jackie’s super spicy chilli con carne with her flavoursome savoury rice, with which she drank Becks and I drank more of the Douro.
