campanulas – derrickjknight

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.

Happier Behind The Camera

I was grateful today for the overnight thunderstorm and for Jackie’s watering the parts it couldn’t reach early this morning before she and Shelly drove to Helen’s to offer sisterly assistance.

This meant I could concentrate on the dead-heading necessitated by the storm’s stripping of many petals. After more than an hour I retreated indoors with wobbly legs and wringing wet shirt to sit at the computer and apply myself to retouching two more of the images from my mother’s old album.

First I tackled my grandfather from c1926 at Conwy. Judging by the position of his hand I suspect he was holding a cigarette.

This photograph was probably taken in about 1919, before the marriage of my maternal grandparents, Annie and George Henry Hunter, who are the couple on the right.

These two images suggest that my grandfather was, like me, happier behind the camera.

After completing this work I returned to the garden,

where bees were very busy, being particularly partial to swarming over purple alliums and pink hebes.

Red geraniums, white marguerites, and pink hydrangeas produce an attractive bank on the front drive. Jackie is constantly thinning out the daisies so she has sufficient vision to her right when driving out.

A variety of day lilies continue to proliferate.

The last three day lily images are from the Kitchen Bed, also home to lysimachia Firecracker.

Pale pastel blue and white campanula spills over the Shady Path

from where we have views towards the house, and across the Palm Bed, among others.

This clematis Polish Spirit is nearby in the Dragon Bed.

From the stable door we look down the Gazebo path, and back from the agapanthuses coming into bloom in the Palm Bed.

Further garden views are afforded by the Rose Garden and the Phantom Path,

leading to the West Bed with its honesty and lilies.

Some time after Jackie returned home she drove out again for a Hordle Chinese Take Away meal which we enjoyed with Hoegaarden in her case, and more of the Fleurie in mine.

Fishy Business

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This morning, Jackie went hunting for pond liner to mend a leak in the Waterboy fountain

whilst Aaron cleared wind-battered plants and cut back others encroaching on the paths,

and I dead-headed in the rose garden and beyond. In the first of the above two pictures, the paler Alan Titchmarsh stands beside Love Knot; in the second, Little Rambler’s label stands out.

The bright pink Rosa Gallica is beautifully striated;

Winchester Cathedral bears new buds ready to take over from the mature bloom;

and a bee lingered on Absolutely Fabulous long enough for me to get two shots in.

In fact bees busy themselves everywhere. This one takes itself into a pink foxglove;

another boards an aquilegia;

another a heuchera;

and, is that a shield bug sharing a berth with one in a Bottle Brush plant?

Elsewhere we have suspended petunias;

ascending clematises like this Star of India;

soaring Rosa Glauca;

white campanulas;

delicate rose campion;

tiny sisyrinchium striatum;

luscious lilies;

hardy fuchsias;

two different philadelphuses;

another pink rose Dearest;

and Wedding Day

joining the clematis on the Agriframes Arch.

After lunch we motored to Stewart’s Garden Centre just outside Christchurch where, at Maidenhead Aquatics, we found the liner.

Outside this outlet there is a large pool around which koi carp, some looking prehistoric, glide, fins flapping, or swoop, tails flipping, fins tucked into their sides, whirling interminably.

We also noticed that Broomhill Garden Buildings had a Spring Sale, where a rather good greenhouse was available at half price. Back home we sped to take measurements of the place where it would go. It fitted. Back we sped and ordered it.

This evening we dined on haddock fishcakes topped with Cheddar cheese; spinach (for the forearms); boiled potatoes, carrots, and green beans.with which I drank Louis Chamandiet Cairanne 2015.

‘Road Kill’

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Struggles with erratic internet connection means that this post has taken some considerable time today. But let’s not go into that. Suffice it to say that I didn’t lose my cool and kept going off to do something else, sometimes involving a little garden clearance.

No way, however, can I match Aaron who today dug out and removed a mature ficus, pruned and reshaped the winter flowering cherry, cut the grass, laid some stepping stone paths, and

nailed beams across old tree stumps to support rambling roses. He had already built the fence behind him some time ago.

Garden view from patio along Dead End Path

Here is this morning’s view from the patio along the Dead End Path; the fresh bud low down to the left of the picture

is on the same bush as this rich peach one.

A large poppy will soon bloom behind the stone frog in this scene.

Purple campanulas in the triangular bed outside the wisteria arbour link the startling red Sweet Williams and the two clematises above.

Here is one of those.

Others can be found on one of the arches spanning the Brick Path,

in the New Bed, and in many other locations.

Penstemons and foxgloves also compare hues in the Palm Bed.

Flamboyant Gertrude Jekyll parades in the Rose Garden,

and this pale pink patio rose thrives in the Kitchen Bed alongside the Brick Path.

Jackie continues to make excellent progress with planting up tubs, urns, and hanging baskets such as

Urn planted with cosmos, geraniums, petunias, and allysum

this stone urn filled with cosmos, geraniums and petunias flanked by filigreed ferns in the bed beneath;

cosmos and calibrachoas in a terra cotta pot;

calibrachoas and diascias in a hanging basket;

petunias and geraniums in a faux terra cotta container;

petunias and marigolds in the leaden hat;

diascias and petunias in the iron urn;

and marigolds and black eyed Susans perched on a Victorian chimney pot. The black eyed Susans should, in time, climb to the top of their obelisk.

Aaron’s truck contains the tools of his trade and garden refuse he takes away when he has created it. This shot was taken before he loaded up the ficus root and branches.

Country roads often contain road kill, or small animals and birds that have been struck by motor vehicles. Our friend is building up his own collection of little creatures.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s excellent lamb korai, peas and rice, and sag ponir. We both drank Kingfisher.

Refreshment

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Jackie carried out much knowledgeable weeding and planting this morning, whilst I cleared up the discards and conveyed them to the compost pile.

The early sun lit libertias standing in the Weeping Birch Bed,

and enlivened the burgeoning Rose Garden.

Various clematises,

including this wonderfully scented Montana festooned over the front wall;

the weigela winding down the south fence;

ubiquitous aquilegias;

the pink rambler on the front garden trellis;

Libertia, geraniums Ingwersen's Variety, campanulas

borders everywhere, like this corner sporting campanulas, libertia, and geraniums Ingwersen’s Variety,

and the long Back Drive hosting splendid golden irises, relished their welcome refreshment.

A fly alighted on one of the front tub’s primroses.

This afternoon I added a little more to my biography of an era including me. I now have a working title: ‘A Knight’s Tale’. I took more text, and

this photograph from ‘A Sneaky Weekend’

I then made some prints from recent posts for Louisa.

After this I joined Jackie in the weeding, concentrating my efforts on uprooting the more obvious infiltrators, namely the smelly white alliums, clinging ladies’ bedstraw, and golden buttercups occupying the wrong beds.

This evening, there being no table available at the Crown in Everton, we dined at the Smugglers’ Inn at Milford on Sea. Having starters was a mistake. The platefuls were excellent. Mine contained battered whitebait, plentiful fresh salad, and thick wedges of equally fresh bread. Jackie received a huge plateful of bread and olives. Each serving was a meal in itself. An even bigger mistake was, in my case, ordering succulent sirloin steak, still more fresh salad, a mountain of perfect chips, onion rings, and fried onions, mushrooms and tomatoes. Jackie was treated to a huge bowl of cannelloni. more salad, and an equal number of chips to mine. Neither of us could finish our food, and we did not require a look at the dessert menu. The food was, I hasten to add, all extremely good, and the service impeccable. We both reminisced that, in our prime, we would have managed all this. Jackie drank Amstel, and I drank Doom Bar..