clematis Niobe – derrickjknight

Absolutely Fabulous Cricket

The sun was permitted the occasional appearance from behind today’s cloud curtain.

At mid morning, thinking she was attending to the Weeping Birch Bed, I ventured out for a stint of clearing up after the Head Gardener’ general maintenance efforts, and received something of a shock.

Jackie had been diverted by the Rose Garden, upon the paths of which she had dropped considerable debris. That was clearly going to take precedence.

Nugget would keep getting under my feet as he foraged for his brood. In the first picture he has a beakful ready for transporting to yellow gapes at home. “Where’s Nugget?” (86) is the third image. Biggification may be required to spot him.

After I had bagged up and added to the compost bins all the weeding and clipping refuse, I had intended to sweep up the bits I couldn’t pick up, but our little robin familiar persuaded me to leave it for a while since he still found rich pickings.

I therefore concentrated on dead heading and photography.

Love Knot and the red carpet rose blend together with Alan Titchmarsh in the background; Just Joey is the large portrait; Rosa Gallica and Mamma Mia make good companions; the petunias and lobelia adorn a hanging basket over the Phantom Path.

After lunch I swept the Rose Garden paths and made more photographs, details of which can be gleaned from the gallery that can be accessed by clicking on any image.

I watched a minute cricket wandering between the petals of an Absolutely Fabulous rose.

Jackie had by then begun thinning out the wandering plants and their foliage that were choking the Weeping Birch Bed. I carried several trugfuls to the compost bins before collecting my camera from the house, because

Nugget wouldn’t go away and kept posing.

This picture shows how close he was to Jackie.

Half a dozen mice stand guard over the seedlings in the trough beside the frog pond. They are there to deter the lumbering wood pigeons from squashing the plants as they land lurching for a drink. In fact Jackie is beginning to wage war on pigeons. Those building the nest in the wisteria yesterday continue today. Every time the Head Gardener removes the sticks and shoos them off they return and start again. Given that they regularly drop both twigs and poo onto the bench below she does have a point.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s sausages in red wine; creamy mashed potato; crunchy carrots; and tender spring greens. The Culinary Queen drank Becks, and I drank more of the Douro opened a couple of days ago.

Gnomes Won’t Be Warned Off

While gardening this morning and photographing

“Where’s Nugget?” (83),

Jackie turned to admire her mushrooms

and was amazed to find that warning off gnomes had been of no avail.

This afternoon we jointly continued Jackie’s work on refurbishing the front garden. The Head Gardener weeded, pruned, and planted and I raked, swept, and added refuse to the black compost bin. As usual, the gallery can be accessed by clicking on any image.

Robin Ronnie, still feeding a family in the field across Christchurch Road, was rather disappointed to find that the bird feeders have, for the summer, been replaced by hanging baskets.

“Where’s Ronnie?”

Later, we visited the pharmacy at Milford on Sea for a repeat prescription, after which we took a drive into the forest, uneventful save for

an opportunity to study the back of a tractor and trailer travelling at 10 m.p.h. for the whole length of Jordans Lane and even into Pilley Street before Jackie managed to turn off right.

This evening Jackie produced a meal of cheese centred haddock fish cakes; in the absence of any macaroni, her own penne cheese; and juicy ratatouille, with which she drank Becks and I finished the Fleurie.

It Has To Go

As she toured the garden this morning Jackie was struck by the contrast between the number of survivors from spring and summer still blooming –

including clematis Niobe;

fuchsias Delta’s Sarah

and Mrs. Popple;

hebes;

hot lips;

bidens;

pelargoniums;

pansies;

campanulas;

and roses in the Rose Garden –

and the harbingers of spring to come, such as the budding rhododendrons;

the new shoots of Michaelmas daisies;

and the burgeoning mimuluses.

One of Aaron’s tasks was to clear dragons, hanging baskets, and other vulnerable artefacts from beneath the

rather brittle cypress that continually sheds dead branches and therefore has to go. It will be removed later in the week.

As we were planning to venture into the forest this afternoon the skies darkened, the previously still air produced gusts of more than fifty miles an hour, torrential rains fell, and the birds left the front garden feeders. Within half an hour tranquility returned.

Blue tits returned to the suet balls.This bird tried to masquerade as one;

and Ron, as we have named the front garden robin, was able to head for his seed feeder before the sparrows returned to dispossess him. It is almost impossible to distinguish between male and female robins. Should Ron turn out to be a female I guess she will be a Ronette. https://youtu.be/FXlsWB1UMcE

We then did drive into to forest.

Ponies at Norleywood had calmly weathered the storm that had added to

the pool at the corner of St. Leonards Road,

along which, like cannon-shot, clouds sped across the sky,

against which oak tree branches groped gnarled fingers.

It was not yet sunset when we passed St Leonards Grange and the ruins of its ancient grain barn.

Another winterbourne pool on which oak leaves floated reflected the tree limbs and trunks;

a cheerful young girl running down the road was overtaken by a passing car;

and a pheasant was framed by a Star of David.

We drove on past Bucklers Hard, then retuned along St Leonards Road to catch

sunset both at the Grange

and a little further along the road.

This evening we dined on fish pie with Jackie’s succulent ratatouille; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; and tender cabbage, with which we both drank Barefoot Sauvignon Blanc 2016.

Not Quite Mid-May

Today’s tour of the garden began with

clematis Marie Boisselot in the Kitchen Bed which also contains an as yet small wisteria, clusters of ferns, Japanese maples, the now ubiquitous erigeron, and self seeded bronze fennel which will have to go when it outgrows it’s welcome.

Other clematises include Niobe, now rivalling the fading wisteria and the burgeoning rose Paul’s Scarlet for space above the Wisteria Arbour; and Doctor Ruppel, one of which is beginning its ascent up the arch facing the Westbrook Arbour.

At the Brick Path corner of the Dragon Bed a deep red peony prepares to top off the happy planting of phlox and geraniums.

At the far side of this bed the magnolia Vulcan is beginning to relish the light now permitted into its corner.

The pink rhododendron in the Palm Bed sits opposite the deeper variety in Margery’s Bed.

There are a number of vantage points along the Brick Path.

The yellow diurnal poppies alongside the Gazebo Path

can be seen slightly above the centre of this view through the Cryptomeria Bed.

Before Aaron left this morning he had mown the grass patch which is beginning to warrant the epithet lawn.

Rose Madame Alfred Carriere soars above the entrance to the Rose Garden; Jacqueline du Pré adds harmony; Laura Ford a splash of yellow beside Roserie de la Haie; and Gloriana a touch of majesty to the side fence.

Aquilegias dance with ferns in the South Bed;

weigela festoons the fence above them.

Three hawthorn trees, swathes of libertia, and carpets of erigeron give a distinctly white hue to the Back Drive borders.

These are glimpses of the garden in not quite mid-May.

While we enjoyed pre-dinner drinks on the patio a pair of pigeons settled down for the evening in the copper beech.

For our dinner we travelled around the world in 60 minutes. We enjoyed Jackie’s special fried rice with Japanese tempura prawns, Chinese pork spare ribs, Indian tandoori chicken, Belgian Hoegaarden beer and more of the Chilean Carmenere wine.

“I’m Sure I Can’t Allow That”

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I dozed through the early parts of the day. At 4. p.m. Jackie set me up on Mum’s perching stool at a vantage point beside the bricked-in well, and I emerged, blinking, into strong sunlight to the sweet, sonorous, symphonies of vibrant birdsong.

While she continued to labour away in the sweltering heat, I perched and photographed what met my eye. When she caught me standing unaided and shifting the stool to give me a better angle down the Brick Path, she exclaimed: “I’m sure I can’t allow that.”

My choice of this evening’s ready prepared meals was suitably bland cod mornay with mashed potato and peas.

One Day Of Life

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I can spot a dandelion or a bramble when it grows big enough to be difficult to eradicate. The Head Gardener can spot any sort of weed as soon as it pokes through soil. She can distinguish that soon between a plant she will welcome and allow to live and another that must die. I am not safe in that department, so I don’t weed. Except for the few paltry dandelions and small cluster of brambles from one parent root that I removed today.

Jackie continued her phenomenal soil replenishment programme, sensibly choosing the Shady Bed for her main focus because it was pretty warm. It is worth repeating that this involves digging out poor soil, finger fishing thousands of tiny superfluous allium bulbs, adding spent potting compost, then

planting, in this case begonias, mimuluses, and geraniums.

Aaron and Robin spent the morning working on the fence.

In the Rose Garden the forget-me-nots in each picture have self-seeded around the base of Mum in a Million, planted in honour of my late mother-in-law, and just coming into bud. This seems rather thoughtful.

These self-seeded orange poppies pop up all over the garden, only last a day, and are rapidly replaced.

The same applies to the similarly hued day lilies, so called for obvious reasons.

Fortunately these orange irises, along the Back Drive, having a delightful scent, bloom a little longer.

The clematis Niobe enhancing the kitchen wall is now very vigorous;

the Chilean Lantern tree is coming into flower;

and different alliums emerge daily.

On the right of this view from the Decking the Cordyline Australis, otherwise known as Cabbage Plant, is coming into bud. It will soon bear sweet-smelling cascading floral filigrees.

Beneath this palm Jackie found another bird’s nest that has served its purpose.

Sadly, this evening, we came to the end of the last batch of Jackie’s chicken jalfrezi, served with egg fried rice, parathas, and onion bhajis. I look forward to the next one. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Mendoza Parra Alta malbec 2014.

In The May Garden

My gardening task today was cutting the grass.

It is as well that I did carried that out before photographing this symphony in red provided by tellimas, rhododendron, pieris, mimuluses and petunias.

Another rhododendron that I photographed last week in a still closed and soggy state is now fully open and looking well refreshed;

as are the red and white tulips at the front of the house.

New arrivals are clematises

Niobe

and Marie Boisselot;

yet more Crane’s bill geraniums;

Pheasant’s eye, perhaps the last of the narcissi;

naturalised aquilegias;

and different alliums.

As has been noted before, the Hordle Chinese Take Away set meal for two can always be extended into the next day. So it was with yesterday’s, the seconds of which we enjoyed this evening, with profiteroles to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the Bordeaux.

I’ve Received An Award

There was not much sunshine today, so it paid off to have been up and dawn to watch its pink tints filtering across the road, turning the cool blue exterior of the house into a warm watercolour, and piercing a new pair of windows into my study wall. An amble round the garden revealed

two different deutzias;

a variety of verbena;

and a quantity of aquilegias from seed scattered last autumn.

This clematis Niobe, now thriving against the front fence, was a spindly twig trampled into gravelly soil when we arrived a year ago. It has responded well to Jackie’s winter care.

We have a saying which I had never understood until meeting Priscilla. This is ‘smelling like a petunia’, used to describe someone wearing perhaps too much perfume. Almost very variety of the range of cultivated versions of the plant has had the scent bred out of it.

Priscilla, however, carries the pristine aroma.

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday evening to receive:from Alex Raphael, who certainly deserved one himself. Thank you Alex.

As part of the award, I have to say 7 things about me and nominate 15 other cool bloggers.

Here goes:

1. I will be 73 in July, and am enjoying a full and active life, qualified somewhat by 7 below.

2. I had secure and stable childhood which gave me the strength to survive several adult bereavements, all of which have contributed to who I am today. For example, being widowed and a single parent at 22 brought about an entire change of career.

3. I have 5 children by three different wives, two of whom have died. To date there are 8 grandchildren.

4. My interests include art, literature and photography.

5. It is fascinating how my enthusiasms have changed over the years. Having been a keen sportsman of generally average ability, I now don’t even know who is playing what. Similarly, I set top level cryptic crosswords for twenty years, until losing interest three years ago. Blogging has taken over – for as long as it may last.

6. Having spent a lifetime living and/or working in London, I am enjoying retirement between The New Forest and the south coast.

7. A problem with my right knee has curtailed my long walks for the moment, but I am an optimist, and hope to resume them in due course.

Of all the awards which float around WordPress, Alex has chosen the one I would most have coveted. This is because I do try to vary my material.

I follow almost 200 other blogs, but, I cannot nominate 15 for versatility. Sticking to that criterion, and avoiding those Alex has already nominated, this is my list:

Baffled Baboon

ireland2day: according to my lens

Implied Spaces

Dark Pines Photo

Life is But This

The World according to Dina

handmade. homegrown. beautiful life

The Proto Star

Oak Trees Studio

Of course I couldn’t follow the instructions without technical help from Alex through an e-mail. Thank you for that too, Alex. Patiently and carefully, Aaron made further impressive progress in laying the paths for the new rose garden. The succulent piece of pork Jackie had bought a couple of days ago was far to big for yesterday’s meal. She therefore cut it in half and cooked the second for our dinner tonight. Boiled potatoes, carrots and cabbage were served with it. She drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Malbeck.

Out On Their Feet Amid The Confetti

Yesterday I forgot to mention the outcome of my visit to Simon Richards, the hand surgeon. That can only be a good sign. He has discharged me, but physiotherapy will continue for some time. The middle joint on the little finger remains bent rigid. He has advised me to practice straightening it with brute force from my right hand. That’s painful. And scary. Rather like holding a newborn baby, I don’t want to break it. But it seems to be working.

Wind still gusts around the garden, but we do have sunshine and showers.

A new rhododendron is in bloom;

an ant perches on the first of our colourful alliums to arrive;

the thymes I rescued from the blue sinks last year have thrived;

as has the heavily Corokia cotoneaster outside the back door;

and the clematis Niobe enlivens the kitchen wall.

The rain, reinforced by a fierce fusillade of hailstones, soon returned and watered my charges for me.

These mimuluses, hosta, heuchera, and cosmos have yet to be planted up.

I returned to the task of identifying and scanning the prints retrieved from Elizabeth.

Here, Michael and Sam are seated in the garden of Gracedale Road in June 1983.

Later that year, Sam tucks into refreshments after completing the Furzedown mini-marathon.

This was a fund-raising event for the children’s nursery school. Clearly the professional-looking number tags had been donated by the organisers of the Farnham Castle Marathon, sponsored by Kentucky Fried Chicken. I made a complete black and white portfolio of the occasion for the school. Some parents bought copies. If I ever find the negatives, I think the pictures would warrant their own post.

(I did find the negatives. This post and the next two feature the pictures)

Sometime in 1984, Michael appears to be watching telly in the lounge of Gracedale Road. Probably an Arsenal football match.

Also in 1984 we attended Tony and Liz’s wedding. Here is a portrait of Becky taken there.

That was the period in which I was converting colour negatives to black and white prints, using an enlarger and chemicals. Goodness knows how, I certainly don’t remember. Now I can do it at the touch of a mouse, so who cares?

This, from the same set, was scanned from a 10″ x 8″ print.

Louisa was there too. Here, putting me in mind of the bridesmaid from 1970, she, too, seems to be out on her feet, and contemplating whether the confetti would soften the paving stones sufficiently to provide a feather bed.

There was more than enough of Jackie’s delicious beef stew for my meal this evening. I also finished the Madiran wine.

Lest We Forget

It is Alice’s birthday today, so I will begin by displaying my iMac wallpaper on which she walks across the shingle on a very blustery day in view of the Isle of Wight and The Needles.
This morning I walked to the bank at New Milton. I turned right up Lower Ashley Road and left along Ashley Road. This route is rather less picturesque and more protracted than the winding racetrack that is Christchurch/Lymington Road, but considerably safer. The man who insisted on giving me a lift soon after I had passed Angel Lane on my return thought so too.
Downton’s public Telephone box has probably seen better days.
A grasshopper camouflaged in the long grasses through which I trampled on the verge took me back to A Close Encounter I experienced in Sigoules on 9th August 2012.
A memorial flag flapping on the top floor balcony of a block of flats in Ashley Road encouraged us to remember the 36th Ulster Division’s contribution to the First World War, which we joined 100 years ago today. This was just one group of the generation of young men and boys on both sides sent to their slaughter in order to satisfy the whim of a power-crazed Kaiser and the hopeless ineptitude of our own war leaders. A century later we still fight our battles on foreign soil, to demonstrate that not much has been learned by mankind in the intervening century.
It is almost incredible to recollect that Kaiser Wilhelm was a grandson of Queen Victoria, and therefore that the major protagonists were a family at war.
My own paternal grandfather was one of those who came back, otherwise, since my father was born in 1917, when we think this photograph was taken, I probably wouldn’t be here to write this post. Neither would Alice, come to that.
When our lights are extinguished at 10 p.m. this evening, it will not be a power cut that brings this about. We will be joining the rest of the UK in an hour’s darkness of remembrance.
Back home this afternoon, while Jackie laboured with her watering cans, I wandered around the garden, at one point taking a rest on the dump bench and admiring one of its views. I did a little dead heading on my rounds. Petunias are very sticky.

The nocturnal relative of this morning’s grasshopper, probably sleeping, aboard one of our many blue clematises was a cricket. Close scrutiny of the photograph reveals the incredibly long antennae that distinguish this insect from the other.

We think the purple clematis climbing the new arch on the opposite side of the garden is a Niobe.

Near this is a very prolific hibiscus.

Because we are likely to forget their names, Jackie is labelling all those plants, like the unusual crocosmia Solfoterre, that she can, sometimes after considerable research.
Just as extensive research was required for me to identify a black and white striped butterfly that flashes it bright orange underside when on the wing. After a thorough study of the thoroughly informative ‘The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland’ by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington, I surfed the web, to no avail. Then I had one of my strokes of genius. Maybe, I thought,’ it is a moth?’. One had, after all, the other day, settled on Jackie’s woolly bosom. It is a Jersey Tiger Moth. She was, incidentally wearing a cardigan at the time.
For our dinner this evening, Jackie produced a professional egg fried rice to accompany our succulent pork chops and the remnants of our recent Chinese takeaway. I finished the Bordeaux and she sampled some Hoegaarden.