clematis – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Windburn

Today dawned dull and drizzle-wet. We ventured into the garden early – Jackie to inspect and, where possible, nullify the storm damage and I to empty refuse trugs then carry out some dead heading.

Jackie had a chat with Nugget when he came to sample what she had dug up for him. He is able to eat himself now, rather than fly off to the nest with the goodies. The last of these four pictures is “Where’s Nugget?” (90)

The only real damage was windburn such as browning and curling of these Japanese maple leaves.

As will be seen by this rain-bejewelled Rhapsody in Blue, I didn’t get very far with dead-heading before returning to the house.

I paused to photograph this inherited clematis which has taken advantage of the light made available by the lopping of the cypress, not yet draped by the climbing plants set to cover it.

Even such a day could not dull the charms of this kniphofia and pelargonium blend.

Rain eased up for half an hour before lunch, enabling is to carry out a little more work.

Here are raindrops on sweet peas, lilies, hemerocallis, and petunias. Galleries can be accessed by clicking on any image; each one can be viewed full size by clicking on the box beneath it. Further enlargement is then possible.

Later in the afternoon we continued a bit more. Nugget is now training another junior, perhaps from his latest brood.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s crisp fish and chips and our own jars of somewhat soggy and sharpish gherkins and pickled onions having been first opened before the lockdown. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Malbec.

Like The Pool, Reflecting

One of Aaron’s tasks this morning was to embed into the soil of the front garden this previously potted Hot Chocolate rose,

near which is a planter containing last autumn’s petunias, pansies, and pelargonium, alongside a euphorbia. Similar survivors of our mild winter are the clematis, nasturtiums, pansies, and solanum adorning the garage door trellis.

This afternoon we took a short drive into a rather crowded forest. We encountered far more cars, cyclists, and walkers than of late. By and large social distancing was being observed, but in the village of Burley, for example, this wasn’t really possible.

A bovine mother and babies group was meeting in what is normally an unoccupied field alongside Hordle Lane. As always with these creatures my presence engendered a certain amount of curiosity.

Soon after we entered Forest Road we saw two herons trying their luck in what is now a rather shallow pool. Jackie parked as soon as she could and I walked back to photograph them standing in the water. A cyclist shot round the corner and spooked them. They took flight. I panned them and hoped for the best; almost immediately I was left, like the pool, reflecting.

Further along the road

assorted foraging ponies were strewn across the landscape.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s well filled, flavoursome, beef and mushroom pie; boiled new potatoes, crunchy carrots and broccoli, with tasty, meaty, gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Becks and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2018.

Working On The Rose Garden

Today, the hottest day of the year, was fine and sunny.

While Jackie swept, weeded, pruned, and watered the Rose Garden. (This picture is not an official “Where’s Nugget?”, but on reading the blog and doubly enlarging it The Head Gardener identified our familiar robin clearly silhouetted above the central bloom of clematis Warsaw Nike in the right foreground.)

I pruned roses and photographed various scenes there and elsewhere.

The Mum in a Million rose chaperoned by gladioli and foxgloves to the left of the third picture above is now in her prime.

In the first scene Jackie attends the gazebo which hosts Crown Princess Margareta and Zephirine Drouhin each exuding strong sweet scents.

This pink climber scales an obelisk

beside Margaret Merrill.

Ballerina dances elegantly

and another nameless climber, a deeper pink, soars above the arbour.

The views from the Cryptomeria Bed and the Concrete Patio lead on to the Rose Garden. The above picture contains one of the

plethora of poppies we now enjoy.

These stand against a red rhododendron.

As these bushes are nearing the end of their flowering, a different colour combination comes into its own.

This can be seen above the bench beside the Heligan Path

Back in the Rose Garden our little goldcrest continued its reflected courtship. He wasn’t fazed by us, but Jackie has now covered the mirror to reduce tantalisation.

Nugget kept us intermittent company. “Where’s Nugget?” (79).

Another view from the Cryptomeria Bed takes us towards the house, passing an unseen

arch sporting this purple clematis.

This stunning non-hardy pelargonium has survived the entire winter in a pot beside the kitchen window.

More small alliums live in the Pond Bed opposite.

The Chilean lantern tree is now quite loaded.

From the patio we have a view along the Dead End Path.

This view looks south from the Gazebo Path.

Looking in the same direction along the Brick Path we see that Wedding Day is burgeoning on the Agriframes Arch.

The roses along the Back Drive borders will also soon cover the stumps.

Irises Reticulata are cropping up everywhere.

A few days ago we visited South Sway Lane

to check on Gimlet, our carrot-loving equine friend. His field was empty, as it remained today when we came back to collect more horse manure from the house opposite. It was all gone, although it had been there on our previous trip.

Undaunted, Jackie continued to Ferndene Farm shop where there was no queue and she was able to buy several items. Still on Sway Lane,

I disembarked to photograph some backlit grey horses. The immediately trotted over to their gate so I had to be satisfied with this shot, which biggifies quite well.

This evening we repeated yesterday’s meal, except that the potatoes were old and sprouting a few roots. Our alcoholic accompaniments were the same.

“Where’s Derrick?”

Knowing that the temperature would drop and the leaden canopy overhead become a leaky colander throughout the day, we held back Jackie’s sunlit images from yesterday afternoon.

She had transformed this second footpath across the Rose Garden from a few days ago

to this, having also re-fixed the windblown mirror to the back fence. The poppies in the first picture have all been relocated.

Elsewhere backlit borage;

sunlit azalea;

and shadowy lily of the valley also caught her eye.

After lunch today I took advantage of a minor lull in the precipitation from above and photographed raindrops

pendant from solanum;

pearling libertia;

pooling pelargoniums;

douching heuchera leaves;

bejewelling rosebuds;

caressing Queen of the Night;

refreshing rhododendrons;

purifying pale pink pieris;

cleansing clematis;

and slithering down Viulcan magnolia.

Some flowers, such as hellebores,

pansies,

and diurnal poppies, bowed their heads against the weight of the crown jewels.

While I was wandering around the garden Jackie, from the dry warmth of the kitchen,

photographed me in action.

She even managed “Where’s Derrick?” (1)

and (2)

This evening we dined on prawns: tempura prawns; prawns in hot, spicy batter; seeded prawn toasts; and Jackie’s savoury prawn, egg, and vegetable rice, followed by mixed fruit crumble and custard, with which she drank Heineken and I drank Piemonte Barbera 2016.

Redundant

The Head Gardener has renamed what I have been calling the Kitchen Bed because it runs alongside that room. It has become

the Pond Bed because it sprawls across a sunken pond filled in by our predecessors. At the western corner stands the frog pond created from an old cistern; at the eastern end

the Waterboy fountain. The Waterboy was found in bits in the undergrowth at the far end of the garden. Now he provides drinking water for thirsty birds, and a backdrop for

diurnal poppies.

Some of the bronze fennel in the first picture is flanked by the now ubiquitous Erigeron.

The Head Gardener, during her husbandry today, produced all the photographs in this post. We have images of

camassia,

bluebells;

a hyacinth,

lithodora,

and clematis of similar hue.

Blue solanum spreads over this arch spanning the Brick Path.

heuchera leaves,

aquilegias or columbines,

and rhododendrons, in various shades of red.

Tulips, especially

Queen of the Night, continue to attract.

Honesty and a New Zealand flax

can be seen sharing a berth beyond the Weeping Birch Bed.

Daffodils,

including those named after a Pheasant’s Eye, continue happily to bloom,

as do the various colours of cyclamen.

Orange Flash marigolds accompany lilac diasica.

Comfrey and

geraniums hang well together.

This hydrangea now spins a fine web.

Spirea Pink Ice has responded well to nurturing,

as have all the pelargonium cuttings in the greenhouse.

Just how much food can this rapacious blackbird carry off?

While Jackie was tidying the pots on the decking she was aware of Nugget’s presence, but not sure where he was.

She therefore moved a container exposing a collection of luscious worms.

It took her robin familiar about twenty seconds to alight. “Where’s Nugget?” (71)

and “Where’s Nugget?” (72). Bigification will probably be essential for these puzzles, but the second is rather easier.

Were it not for the fact that I carry out the task of uploading all these pictures and putting the post together with the explanatory text, I would probably be redundant by now.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy hot paprika pork, boiled potatoes, and broccoli, with which she drank Tsing Tao and I finished the Bordeaux.

Picking Up The Autobiography

Yesterday evening, through the window beside my desk, Jackie photographed glistening pearls strung out by a furry spider.

For reasons which will become particularly apparent from my post “The Foam Rubber Mattress”, patient readers who may have notice an hiatus in the drafting of my autobiography, may be pleased to know that I picked it up again this afternoon. Hoping to have lifted my block I have taken material from that post and from “Chocolate Surprise Pudding”

Jackie carried out more planting, ably hindered by Nugget.

This afternoon we experienced more showers than sunshine as we drove to The Wheel Inn to book a table for lunch to celebrate Mum’s 97th birthday tomorrow.

The rain really set in as we continued into the forest, but desisted just as we had decided to return home. We stayed on at Brockenhurst where

pair of donkeys trotted alongside the school buses transporting youngsters home from Brockenhurst College

and idled past our windscreen.

Ponies

and cattle happily grazed among huge oaks just outside the village.

Pied wagtails are to ponies as robins are to gardeners. We watched one nipping around nearby hooves and muzzles.

Back at home, Jackie took her camera into the garden.

She is particularly pleased with this clematis, shrivelled and wizened when we arrived here five years ago.

Another great survivor is the Phoenix grass we tried to kill, now rising triumphantly from Elizabeth’s Bed.

The Dragon Bed, seen from the Gazebo, was a jungle five years ago.

Sculptural grasses come into their own at this time of the year. These are in the Palm Bed.

The helianthuses Lemon Queen sit before a curtain of Virginia creeper.

She cannot remember the name of this gorgeous fuchsia.

Other favourites are osteospermum;

the waving verbena bonariensis

and the peripatetic cosmoses mingling with them.

This evening we dined on roast chicken with sage and onion stuffing; roast potatoes, including sweet ones; crisp Yorkshire pudding; crunchy carrots and cauliflower with which I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2018.

Grrrrr

A recent post from Sandra had me reaching for my copy of

I will simply refer you to Sandra’s review and say that I enjoyed this short book in my 1977 paperback edition.

Taking regular rests, today I was mostly occupied with irrigation and decapitation of garden plants,

More lilies are blooming on the patio;

we have a peripatetic plethora of hemerocallis, incorrectly called day lilies.

The last of these faces this small clematis climbing the trellis in the front garden,

and stands beside this fuchsia Delta’s Sarah.

Most hanging baskets contain petunias and trailing lobelias.

Bees were particularly attracted to geranium palmatums and yellow saxifrages.

In the Rose Garden, Just Joey has matured, and Alan Titchmarsh stands proud.

Both are visible in these images also including a red carpet rose and Love Knot.

Rosa Gallica has shed a tear over a Deep Secret.

We can drink in the beauty of Hot Chocolate.

Lady Emma Hamilton and Absolutely Fabulous converse with Crown Princess Margareta in the background;

and red valerian introduces

the deep red potted geranium at the edge of the Oval Path.

WordPress took note of my paperback’s title and flushed out everything that followed as soon as I had completed this post, so I was forced to do it all again. Grrrrr.

This evening I dined on Jackie’s glorious chicken jalfrezi; pilau rice; and onion bahji, with which I drank Peroni.

Gracing The Back Drive

The weather today was overcast and cold, but mostly dry. A wander round the garden seemed to be in order.

The upstairs windows gave me a new perspective in which the rescued red Japanese maple gapes in awe across and above to the majestic copper beech; I could look down on the gazebo clematis; and in the Palm Bed the cordeline Australis bears buds.

The close-up of the maple began my lower level selection.

The red climbing rose, Paul’s scarlet, will soon be joining the wisteria beneath our bathroom window.

This hawthorn graces the back drive,

as do blue-tipped irises.

Ferns are unfurling as I write.

Enlarging this image of the Brick Path will enhance the West Bed with its lamiums, dicentras, and much more.

More aquilegias and a pieris on the grass patch are bursting into life; while an oak-leaved pelargonium with its scented foliage has survived the winter beneath the gazebo.

I have refrained from mentioning that last Friday evening we ran out of fuel oil. This was not a good week to be without heating. Today a new supply was delivered. This evening the excellent Ronan, of Tom Sutton Heating, reset the boiler.

We dined on Jackie’s spicy pasta arrabbiata with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Pinot Noir.

A More Manageable Garden

Our own garden is rather more manageable for dodgy knees than yesterday’s veritable undulating park. I took an amble around it this afternoon.

Jackie thought that this very small daffodil, in one of the stone troughs resting on the front wall, had come up blind. In fact it has bloomed later than most.

Behind the troughs rambles a clematis Montana, one of several we have.

One shares its perch with a blue solanum on the arch to the south end of the Brick Path;

another cosies up to the lilac.

This one, adorning the Gazebo was a shrivelled little specimen, barely alive, until Jackie came along and nurtured it. In the foreground of this shot we have a bottle brush plant ready to burst open.

The clematis will soon festoon the top of the arch.

The first of these aquilegias stands beneath the wisteria; the second is at the south end.

This phlox subulata is the sole survival of six planted last year.

Jackie savages this toadflax whenever she finds it growing like the alleged weed it is. There is no doubt, however, that it makes good ground cover.

Another plant whose name escapes the Head Gardener is this rather beautiful little bulb – one of a cluster in the Cryptomeria Bed.

We have two different rhododendrons in the Palm Bed.

The viburnum Plicata now blooms in the West Bed.

Many of our bluebells are either of the incoming Spanish variety or hybrids. Fortunately we do have some native English specimens.

This miniature azalea has accompanied me in all my abodes since it came in a pot presented to me by the foster carers of Parents for Children in 2003. It has now taken up permanent residence in the Kitchen Garden.

For dinner this evening we enjoyed Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi and savoury rice followed by strawberries and cream.

Hay Ho

This morning Aaron of A.P. Maintenance completed his preparation of the Rose Garden for winter that is still being kept at bay.

A week or so back he gave the shrub roses a good haircut. Today he laid our two year old compost around their bases.

Clumps of bright yellow bidens, like these at the foot of our sculpture, Florence;

Little irises, heucheras, lamium, and geraniums;

a fig flowering in the Palm Bed;

and this clematis on the Westbrook Arbour, all speak of the season’s confusion.

This morning I helped Elizabeth load her car with belongings to take to her Pilley house. This afternoon Jackie and I followed this up by unloading them for her. We then continued on a forest drive.

The lake that has been mostly dry during the summer once more bears ripples and reflections.

Bustling goats in a field alongside Jordans Lane competed in a dodgem race for first bite at the bundles of hay clutched under their speeding keeper’s left arm.

On an open space beside Bull Hill a group of stumpy little ponies chomped on their own food.

From here we sped off to Mudeford, arriving just in time for sunset. While I was taking these shots

I was unaware that Jackie was adding her own sequence, featuring me among the silhouettes.

Preening swans,

one with an entourage of gulls, completed the picture.

Elizabeth returned in the evening and we all dined on Jackie’s splendidly hot chilli con carne and toothsome savoury rice. My sister drank Hop House Lager; my wife drank Hoegaarden; and I finished the Merlot