clematises – Page 8 – derrickjknight

Taking The Plunge

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Whilst I am very happy with my Canon SX700 HS camera, I am becoming increasingly aware of its limitations. In particular I do miss my SLR film cameras with good quality zoom lenses. It was such a device that enabled me to fill the frames of the colour slides featured yesterday without poking a lens up the children’s noses and thus spoiling the spontaneity. This would also have captured our garden birds without their constantly taking flight. Who knows, I may also be able to catch them on the wing.

This morning I took the plunge, sought advice from my friend Alex Schneideman, and, following it, researched suppliers on the internet, and ordered on line a second-hand Canon EOS D5 Mark 2 DSLR with a couple of lenses from Camera Jungle. All I have to do upon its receipt is pluck up courage to try it out.

We have both been feeling a bit off colour for a few days. Jackie was able today to return to her weeding and planting

and set the sprinkler operating.

I spent some time deadheading and weeding. It was a dull day, which made work a little easier.

The front trellis now sports a couple of clematises, two pink roses, honeysuckle, solanum and nasturtiums;

while on the opposite corner of the entrance Marguerites blend with potentilla, hydrangea, and the rambling Félicité Perpétue rose. Nasturtiums and geraniums are also in the bed.

On the trellis covering the garage door, a clematis winds above lobelias and begonias in a hanging basket.

Other clematises, such as these over The Head Gardener’s Walk

and The Shady Path, now festoon the garden.

Star of India will soon wind around its obelisk in Margery’s Bed.

From the Kitchen Bed urn

there is a clear view of The Dragon Bed.

This evening we dined on pizza and salad. Jackie drank J.P.Muller Gewürztraminer 2014 and I drank Reserve des Tuguets Madiran 2012.

Hammock And Hollyhock

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This morning we shopped at Lidl, mainly to load up the car with more of their large bags of compost. Quite a number of the on the heap outside the store were damaged and leaking. Some fell on stony ground.

So popular was the photograph of Sam in the hammock from yesterday’s post that I scanned the rest of the set of colour slides made in August 1981. Matthew was wonderful with his younger siblings.

Here, his and Sam’s enjoyment of time in the hammock at Meldreth is quite clear.

Mat’s friend Adrian was of similar ilk.

No, this hollyhock has not crept in from our current garden 35 years on. It was taken along with these others. Does its progeny still soar from the sunlit borders of ‘The Dumb Flea’? (the Drapers’ home where these shots were made).

Here in Downton we have experienced very strong winds for two or three days. These have dried up the hanging baskets and broken a few stems. Jackie therefore has been taking a few down. She continued this today, and I did some watering.

This evening we dined on a second helping of Hordle Chinese Take Away. We now know the proprietor’s name is Chan, which is a pity because Mister Chatty Man suits him so well. I finished the Carignan Vieilles Vignes and Jackie drank her Hoegaarden and Bavaria mix. Well, she had to do something with the non-alcoholic beer bought by mistake.

Spoiler Alert

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We were both reprieved from gardening duties this morning by the rain.

I scanned a few more colour slides from 1981/2.

Here Sam enjoys swinging in a hammock at the Drapers’ home in Meldreth near Royston in Cambridgeshire. This was August 1981.

In December that year we had a rare heavy fall of snow in Gracedale Road, Furzedown, South London. Matthew and Becky made the best of it. That was probably the only time in their childhoods that it was possible to create such a magnificent snowman.

Another Cambridgeshire venue was the home of Nigel and Judy Pearson at Pastures farmhouse in Caxton. At a Christmas party there, Sam tucked into his first pheasant. I remember biting a piece of shot. This was also the first time I had sampled such fare.

In September 1982 we spent a couple of weeks at the Vachettes’ chateau at Fontaine in Normandy.

This is the garden in which Jessica basks in a deckchair with Arnoux, Marie-Helene, and the Vachette parents. As can be seen by the colour of the grass this was a very hot autumn.

Lying at Jessica’s feet

is Louisa in her carrycot;

while Sam enjoys the toys she will soon grow into.

This afternoon the sun shone, not only here in Downton, but also in Wimbledon where a tense Gentlemen’s Final took place. I watched it on television.

I will not reveal the winner, but his wife looks on.

Afterwards I wandered around the garden, doing some sporadic dead-heading, whilst Jackie watered some more hanging baskets

containing petunias, mimuluses and lobelia.

She also slaked the the thirst of this urn containing petunias, trailing geraniums, and bidens, with penstemons at the side,

suspended in the Rose Garden.

The hydrangea at the corner of Elizabeth’s Bed is thriving;

as are the lilies and clematises in the New Bed;

and the hebes are coming into bloom.

This evening we dined on Mister Chatty Man’s Hordle Chinese Take Away. Jackie drank a blend of Hoegaarden and Bavaria non-alcoholic beer, while I consumed more of the Carignan Vieilles Vignes.

Baskets And Pots

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On an overcast day I alternated between watering hanging baskets and pots, dead heading, and watching the television coverage of the men’s semi-finals at Wimbledon. I would pop outside at what seemed reasonable intervals in the matches, fill a few cans, water a few containers, and return to the TV hoping I hadn’t missed anything too crucial. This proved rather more risky in the first event.

Here I present a small token selection of the recipients of the water:

Readers will find examples of petunia, lobelia, pansy, bidens, clematis, sweet pea, geranium, mimulus, diascia, and no doubt many more.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi and boiled rice, followed by Helen’ rich chocolate roulade. The Culinary Queen drank diet Pepsi and I began an intriguing wine curiosity. This was present from Helen and Bill; a label called Rare Vineyards; a red wine, Carignan vieilles vignes (old vines), 2015. It is enjoyable.

Spinners Garden

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This morning, after a brief time in our own garden where

The Head Gardener has been replenishing and planting the beds either side of the Heligan Path;

sunlight brightened the Star of India clematis on the Gothic Arch;

and another example was suspended from the prunus pissardi above the orange hawkweed,

Jackie drove us to Spinners Garden at Boldre. This small privately-owned garden has a fine collection of rare plants in its tranquil woodland setting

overlooking the Lymington Valley.

Jackie was immediately taken with the blue cranesbill geraniums along the drive.

Although past their best, the rhododendron and azalea shrubberies still had much to offer.

Paths off the entrance drive held much promise.

There were different varieties of lace cap hydrangea;

many different ferns;

well stocked flower beds,

including a cornus controverta Variegata, or wedding cake tree,

and schizostylis or, if you must, Kaffir lily.

Other cornuses were plentiful.

Splendid trees soared above the shrubberies, where

camellia fruit pods glistened;

and in the shadier areas leaves of brunnera

and acer formed intriguing patterns.

Steps led up to the highest level,

where rodgersia shared their bed with wild orchids,

and white azaleas bore occasional signs of pink parentage.

Fed by a man-made stream

at a lower level lies a lily pond spanned by a wooden bridge.

Irises rise from the margins,

and damselflies and water boatmen flit around the lily pads.

From the cabin where we could buy tea and coffee, we watched gulls mobbing a tractor digging out soil to create a lake for a neighbour further down the slopes.

Aquilegias waved us farewell as we walked back to the car.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi, boiled rice, and parathas, followed by Helen’s sublime lime and ginger cheesecake.

Focus On The Back Drive

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While Jackie continued her creative magic in the garden, and between televised tennis sessions, I wandered around admiring the fruits of her labours, and, of course photographing them.

We have a number of different day lilies;

and the first water lily has now bloomed on the tiny cistern pond.

An astilbe thrives in the shady western bed.

In the Rose Garden Penny Lane adorns the potting shed,

And Margaret Merrill hosts a miniature beetle drive.

Looking through the Back Drive barrier towards the Rose Garden, I noticed a robin perched on the mid-way arch.

It flitted off, so I stalked it for a while.

The barrier provides a floral frame for the drive,

which is now bordered by full length planting.

Poppies,

snapdragons,

and achillea, are just a few examples.

Naturally there are also hanging baskets, better lit in the afternoon.

This evening we dined on fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes, and mushrooms; baked beans and toast. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Gilbert & Gaillard Châteauneuf du Pape 2014. Well, why not?

Taking On The Hedge

Jackie, having kept me supplied with plenty of food, drove off this morning for her annual three day holiday with her two sisters.

The griselinia hedge between us and the corner bungalow has begun to push Jackie’s spring planting across the back drive in search of light. After today’s earlier rain, I decided to give the trees a good clipping. This also meant tackling stubborn brambles and ivy infiltrating from the neighbouring garden. The brambles got their own back with thorns, the ivy with stubbornness, and the griselinia with drips.

Every so often we need to remind ourselves what each area looked like two years ago.

This was the back drive then. Jackie is at the far end.

This is as it is today. To the left lies fencing that Aaron and Robin are working on. To the right the griselinia clippings have spilled over the orange bags. A dump trip or two will be required on the Driver’s return.

The New Bed which lies on the former compost heap at the corner of this drive contains, among other plants, two clematises, aquilegias, geranium palmatums, erigeron, poppies, and dahlias on their way up. The fuchsia is in fact behind it.

In the rose garden, Aloha, which was rather poorly until The Head Gardener set about feeding and nurturing it, is now doing well.

As the sun emerged later in the day, they bees came out in force.

They flitted about among the yellow heucheras, taking the nectar on the wing.

Bottle Brush plant

On the also yellow Bottle Brush plant, they did have time to stop and burrow.

A second clematis has now bloomed on the gazebo.

I dined on Jackie’s luscious sausage casserole and mashed potato, followed by her delicious rice pudding. Doom Bar was my beverage.

A Bee And Three Flies

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Early this morning, we drove Sheila to Brockenhurst for her return home. Apart from Jackie’s planting , and my occasional wander round the garden on this overcast day, we spent it flopping.

We have blooming clematises

Niobe and Arabella on the kitchen wall;

Comtesse de Bouchaud sporting a fennel veil;

Durandii, making its way above geranium palmatums playing host to a bee in the rose garden;

Margaret Hunt;

and this one Jackie recovered after finding that a creature had burrowed underneath it. We had wondered why it wasn’t doing anything.

The recently flowering rhododendron blends well with the Clematis Star of India, the ubiquitous geranium palmatums, and poppies against Jackie in the background.

Here are more poppies leading us to the Rose Garden,

where Laura Ford is reflected on the side of the potting shed;

and where thrive, among others,

Shropshire Lad,

Crown Princess Margareta,

Mamma Mia,

Gertrude Jekyll,

and Mum in a Million.

This red rose was rescued from the jungle by Elizabeth;

this scarlet one stands in the Oval Bed;

and this pink one in the small triangular bed outside the stable door.

The tall scarlet rose is evident in this view of the Oval Path.

Honeysuckle

now climbs above the entrance to the Rose Garden which is visible

from the entrance to the Back Drive.

A bee is flagged up in the text. Three roses each bear a fly. Can you find them?

Mr Chatty Man provided our Hordle Chinese Take Away meal this evening. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Chateauneuf du Pape.

Problems With Networks

This morning we took a trip by car to the municipal dump which is a short distance away, between home and Lymington. Following our tidy up of the skip pile we took down the back seats of the Modus and

loaded it with the dog-sodden carpet (one of the items the previous owners had left for us thinking they might be useful); the rancid toilet seats; a few stale paint pots; bits of lino and other carpet; and a some other small objects, and joyfully tossed them into the various bays in the waste disposal and recycling centre. True to family tradition, we did not go away empty-handed, because Jackie bought four plastic window boxes from the Sales Area.
Flushed with the success of recovering the garden’s irrigation system, Jackie applied herself to the apparent ornament in the form of a sunburst which she thought must be a sprinkler.

She rigged it up, attached a hose, turned on the tap, and the sun spiralled spinning arcs of water around an area large enough to keep us leaping for dry land. There must have been a rainbow somewhere, but I couldn’t see one.

Yesterday afternoon I had begun tackling a tangled mass of ancient clematis Montana and brambles, each with stems as thick as small trees, which were pushing the kitchen garden fence onto the shrubs next door. It wasn’t long before I realised that our neighbours were suffering an invasion such as the lonicera one that beset us on the other side of our property. I needed to discuss with Bev what I planned to do. She was out. I left her a message. She responded a little later than I would have wished to start, so we agreed to meet this morning. Our very friendly neighbour was happy for me to deal with our side and said she would take care of theirs. A young horse chestnut that had no business being there was providing boughs to add to the jumble. That would have to go as well.
On our return from the dump, I got stuck in to the task. And the brambles got stuck into me. Unbelievably, three very old members of the most prolific of clematis specimens had been trained against the fence and never pruned.
During our lunchtime break our phone emitted a squeak and we lost our telephone and broadband connection. We waited a while for it to right itself. It didn’t, so I girded my loins and made the call. On my mobile, of course. BT, like all conglomerates that have outgrown their user friendliness provides a machine to respond to customers. I am sure my readers are all familiar with the rigmarole that I was presented with, so I won’t go into great detail in a rant. I will say, however, that it is no help whatsoever to be given choices of reporting either a problem with the phone or with the broadband when you have problems with both. Eventually I conveyed to the robot’s voice that we had a fault. I was put on hold whilst this was checked. Whilst on hold I was told, repeatedly, that I could go on line and use the self-help facility. The chance would have been a fine thing.
Eventually I received confirmation that we had a fault and an engineer would be arranged. Should the fault lie with our own equipment this would cost £130. If the fault was their fault I presume it would then be repaired free of charge. The problem would be resolved by the end of the day on 7th of this month.
I raged back into the garden to take out my frustration on the clematises. Whilst I was doing this Jackie came out to tell me we were back on line. The BT machine had taken my mobile phone number and promised to keep me updated by text. Or I could follow progress on the website. I wasn’t told how I could do that. I received one text confirming this. No more. Had Jackie not periodically checked, we would have been none the wiser. At no time was I ever given the option to talk to an adviser, which is what they usually call a real person.

I managed to clear two of the clematises, and to remove the offending conker tree. Whoever had trained the plants, had fixed a thick wire network reaching a foot above the six foot fence. When I came to the third tree that should have been a shrub, I found that the weight of the tangled mass had brought the top section of the network forward, so I had that vying with the brambles to take my eye out.
Already ragged from the BT experience, and letting forth a somewhat less than mild imprecation, I determined to tackle that one tomorrow;

admired the new poppies, and lit a bonfire.
Having burned some more of the cuttings pile I joined Jackie for a

delicious meal of her juicy chicken jalfrezi (recipe) which was just the job. Ice cream was to follow. I drank Las Primas Gran Familia tempranillo 2013.

Painted Into A Corner

While we have been working on the main garden, the back drive has taken advantage of our negligence, and become rather out of hand. Jackie has decided that, far preferable to getting down on her hands and knees to weed it, she will apply a weedkiller. Since this area is the size of a large town back garden, the task will require goodness knows how many trips from the house to the undergrowth with a small can of diluted poison.

In the photograph she is seen making her way to the far end. At least a start was made.
The front garden has also rather burgeoned. After transporting a few more sets to finish yesterday’s border, I made a start on that.
After leaving off the poisoning, Jackie set those last few blocks of granite, and continued planting and watering.When she called me for lunch,

I had not even finished clearing the brambles breaking through the trellis by the entrance, and clambering over any plants in their path. As the second picture shows, it became apparent that I had painted myself into a corner. I found another way out.
This afternoon I managed to clear the trellis area, and heavily to prune a sloe tree that was encroaching onto the footpath outside our property, and putting unnecessary pressure on the latticework of the trellis. I had to sacrifice nascent fruit of both the brambles and the tree, but I can live with that.
Before I could put my feet up at the end of the day I needed to clear the severed branches and uprooted blackberry bushes from the garden and the street outside. It was then my turn to make long treks down the garden path. The vast pile of cuttings that all the clearances are accumulating, lies at the far end of the main path, near the gate in today’s first photograph. Backwards and forwards, knackered, I tramped. Adding material to the heap is rather like tossing the caber.
Afterwards, I had a wander around with my camera.

A new variety of poppy has revealed itself in the bed I weeded yesterday, and a pink climbing rose has taken off since we gave it more space and light.

We have a number of varieties of verbena which are seemingly happy with life. The tall stemmed bonariensis blends beautifully with the clematises on the new arch, and the surrounding geraniums. Its shorter, scented, cousin, aptly named strawberries and cream, makes a welcome companion for diascia and pelargoniums, especially the nutmeg flavoured one. That is why Jackie has placed their pot alongside the bench.

Petunias, such as these in a hanging basket, come in a variety of colours, as does the mimulus, nestling on the margin of the tiny pond.
For dinner, Jackie produced gammon baked in a nest of whole mushrooms; swede, carrot and potato mash; cauliflower; and a positively piquant melange of onions and tomatoes for a sauce to provide juiciness. I didn’t drink any of her Hoegaarden, or anything else for that matter.
For the onion and tomato sauce:
Take four medium onions, finely chopped. Fry them with one clove of garlic in butter with a little oil to stop the butter burning.
When they are well done, add a can of chopped Italian tomatoes and gently fry until blended in well.
Try it. It’s delicious.