Yesterday Jackie carried out some further heavy pruning and clearance in the shrubbery at the front of the house. This meant that before I could continue with the path, I needed to cart several barrow loads of branches and dead plants to the far end of the garden. Well, she is the head gardener, and I did have the dubious bonus of returning each trip with a quantity of stone for the edging recycled from the soon-to-be rose garden.
After this, admittedly rather painfully, given that the knee didn’t really appreciate what it had been expected to do, I wandered around the garden listening to the music of the birds. The tits enjoyed the feeder, and the pheasant, until sent off squawking by my presence, strutted around, returning to be photographed later through the kitchen window. You may need to zoom on the second image here in order to spot this visitor..
Comfrey, leucojum, and elephants’ ears are now vying for space with all the other spring flowers.
I felt very satisfied that the garden we had spent all last summer opening up is really coming into its own.
The bench on the shady path, so called because at first it admitted no sunlight, was suitably inviting.
Plants, like these pansies and daffodils, in the chimney pots are blooming.
This particular pot is situated at five ways, which takes its name from the number of paths that radiate from it. The prunus in the foreground has recovered from severe pruning. We don’t know what the magnificent evergreen is.
The Heligan path, named after The Lost Gardens of Heligan, because we didn’t know it was there, runs alongside the weeping beech. The log pile continues to grow, and the IKEA wardrobe sections keep triffids from next door at bay.
The bed we cleared on the other side of the tree is burgeoning.
The bed head behind the chair in this picture was screwed to the tree, and can be seen from the side in the Heligan path shot.
We have cut down much of the euphorbia which covered the garden but left some, such as that which shrouds this camellia, to bloom later..
The camellia flowers themselves, as they fall, adorn the paths and the soil where they lie.
Almost all the cyclamens have survived the gentle winter.
Later this afternoon I had a bonfire.
I am happy to report that we still had plenty of Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi and fresh savoury rice for our dinner this evening. They were accompanied by paratas and Hoegaarden for Jackie, and the last of the claret for me.
