day lilies – Page 5 – derrickjknight

Bejewelled

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When I am under the weather it is always a bad headache that does me in. So it was yesterday, but, I am happy to say, this had desisted after a good night’s sleep and, although I remained a bit dizzy I enjoyed wandering around the garden this morning with a camera. I think I understand the expression ‘under the weather’ because I do seem to have headaches when there is that change in pressure that comes with impending storms. And yesterday it rained steadily all afternoon.

This made for plants adorned with translucent pearly precipitations. Geraniums were well represented;

leaves, such as those of gladioli

and poppies, bore crystal balls;

black eyed Susan sparkled;

blushing begonias shimmered in shadows;

strange creatures, food dangling from their maws, lurked behind day lilies;

hydrangeas;

hostas;

roses Lady Emma Hamilton,

and Special Anniversary were all bejewelled.

Bees, like this one in the Peach Abundance rose, were venturing out again.

This afternoon I watched the Wimbledon men’s quarter finals of tennis on TV.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wonderful boeuf bourguignon, followed by vanilla ice-cream.

Do You Like Butter?

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This morning, while Jackie weeded and I cleared up, Aaron smoothed concrete edging around the greenhouse base and realigned a section of The Head Gardener’s Walk.

At the other end of the garden the recent plantings in the Oval Bed have matured;

honeysuckle swings among the day lilies and petunias in the Weeping Birch Bed;

Violas grimace appealingly in the barrier tubs;

in the Rose Garden lilies still sway beside the Potting Shed,

while potted petunias and bedded penstemons offer accompaniment to the roses.

The view across the centre of the garden from the Shady Path has been opened up.

Out of sight on the far side pink and white sweet peas climb for Bruce.

Similarly hued fuchsias dangle from a pot beside the Gazebo Path.

I’m sure we were not the only children who held buttercups to friends’ chins, asking “Do you like butter?”. If your chin glowed yellow, you did. If not, you didn’t. Noticing this bee’s pollen coated butt, I asked the question.

“I’m not listening to this”, cried the bee, buzzing off with alacrity

This evening we enjoyed a second sitting of Mr Chan’s fare, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank a delicious gold medal winning Saint Emilion grand cru, a birthday present from Danni and Andy.

After this, prompted by Becky, I watched the highlights of the fourth day of the Test Match between England and South Africa. This turned out to be a good call.

I Must Not Assume There Will Be No More Surprises

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It was very rash of me to assume that I would know the entirety of the group at our meal at Lal Quilla last night, and to predict what I would eat and drink.

On our entrance the staff, with their usual warm and friendly greeting, said that someone had telephoned the night before to add two people. We didn’t know anything about that, and in any case, Ian had made the booking. He had a quiet word with Raj and we were whisked to a larger pair of tables, according to the manager so we could spread ourselves out a bit. He presented us with a bottle of Beaujolais, so I did not drink Kingfisher. After a while I received a kiss on the cheek. Elizabeth had joined us. Soon afterwards, Danni and Andy came through the door. We were nine plus Poppy after all.

Finally, as we gathered ourselves to depart, a small cake with two lighted candles advanced towards our table followed by the entire staff group who led the family in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.

I’ve no idea why I felt rather muzzy all day. I dozed through a bit of Wimbledon tennis on TV, and managed a little weeding, watering, eradicating a few brambles, and tidying up after Jackie’s work on the rose garden. We took a rest with water on the patio from which I enjoyed

This view across the Kitchen Bed with its day lilies in the foreground and verbenas in a hanging basket beyond;

pot planted petunias and geraniums over an erigeron carpet;

and self seeded mimuluses and feverfew.

A dahlia nods to the clematis on the wisteria arbour;

pink discias, red geraniums, and yellow bidens flow over the iron urn at the entrance to the Gazebo Path;

while blazing crocosmia Lucifer leads us into the Palm Bed.

As can be seen from this Special Anniversary rose, I haven’t dead-headed the Rose Garden today.

White solanum and a bright blue clematis stream down from the dead tree at the end of the Brick Path.

This evening we dined on Mr Chan’s Hordle Chinese Take Away with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank tap water.

The moral of this post is that when I say I will report on an outing the next day, I must not assume there will be no more surprises.

Modelling Daphne’s Dress

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My 75th birthday was very pleasurable. Matthew, Tess, and Poppy woke up here in the morning, and Shelley and Ron, Becky and Ian visited in the afternoon. We all sat in the garden after lunch.

The first present I opened was from Poppy, who had chosen it. A certain amount of self-interest was rapidly confirmed.

Our granddaughter provided her parents with their own party hats.

Matthew obligingly assembled a colourful bird house that Louisa and Errol had sent me. Poppy saw it as a handbag and commandeered it for a tour of the garden she undertook with Tess;

she was intrigued to be introduced to one of her floral namesakes,

and to many other blooms,

with some of which she picked and adorned herself.

This was one view of the Kitchen Bed,

and another seen across Margery’s Bed, each containing

a number of day lilies, some of which Jackie dug up for Tess along with several other plants.

This scene is beyond the Heligan Path bench.

Being a Kiwi, Tess was able to describe exactly how to propagate New Zealand flax, and to explain the haka.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiKFYTFJ_kw&w=560&h=315]

The reason for this was that I understand that this war dance also represents other events such as courtship, and I had no idea whether the capers of the pigeons on our roof represented war or love.

Becky brought over a beautifully hand stitched and embroidered dress that her niece Poppy had left behind at her home. Poppy couldn’t wait to strip off and model it. This treasured possession had been made by Tess’s friend, Daphne Harris.

This evening, except for Shelly and Ron who had left earlier, we are all going to dine at Lal Quilla. Regular readers will understand that that means I will enjoy a hot curry and drink Kingfisher, and at the end of the meal will be past caring what anyone else consumed. Should anything out of the ordinary occur, I will report on that tomorrow.

What’s This Beetle?

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Supplementing this morning’s work on ‘A Knight’s Tale’ were my posts ‘Auntie Gwen’ and ‘One For Rebeckah’,

from which this photograph was included.

This afternoon the weather was dry, overcast, and humid, with the sun sometimes sneaking a peek at what I was up to. This was watering, dead-heading, and a little weeding.

I then experienced considerable difficulty in loading new photographs into WordPress.

Pollen-dusted bees favoured the pink and purple hebes;

Deep red Bishop of Llandaff dahlias nod to the lilies in the New Bed. (See Head Gardener’s comment below – we don’t know the name of the dahlia, but it’s not the Bishop)

We live in hope that this gaura, a plant with which we have so far been unsuccessful, will flourish in the Weeping Birch Bed.

On the other hand, Jackie has had great success with what we call ‘Pineapple’ plants, prised up from paving and placed in the Kitchen Bed.

Early this evening the sun reemerged and shed new light on the garden, bringing, incidentally, a cessation to loading problems. Maybe this was because the Head Gardener had returned and there was no further reason to sulk.

A glow was lent to echinaceas

and to phlox in the palm bed;

to the crocosmias, like this Lucifer;

to a much wider range of day lilies than we remember having;

and to various clematises,

including this one in which the Head Gardener can justifiably take great pride. As long-term readers will know, what is now the Rose Garden, was, three years ago, a concrete-bound, overgrown kitchen garden of sorts. This is where this raggedy specimen started life. Jackie lifted the wizened little plant, placed it in a pot adopted by the front garden trellis, and returned it to its roots in its birthplace.

Inherited wild strawberries are bearing fruit for the first time.

As I passed the sweetly scented lilies in the New Bed, an iridescent green glint in the centre of one of the blooms flashed enticingly. Does anyone have any idea as to the beetle’s identity?

Miss Coleoptera on Twitter offers this suggestion: ‘Probably a Cetonia aurata or a Protaetia’. Uma offers this, in his comment below: ‘To me that looks like a Bombardier Beetle. Or perhaps the fellow is an oil beetle’. Google images confirms Cetonia aurata, which Oglach, below, has named as a chafer beetle..

If I had any sense I wouldn’t struggle when there’s a blip in the system. I’d just ignore it until it went away.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious lamb jalfrezi and savoury rice topped with an omelette. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Georges DuBoeuf Fleurie 2016.

The Wisdom Of The Owl

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Two days ago views along the kitchen window and bed opposite featured a sawn tree trunk at the far end. Here Aaron is with the last of the stump he further sawed and removed. As usual, I printed him an A4 copy for his collection.

This has provided a little extra space at the end of Jackie’s current work area.

Here is another view of the gap, taken from a hebe on the corner of the Dead End Path.

Removing a tree is always a last resort. The branches of this one, however, were very brittle and constantly breaking when strong winds beset this whirlpool of a corner. The extra foot of space is also needed for the expected greenhouse.

To the right of the above picture the yellow bottle brush plant has now turned brown. On the other side of the gazebo path a bright red variety has drawn its attention.

Swarms of bees gather in the attempt to transfix themselves on the beds of nails that are its blooms.

Other strong reds of snapdragons, geraniums, and petunias blend in the plastic troughs forming the barrier at the start of the back drive.

Equally vibrant are the marigolds and black-eyed Susans now clutching the orange globe.

It is almost a relief to encounter the cooler hues of this foxglove,

these hostas,

or the hebes, this example of which has attracted a tiny flying insect I can’t identify.

Although its floor is of gravel, the patio at the South end of the garden is termed the Concrete one. That is because the surface beneath the pebbles was probably where the Post Office vans were parked.

That is where our mid-afternoon water was taken and we enjoyed views looking towards the Rose Garden;

towards the potting shed;

of this cluster of yellow day lilies flanked by geranium palmatums;

and the New Zealand flax that has flowered for the first time since our arrival.

I haven’t mentioned the wind in the last few days. I thought that if I ignored it it would go away. It hasn’t.

A couple of hours after we had been sitting beneath this parasol a sudden gust wreaked havoc. Admittedly the parasol had not been fitted tightly into its base, but it took off like a kite, smashed down into the bed, tipped over the stand supporting the recently planted red geraniums, and dragged down the string of overhead solar lights.

We began by lifting the parasol over everything and slotting it securely into its stand. Then picked up the pot and pedestal. Chucked broken bits onto the compost, and placed what would be salvageable onto one of the tables.

It was, I thought, very sensitive of the owl not to give me the benefit of his wisdom as I placed him on a chair and used his table to take the gravelly earth I scooped up and, with fingers and sieve, separated the two ingredients, so The Head Gardener could repot the remains.

This evening we dined on a fusion of more of Hordle Chinese Take Away fare with vegetable samosas. Jackie drank Peroni and I opened Jessie’s delicious Georges Duboeuf Fleurie 2016 and drank some of it.

Where’s That Smile?

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The lower temperature brought a cooler and more pleasant day on which The Head Gardener continued her creative planting, serious weeding, and cutting back. I dead-headed roses, carted debris to the compost heap, and made a few pictures.

The planting on the kitchen wall now seems complete. But you can never be sure. It might be possible to squeeze in something else.

Surely, however, the corner viewed from the patio has more than its share of hanging baskets

and a profusion of pots beneath them.

Even the kitchen window reflects its eponymous bed.

This is the stone urn standing behind the frog pond on the patio end.

We have a number of carpet roses which provide a profusion of ground cover. This one in the Rose Garden flirts with Love Knot and Alan Titchmarsh.

Some of you may prefer Hot Chocolate.

Mama Mia produces a splendid show,

and, Emma Hamilton hangs her heavy head into the arms of Absolutely Fabulous.

Super Elfin, the red rambler in the herbaceous border, virtually uprooted by the beast coming under the North Breeze fence, has benefited from our deterrents and promises to climb to dizzy heights.

Of all the spindly little plants that have received nurture from Jackie, she is justifiably proud of two colourful hydrangeas with dark-trimmed leaves.

It has taken two years to train this clematis, now mingling with rosa glauca on the arch spanning the Head Gardener’s Walk.

The New Forest is not new. It was, after all where William Rufus, son of William the Conqueror, was killed. But, like Jackie’s New Bed, now two years old, it was once. Both are ageing gracefully.

Did you, as a child, ever have a kaleidoscope toy? If so, I imagine you could have produced something like this verbena, nature’s own.

We have many antirrhinums. Here is a red one.

Jackie took the occasional rest. Sometimes she sat on the Ace Reclaim bench where she could admire her plantings such as the petunias in this hanging basket;

the blue phlox in the bed facing her;

the Phantom Path;

the sculpture entitled Florence, now perhaps bidding for the name Flora;

and the view across Margery’s bed with its proliferation of day lilies,

other examples of which are these.

Did you spot both smiles?

This evening, the friendly Mr Chan produced our meal, which Jackie collected from Hordle Chinese Take Away. I finished Jessie’s excellent Chablis.

Pollie’s Day Lilies

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This morning, while Jackie continued planting, I shaved a curved line on the edge of the grass patch,

where Jackie had placed a group of petunias. Then, removing grass roots and us much moss as possible, I broke up the sods and mixed them with the Head Gardener’s fresh soil.

Of all the clematises in the garden it is perhaps pertinent to mention two today. This one is making its way across the arch spanning the Phantom Path on the other side of Margery’s Bed against which the above petunias have been placed.

The other, being the same white hue as the now faded Marie Boisselot now commands the attention that she had in her youth on the Kitchen Bed obelisk.

The same bed contains miniature kniphofias;

the stone urn standing beside them contains cosmoses and geraniums;

and almost fluorescent mesembryanthemums overlook the Waterboy’s fountain.

Gloriously scented lilies in the New Bed attract a myriad of flies.

Day lilies abound throughout the beds, but they are of just three varieties.

When Jackie discovered that a splendid collection of the plants is nurtured in Sway, just two or three miles up the road, it became imperative that we should pay a visit. Accordingly we took a trip to Pollies Daylilies sign in Mount Pleasant Lane,

Along a winding gravelled drive we entered a lovely garden with a huge array of plants of all kinds. I rang a doorbell and Pollie Maasz, the friendly and pleasant proprietor, emerged to show us around her amazing collection, about more of which can be read on Day lilies .

A gate in the domestic garden led us to a splendid display of unusual hemerocallis flowers.

As Pollie searched among rows of potted samples for sale, through a wire fence, she chatted to her neighbour’s horse, tormented by marauding flies. The good-natured mare tossed her head in vain attempts to rid herself of the plague.

We bought two plants. All we have to do is create spaces for them.

This evening we dined at Lal Quilla. I enjoyed chicken jaljala; Jackie chose chicken shashlik; and we shared mushroom rice and a plain paratha. We both drank Kingfisher.

Defying Gravity

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Today I divided my time between wandering idly around the garden hunting down piles of weeds and clippings deposited by the Head Gardener; transferring four barrowloads of compost from the south end of the garden to the ficus hole in the Dragon Bed; and, of course, making photographs. Jackie continued with her weeding, clearing, and planting.

This view from the iron urn features two paths and the yellow bottle brush plant now coming into bloom. The chimney pot on the grass patch is still to receive its portion of the contents of the plant trays to be found in abundance.

These begonias are among those still to be given a tenancy.

This splendid rhododendron flanks the Phantom Path,

and has a happy relationship with a geranium palmatum,

one of many to be found all over the garden.

Rodgersias lurch across the older section of the Brick Path,

at the south end of which can be seen the clematises and gladioli in the window boxes and the weigela on the fence beyond.

The join with the newer section of that path can be seen in the opening between two foxgloves in the New Bed.

This garden view extends from a corner of the Rose Garden featuring pink aquilegias; the rose Summer Time at the corner of the painted shed; and, halfway up on the left-hand edge,

Ballerina, who trips merrily across her stage.

The orange theme of black-eyed Susan and marigolds atop this chimney pot was determined by the finial of this obelisk. Susan should soon wrap herself around it.

This geranium sheds a tear or two.

Now that the wisteria has finished flowering, its companion red rose has taken over floral duties;

and the white rambler has now joined clematis Star of India on the arch spanning the Brick Path at the corner of the Phantom Path.

Even before we reach the Rose Garden the scent of the prolific Festive Jewel drifts into our nostrils.

Peach Abundance,

sharing this shot of the Oval Bed with a large red sky-climber and vibrant valerian, does have a delicate scent completely snuffed out by the more powerful fragrance.

Day lilies, on the other side of the bed, are now enjoying their twenty four hours of glory.

Two clematises offering their first bloom are Hagley’s Hybrid in the Rose Garden,

and Piilu against the redundant garage door.

Félicité Perpétue along the back drive has also produced its first flower;

rather further on is the one in the front garden,

which also has an abundance of foxgloves.

Bees are now somewhat busy. Here is one exploring the larger erigerons;

another sampling the aforementioned bottle brush plant;

and finally one defying gravity while sipping from a swaying heuchera.

For our dinner this evening we supplemented Mr Pink’s exceedingly good Fish and Chips with Tesco’s gherkins and Garner’s pickled onions. We both drank Cimarosa Special Edition sauvignon blanc 2015.

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.