Tag: fritillary

The Garden As April Begins

On a warm day with sunny intervals it was time to record the garden as it comes alive.

The Brick Path and the Back Drive borders each hold some of the plants I am about to show, like the euphorbia fronting one of the dead stumps on the Back Drive.

We have many tulips in pots and in the beds.

Varieties of daffodils proliferate.

Camellias have been blooming since last November, and are now accompanied by magnolia Vulcan.

Hellebores hang about everywhere.

Japanese maples are coming into leaf.

Spring snowflakes are spreading nicely; forget-me-nots; primroses; pulmonaria; white fritillary; epimedium, wood anemones; cowslips; chionodoxa; and mahonia are further delights.

Unfortunately, on my rounds I found the body of the ailing dove, which had suffered no further damage.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious chicken and vegetable stewp and fresh crusty bread, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Red Blend.

Durmast House Gardens

Those of you who have followed the movement of Jackie’s mice will be interested to learn that one has now left the windowsill and mounted our Easter decoration, no doubt hoping to feed on the eggs of varying sizes suspended from a painted twig Jackie has placed in Becky’s vase.

When their gardens are opened by members of the National Gardens Scheme, owners have to take a chance on the weather that will greet their published date. The gardens of Durmast House had the misfortune to be open on this wet, blustery day. Attendance had to have been most disappointing. Jackie drove us there.

It was easier to photograph scenes with no members of the public present than those containing a few stalwarts.

The photograph of the bench was inspired by the work of WordPress blogger iosatel who would have produced an image in black and white.

The first couple I saw admired

an impressive magnolia.

Others investigated the well stocked rockery.

I was a bit slow so Jackie waited for me for a while, seated on the rose garden bench. As it was a bit early for roses, those of the prim variety nestled underneath.

Nearby skimmia berries glistened,

and a single fritillary made an early appearance.

Just one of the wide selection of hellebores was not present in our own garden.

Whilst I chatted to one of the brave windswept women who managed the plants for sale stall she expressed wonder that her offerings, especially the arum lilies had remained still enough to be photographed. This required a bit of panning.

When the owners, Mr and Mrs Philip Daubeney  purchased Durmast House in 1991 the gardens were completely derelict and overgrown. The gardens had been designed by Gertrude Jekyll in 1907. Having acquired the plans from the University of California, Berkeley, the ongoing process of restoration was begun. Each year a new project is undertaken, using those plans, which involves considerable research as plant names have changed, some are only available from abroad, and others are not available at all. Careful substitution has then to be made.

This garden will again be open to the public in June. We will be back.

Jackie produced a wonderful liver casserole, mashed swede and potato, and crisp carrots and cabbage, followed by apricot and prune crumble and custard. I finished the Saint-Emilio and my lady abstained.

Greengrass

Leaves in bud

We chose a gorgeous spring day to begin catch up in Elizabeth’s garden.  As we left Castle Malwood Lodge, leaf buds were at last appearing on the deciduous trees.  The sky was a clear light  blue, as it was to remain all day, although there was still a chill in the air once the sun had lowered and moved behind buildings. Mum Mum, who came to lunch and stayed on to bask in the sunshine, had to keep moving out of the shade.

Elizabeth shopped, prepared lunch, and collected our mother.  Afterwards she started weeding another bed.  My task was collecting some of the two year compost from the first bin and distributing it as a top dressing to the bed she had weeded last week.Compost  It has broken down well and will be a useful supplement to the still stony soil.  After this I trimmed the lawn edges prior to mowing.  I was careful not to chop any overhanging flowers. Wallflower bed The odd forget-me-not wouldn’t have mattered much, but I didn’t want to cut through wallflower stems. Wallflowers I’m glad it wasn’t me who knocked the head off a fritillary.  Elizabeth quickly placed it in a silver egg-cup, along with a sprig of epimedium that had suffered the same fate.  Fritillaria and epimediumJackie carried out a number of tasks: fitting together and filling the various bird feeders scattered in bits about the garden: raking the grass ready for cutting; cleaning out pebble features; and weeding.

When it came to mowing, we could not get the Honda petrol driven machine to start.  Apparently it needs a service.  I wasn’t all that sorry.

There were two new golf balls on the lawn.  This prompted me to explain to Mum the theory of the foxes conceived on 12th September last year.  Briefly, we think the balls are carried here by foxes from the golf course behind the Hampshire County Cricket ground.  ‘You should do what Greengrass did’, said Mum.  Claude Jeremiah Greengrass is the loveable and utterly hopeless rogue played by Bill Maynard in ‘Heartbeat’, the television series set in the 60s.  He had a good line in recycled golf balls.  He would send a posse of children to seek out lost balls, pay them a small token, and sell them back to the golfers for an inflated sum. Golf ball The boys, a bit smarter than their employer, trained their dog to retrieve balls that were not lost, and indeed were still in play.  This caused quite a furore among the upper echelons of Aidenfield.Fritillaria meleagris

As I pottered around The Firs’ garden, aware of the flapping of wings and satisfied cries of those wood pigeons having been successful in finding a mate, I began to take in all the other sounds of a neighbourhood stirring into life. Pulmonaria A bee buzzed busily; small birds whistled tunefully; children’s voices chimed; a light aircraft rattled overhead, in tune with a solitary magpie; a high-pitched electronic car alarm irritated; a power tool droned in fits and starts; my large fork struck the bricks of the compost bin, and the hand fork grated on the flinty soil; the blades of the hedge trimmers clipped rhythmically; and Jackie’s rake rustled the dried leaves and twigs on the grass.  Next door had been for sale as long as we have been travelling to The Firs.  Recently, new occupants have moved in.  One is a particularly unpleasant sounding dog that barks continuously and snarls as if it has a mouthful of ball bearings.  Occasionally what I think must be a woman who sounds like a Dalek with a mouthful of pebbles gives the dog as good as it dishes out.  This is all a bit incongruous on a beautiful spring afternoon.

Later, Elizabeth did manage to make her temperamental mower work.  But by that time I was cooking turkey jalfrezi for our evening meal, so she cut the grass herself.  She had discovered how to persuade the machine into stuttering action when, twice, taking it to an engineer to sort out the problem and finding it had no problem when she got there.  She decided it must have been the jolting up and down in the car that did the trick.  So now she gives it a good jerky walk around the garden.

With the meal we enjoyed wild rice and a jalfrezi bread from a local baker.  More like a pud than a naan.  Jackie drank Stella.  Elizabeth and I shared a bottle of Mondelli reserva chianti 2009.