garden sculpture – derrickjknight

Where’s That Smile?

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

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.

The Woman In White

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

Early this morning our septic tank was cleared. This happens every eighteen months, and Jackie always feels better when it is done.

Knowing we were in for a hot spell, Jackie undertook extensive watering. My tasks involved the eradication, cutting up, and bagging of niggling nettles, invasive ivy, bothersome brambles, and thrusting thistles.

This afternoon we spent much of the time seated on the patio with guests. First Margery and Paul came to lunch, then Helen came bearing birthday presents for Jackie for tomorrow.

Naturally the garden was a focal point.

Here are two views of the Gazebo Path.

In the Rose Garden, Just Joey

and Winchester Cathedral have joined the other attractions;

Margery, however, registered a protest at the number of foxgloves permitted therein.

She was, however, pleased to find a poppy in her Bed.

Compassion rose now proliferates above the Dead End Path.

Here is a smaller version of Sweet William that the one previously featured.

The leaves of this variety of poplar are delightful at this time of the year.

As promised, viper’s bugloss does attract bees,

as do geranium palmatums

and the still burgeoning bottle brush plant.

The strong sunlight gives the Florence sculpture the air of The Woman in White, Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Zippel’s musical based on the novel by Wilkie Collins, that was playing at the Shaftesbury Theatre when I photographed it in September 2004.

Among the selection of presents Helen brought was a bag of Alpaca Poo, a garden fertiliser apparently unpleasant to rats.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome beef in red wine with mushrooms, peppers, onions, and carrots, served with swede and potato mash. Jackie drank Peroni and I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2014.

Opulence

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED

Once more, today was scorchingly hot. Apart from gentle tidying up, watering was the order of the day.

The hose in this garden view was trained on the Rose Garden, where

pink foxgloves, golden heucheras, and blue clematises romp among roses like the yellow Laura Ford, and deep red roseraie De L’Hay;

where pink Summer wine, and white Madame Alfred Cariere cover the blue wooden entrance arch;

where Summer’s sculpted image just manages to peep through For Your Eyes Only;

and where Jacqueline du Pré has been fortunate to find shade.

Giant poppies blaze in the first view above.

Bronze fennel, poppies, Canterbury bells

There are more alongside Canterbury bells and bronze fennel on the north side of the Back Drive,

where viper’s bugloss, given to us by Giles in order to cater for bees, burgeons before geranium palmatums;

and where the buxom rose Dearest can just about hold up her head.

Clematises and gladioli thrive in the row of deep plastic window boxes that divides the Back Drive from the garden proper.

Alongside this display stands the New Bed.

We have California poppies in the Cryptomeria Bed,

on the other side of which my favourite rhododendron is now blooming.

The last three days of sunshine have brought opulence to the garden.

This evening we dined on roast lamb, mashed swede and potato, carrots, cauliflower and runner beans, all cooked to perfection by the Culinary Queen, who finished the Bergerac blanc while I drank more of the cabernet sauvignon.