Mahonia – Page 2 – derrickjknight

A Little Bit O’ Bloomin’ Luck

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Today began dark, wet, and windy. Thinking we would be unable to do much more in the garden we transported the results of yesterday’s crab apple pruning to Efford Recycling Centre.

As is the Head Gardener’s wont, she bought two more fibreglass faux terra cotta plant pots from the sales area.

The sun did put in brief appearance this afternoon, so I was able to present a snapshot of the first official day of Spring.

Jackie has also started buying plants, like these violas,

and these snake’s head fritillaries just plonked in an urn for the moment.

Both are visible in this shot of the kitchen bed.

These camellias shed their confetti-like petals on the Dead End Path.

Others are visible on either side of the decking in this view beyond Margery’s Bed;

Folding Flyers

Last night a full yellow, pink haloed, moon was framed by limbs of garden trees such as an evergreen mahonia

or rolled in the grip of deciduous fingers of beech.

This morning we collected Paul’s mount board from Wessex Print in Pennington and delivered this, the flyers, and exhibition prints to The First Gallery, where, whilst enjoying coffee and Margery’s mini hot cross buns, Paul and I checked over my work, and

Jackie and Margery had fun folding flyers.

On the moors between Beaulieu and Lymington linger many pools in which trees stand.

On one, another grey pony slaked its thirst in its own bath water (I am indebted to Johnna of painkills2.wordpress.com for the bath water).

Suitably replenished, the dripping animal bounded onto the turf, circled the neighbouring pool above, and settled down to graze beyond its bay companion.

Unfortunately I had overlooked one of the A3 prints. This was the table top abstract which I therefore made on our return home. I suppose one out of fifty isn’t bad.

This evening Jackie’s delicious lamb jalfrezi was served with pilau rice, chick pea dhal, and parathas. We both drank Kingfisher

Honey Bees And Christmas Lights

Giles visited this morning and stayed for lunch.

On a wander round the garden he was pleased to notice that the mahonia was still attracting bees.

Jacqueline du Pre was enjoying a resurgence in the rose garden.

Before lunch, our friend and I took a walk across the field by the post box, through the wood to the road, and back. My phone battery needed recharging, so I couldn’t take it with us.

It is six months since Jackie and I last dined at the Family House in Totton. We know that because Lennox, the latest member of the family was due a day or two after our visit, and he will be six months old in three days time. We ate there tonight and were amused to see his parents sharing the tasks of running the restaurant and holding their son, given that that is just what Matthew and Tess were doing in their establishment yesterday.

We received our usual warm welcome and excellent food, accompanied by Tsingtao beer.

En route we enjoyed Christmas lights at

Lyndhurst,

Beaulieu,

and Lymington.

In the left foreground of the Lymington photograph can be seen the gold-painted postbox, so decorated in honour of Ben Ainslie who won his fourth Olympic gold yachting medal in 2012.

As Wikipedia puts it: ‘To commemorate British and Irish gold medal winners at the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics, various postboxes around the United Kingdom, plus one each on Sark and the Isle of Man, were repainted [by the Royal Mail] from their traditional red into gold. It marked the first occasion in modern times that the colour of post boxes in the United Kingdom had been changed from their traditional red. Originally intended to be a temporary measure, it was later decided the colour change would become a permanent tribute, with boxes additionally receiving their own special plaques.’

This is the story of Ben Ainslie’s: ‘For sailor Ben Ainslie, the Mail initially painted a box in Restronguet Passage, Cornwall, the place [where] he grew up and learned to sail. A member of the public then vandalised a box in Lymington High Street, Hampshire, on the basis that Ainslie was a long time resident and considered somewhat of a local legend. After initially filing a complaint, the Mail relented to a public campaign and decided to officially paint the Lymington box.’

A Remarkable Year For Flora

Early this morning we kept a GP appointment in Milford on Sea. I was given a referral for my Dupuytren’s contracture. This photograph from the internet best shows the stage mine has reached. I know it looks unseemly, but it is awkward rather than painful. I cannot straighten the finger.
Afterwards, on this exceedingly mild day I took a stroll round the garden. Apart from the cyclamens, pansies and other flowers normally blooming at this time, we have mahonias, hellebores, roses, and bidens.
More camellias are budding, and even nasturtiums have survived. This really has been a remarkable year for flora.

A pig with a ring through its nose winked and smiled out of one of the multicoloured stumps on the back drive.
Paul and Margery came for a visit at midday and brought back unsold framed photographs from the Ruby exhibition. Our friend is pleased to have become a dab hand at the difficult task of leaving our front drive and emerging into Christchurch Road.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious lamb jafrezi (recipe) and savoury rice with egg custard to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I consumed a little more of the cabernet sauvignon.

20 Is Plenty

At 30 mph today’s wind was six miles per hour faster than yesterday’s. Colin, the former marathon runner I had met yesterday, had taken the different route in order to avoid being blown off the cliff top. Fighting my way down Bob‘s steps to the deserted shingle on my Hordle Cliff walk this morning, I rather saw his point.
The owner of Bridge Cottage had told me how impossible the salt wind to which the corner of Downton Lane is exposed has made growing a hedge. It was also clear why so many trees grow bent away from the sea.
Even in the lane the roar of wind and waves that were pounding the shingle was thunderous.
The older chalets in Shorefield Country Park are being demolished to make way for more modern structures. The woman who explained the pile of flammable material fenced in by a high barrier regretted their passing because they were a ‘cheap and cheerful’ way of taking a summer holiday.
A mahonia on the approach to the footbridge over the stream leading to the rookery was a gleaming beacon.
Apart from the Bridge Cottage photograph, those taken after the sea spray coated my camera lens bear traces of the film this produced.
To put today’s blasts in perspective, 30 miles per hour is the traffic speed limit in UK’s built-up areas. Not so long ago a series of television adverts alerted us to the fact that a child on impact with a vehicle travelling at that rate would almost certainly be killed. At 20 mph there was more of a chance of survival. For this reason, many zones, particularly in the vicinity of schools, like the one in West End, signed with the slogan ’20 is plenty’, have reduced the limit to 20.
For our dinner this evening we repaired to The Red Lion at MIlford on Sea. With my rib eye steak I drank a large glass of valpolicella; Jackie drank peroni with her piri-piri chicken; and we both chose caramel apple pie and custard. This was all as enjoyable as last time.
Once again our Royal Oak neighbour has closed down. It does seem to be difficult to make this hostelry, which relies on holiday trade and has no real local clientele, pay.

The Gauntlet

When I read Baroness Orczy’s timeless novel, ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’, I had a vague idea that this was a flower, but didn’t know what it looked like. We have a lovely little orange weed, rather like a forget-me-not in size, that crops up all over the garden. I haven’t been digging it up, because I find it so attractive. I was rather pleased, then, when, this morning, the head gardener informed me that this was scarlet pimpernel.
Different coloured poppies continue to bloom, if only for a day.
We also have nasturtiums, to which snails seem rather partial.
Different hued antirrhinums manage to hold their own with strident pelargoniums.
In the last of today’s plant photographs we have pilosella aurantiaca, otherwise known as orange hawkweed, a plant that in some parts of America and Australia is considered as an invasive species.

Today I completed the clearance of the right hand side of the front driveway that Jackie had begun yesterday.

I uprooted the last of the brambles and pruned most of the shrubs very severely, revealing more flowers, such as the day lilies. Jackie, who embellished the wall with a window box, assures me the heavily pruned growth will burgeon again next year. I certainly didn’t rival her treatment of the mahonia.
Painstakingly, I conveyed to a convolvulus that was making its way up an ornamental cherry tree that its presence was no longer required. Maybe I should have waited for a flower. It may have been a morning glory. I tied up the white rose that had taken to the ground in its bid to escape the other thorny rambler, which has torn holes in the fingers of my gardening gloves and left its mark on those inside.

A new pair, or at least the right hand gauntlet may be in order.

An attractive clematis now quivers in the breeze above the roses on the archway through to the front garden.
Fortunately, our guests of yesterday evening left enough of Jackie’s delicious beef casserole for us to finish it today. Strawberries and ice cream were to follow. I drank some Yellow Tail shiraz 2013, also courtesy of last night.

Venturing Out

By this morning, yesterday’s snow had desisted. The garden and the forest were still well enough covered to offer a myriad of classic winter scenes. Our Mahonia presented an interesting outline framing the whitened leaves, whilst its yellow flowers peeped through. A certain amount of thawing had turned a little of the drive’s coating to slush, and rendered the more used roads clear, as I walked the Shave Wood loop.

Little Thatch cottage boasted a seasonal doorman.

My journey today was partly in order to reconnoitre the roads to see if we would manage to drive out later. I discovered that it would all depend on whether we could negotiate the drive. Once on the street leading to Minstead it would be safe enough, except for the lane through London Minstead. This hilly, winding, route was still a bit icy, and the slush would freeze over again later. The roads through the forest were fairly clear, and the streams and ditches were, for the time being, flowing again.

There was no sign of ponies today; no animals; no hoofprints; no droppings.

An overhead flier had added a splash of colour to the black and white landscape.

Late this afternoon, with some trepidation and a certain amount of sliding about, Jackie managed to extricate the car from the drive, and take us to The Firs. We collected my Apple computer and all its added equipment; packed them into the boot and the back seats; and went off to Eastern Nights with Elizabeth. We enjoyed the usual excellent meal there, and drank Cobra and Bangla. The food was served up rather quicker than often, so we were able to return home quite early, and safely.