Do Not Climb

This morning, while the Head Gardener continued her autumn clearances, I followed in her wake, collecting, chopping, and composting clippings. The exercise was most delightful when focussed on the Pond Bed, savouring the liquorice flavour released from the statuesque bronze fennel and listening to the tinkling trickle of the water feature. Small birds are beginning to tweet again; pigeons continually exchange melodic love-notes; a biplane droned overhead. Tramping over crunching gravel on the back drive was less harmonious.

The bronze fennel is a very prolific self-seeder, so after lunch I cut down and composted much more of it. The pelargoniums in the second picture are in a hanging basket, which is why they stand above the much taller plant. The bed still contains

other pelargoniums, dahlias, and chrysanthemums.

Nearby, in the Wisteria Bed, these pink roses are blooming again.

Keeping with the pink, we have fuchsias Display and Garden News.

Super Elfin, red, Penny Lane, white roses, and clematis Dr Ruppel still scale the Gothic arch.

Fortunately these everlasting sweet peas are almost finished for this year, because many of the stems were bound to the fennel I removed from the Weeping Birch Bed.

More dahlias thrive in the New Bed.

It is now the larger Cabbage White butterflies that have taken the place of the Small Whites on the verbena bonariensis.

Paul Clarke dropped in for a pleasant chat and to return borrowed books while driving a sleeping Margery back from Bournemouth this afternoon.

Later, we took a drive into the forest, where Jackie visited Hockey’s Farm Shop, while

I photographed an old farm cart that isn’t going anywhere.

The stream at Ogdens North is now dry enough for me to step across quite easily. The pony in the last two of these pictures was so keen to make my acquaintance that I had to back away sharply to photograph the persistent creature which abandoned my face for he sparse grass underfoot.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty liver and bacon casserole; al dente carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli; with tender runner beans. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Calvet Prestige Bordeaux 2018.