pieris – Page 2 – derrickjknight

An Enforced Eviction

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Early this morning the sun shone on the wall-bound wisteria aiming for the en suite bathroom.

Lingering early raindrops rolled around the Diamond Jubilee tulips

Raindrops and fly on tulip Diamond Jubilee

onto which a thirsty fly dropped for a drink.

Another rhododendron, leading the eye to the pieris on the grass, is beginning to bloom.

The day dulled over as it progressed. We spent the morning working on the garden. Jackie did some general planting and weeding, and sprinkled chicken pellets over the newly composted beds. Before you imagine otherwise, we do not keep chickens. The pellets come in a large bucket and are marketed as manure.

Vinca makes an attractive ground cover, but it does have a tendency to sprawl, take root, and make life very uncomfortable for bed-mates. So it has been for the Weeping Birch Bed. I therefore concentrated my efforts on that. Fast approaching is the warmer weather when a thinner duvet will be in order.

A black-spotted ladybird and a tiny striped snail suffered an enforced eviction as I ejected their shelter.

Our stone urns and other containers are mounted on dry brick pillars. The ground under one of these subsided a bit last autumn and it fell over. We spent the last few minutes before lunch levelling a space and beginning to rebuild the column.

This evening we dined on succulent roast pork and apple sauce, roast sweet and savoury potatoes, with al dente carrots, cauliflower, and runner beans; followed by rice pudding and blackberry jam. I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012, and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.

Interlopers

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This morning we continued tidying the garden.

The lovely daffodils occupying this old ginger jar have such long, slender, stems that they are unable to support their heavy heads in the garden. Jackie has therefore trimmed and rehoused them.

Here are some more tulips. The white ones are ‘Diamond Jubilee’.

Here are current views across the Cryptomeria Bed;

Margery’s Bed;

and the Weeping Birch Bed;

the pieris on the grass patch;

and an owl for Pauline.

Here are some daffodils from the front garden that have not been posted before;

and others with delicate salmon-pink trumpets. Jackie considers their yellow companions to be interlopers,

much like the white fritillary.

For the first time this year we took drinks in the rose garden before dinner. I hope it is not too long before Laurie and Clif can do the same on their patio. The clouds behind the weeping birch had a silver lining.

Our dinner this evening consisted of haddock fillets on a bed of spinach; creamy swede and potato mash; crunchy carrots and broccoli; and piquant cauliflower cheese. This was followed by rhubarb pie and custard. Jackie drank Côtes de Gascogne Cuvée Royale 2015 and I drank more of the merlot.

A Conundrum 2

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We took it easy today. Prompted by today’s post from thebikinggardener I wandered around the garden to see how our Hellebores are doing.

Some way behind Geoff’s, ours are coming through.

Many primulas have so far survived the winter.

The shattered bits of cherub Jackie found in the undergrowth a couple of years ago have gained a fine coating of moss.

The remnants of honesty, hollowing ovals on stems, blends well with the weeping birch bark.

The parent viburnum Bontantense and its two children are blooming well. One joins with a leycesteria in beginning to mask Aaron’s new fencing.

Alongside the winter flowering cherry

and beneath the crab apples, a blackbird dropped down for a change of diet.

This pieris takes my mind off the fact that the grass needs cutting.

A few youthful pink cheeks survive amid those ageing, wrinkly, and skeletal ones of this hydrangea.

Finally, the conundrum. Who has dragged a clutch of eggshells from the compost heap across the New Bed? Well, we did spot a rat, hands and nose pressed to the pane, peering, like Tiny Tim, through our window when we ate our Christmas dinner.

Just before 4.30 p.m., we dashed out to Barton on Sea to watch the sun sink into Christchurch Bay. I did not stage the photograph of the woman kicking it back up into the sky.

A while later we dined at Lal Quilla. My choice was lamb shatkora massala; Jackie’s prawn sallee. We shared an egg paratha, mushroom rice, and sag bahji; and both drank Kingfisher.

In The May Garden

My gardening task today was cutting the grass.

It is as well that I did carried that out before photographing this symphony in red provided by tellimas, rhododendron, pieris, mimuluses and petunias.

Another rhododendron that I photographed last week in a still closed and soggy state is now fully open and looking well refreshed;

as are the red and white tulips at the front of the house.

New arrivals are clematises

Niobe

and Marie Boisselot;

yet more Crane’s bill geraniums;

Pheasant’s eye, perhaps the last of the narcissi;

naturalised aquilegias;

and different alliums.

As has been noted before, the Hordle Chinese Take Away set meal for two can always be extended into the next day. So it was with yesterday’s, the seconds of which we enjoyed this evening, with profiteroles to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the Bordeaux.

Before The Thunderstorm

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For the best part of the day there were two consistencies in the weather: it was very warm and it was dry. This meant the overnight rain soon evaporated. The sun, however, vied for dominance with the clouds.

Stopping on the way to buy a necessary sack barrow from Milford Supplies, we drove to Molly’s Den in search of two more stone urns for the rose garden. We were successful and installed them into position.

We also bought a red-painted wrought iron planter.

Early on, in the front garden,

tulips’ in-built umbrellas protected their stamens.

Bees preferred the pollen from the clematis Montana. If you can’t spot this insect filling its thigh sacs, you may choose to enlarge the image,

or opt for this one instead.

Pearly drops slipped from aquilegias.

The viburnum plicatum had benefited from the warmth and the rain.

Two years ago, outside the utility room door, stood the stump of a wisteria that had clearly been heavily pruned, we imagine to make way for the plumbing for the en-suite bathroom above. It has responded to nurturing the first year, and training the next, to produce a fine drapery which should increase even more next year.

Another stump, this time on the grass patch, has recovered to produce a pieris that now shows signs of feeling crowded by the Castle Bench.

Offspring of the erigeron, outside the French windows to the sitting room, have been adopted by various other parts of the garden.

Just before the thunderstorm hit at 4.30, after Jackie had planted up the urns, I joined her for cold drinks and a rest in the rose garden.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s prize chicken jalfrezi, now nicely maturing; meat samosas, egg fried rice, onion bhajis, and parathas. I drank more of the Cotes du Rhone, while The Cook abstained.

Could You Have Done That If You’d Tried?

Last night Andy drove us home from Spice of India in Danni’s car. We were some time getting under way. Perched on the front passenger seat, I was unable to fit the seat belt. Now, this is a fairly automatic task which doesn’t normally require too much attention. Stretching out the belt with my left hand, I passed it to my right, and groped for the receiving slot. The slot was unreceptive. Thinking my aim must be awry, I had several stabs at it. To no avail. In the gloom of the car park, I peered at the stubborn fixture. There seemed to be a coin therein. A search for a nail-file ensued. One was produced from a handbag in the back. Andy prised out the offending item, which revealed itself to be a button. It seemed, as was subsequently confirmed, likely to be one from my back trouser pocket. Andy dropped it on the floor. We didn’t find it. Could you have done that if you’d tried?

Today’s gale force wind was even stronger than yesterday. The North West of our garden seems to suffer the most.

As I wandered around today I noticed an untied rose stem hanging down from its arch, one of the struts of which had been blown loose. I refixed the the arch and tied the rose back up. The buds on that particular section had remained intact, but others had been torn off. One rested on the Ace Reclaim bench; another hung by its neck.

Nearby, an as yet unidentified clematis clings to the helping hands of a fir tree, and the magnolia Vulcan risks blooming. Clouds, too, were sent scudding across the sunlit sky, giving us alternating light and shade, which meant for shadows to appear and reappear, never in the same place. This can be seen in the two bench seat shots. In the first, foliage had been blown into position, not to return for the second.

The weeping birch was not permitted to droop its flimsy filigreed branches for long before they were tossed aloft.

Flames of a yellow Japanese maple flickered like those of the red one pictured yesterday.

A solitary, hungry, bumblebee, struggled to gain purchase on a cluster of heucheras. It had about as much success as I did in keeping it in focus.

We have what I consider to be an invasion of cow parsley, which also bent its back in the face of the violent gusts. I am all for pulling it up before it drops its seeds, but, unfortunately, the head gardener has overruled me, and I am no Alan Titchmarsh. Jessica, too, had found these plants attractive. She collected seeds from the wayside around Newark and scattered them in the orchard, where they rapidly germinated, flourished joyfully, and spilled their seed in turn. It took us several years of taking out the tops to eradicate it.

The pink-leaved pieris on the lawn shelters under the protection of the Nottingham Castle bench,

and low-level plants like calendulas smile in the sunshine.

Another rhododendron has battled its way through the North Breeze jungle next door. It is probably grateful now that it is surrounded by brambles.

This evening we dined on Mr. Pink’s exquisite cod and chips and Garner’s pickled onions. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I finished the Bordeaux. It wasn’t a good idea to ruin the taste of the wine by contaminating it with the vinegar from the onions, but it had been open a day or two, and may soon have tasted of vinegar itself. Alternating it with water helped a bit.

Chinese Takeaway Pie

Before collapsing into bed last night we watched episode 5 of ‘Downton Abbey’. Only 37 more to go, not counting Christmas specials.
Over the festive season, the skin encasing Scooby’s stomach has become rather tight. He was off his food yesterday evening, and this morning he puked up on the kitchen floor. He perked up immediately afterwards, so, in order to liberate his nostrils from the aroma of disinfectant, Jackie took him out to smell the roses. These were frost-covered, as was a pieris that has risked blooming early. This latter plant is one I bought, potted and repotted whilst living in Sutherland Place. Left there until I removed my belongings, first to Michael’s house in Graham Road, and ultimately to Downton in April, it miraculously survived and has taken well to our garden soil here.
Allowing the sun time to come up, I took the woodland walk, this time walking round the field before fording a muddy ditch leading to the stream. It was a little warmer today, so the frost dripped from the foliage onto felled logs and the forest floor. Sunlight streaked through the trees, setting the bracken alight and casting shadows on the rippling, sparkling water.

This evening’s meal was a miracle of mother/daughter invention. Becky produced Chinese Takeaway Pie. She took the left-over dishes from the meal of a couple of days ago, laid them in tiers along an ovenproof oval dish, and covered them with the pancakes that had been provided for the duck. This was gently heated in the oven, and was an enjoyable melange. Jackie’s contribution was Egg Foo Yung – well, all right, egg and bacon omelette. They went very well together. Peroni and J2O was drunk by all except me. My choice was Gran Famila Las Primas 2013.

Diversions

Early morning light on the garden was most enticing today.

We have eagerly awaited the emergence of the splendid red poppies from their hairy chrysalises:

The first picture in this post shows part of the brick path at the back of the house, and demonstrates its need for weeding. Following my effort with the patio two days ago, I had planned to remove the grass and other small plants from the cracks in the paving. But I changed my mind.

To the right rear of that same photograph there is a triangular patch of ground that was covered in plants, for instance a tree peony, that had been purchased or potted up ready for insertion in the soil. There are perhaps a couple of dozen. I decided to do something about sorting these out and maybe planting some of them.

I removed all the pots and lined them up on the path. The next job was to clear the weeds, including tentacles of catch-weed, a few nettles, and the odd bramble. This done I had to summon the head gardener for identification of specimens and suggestions as to planting. I complicated the process a little by deciding to plant the pieris and the azalea mentioned on 6th April in some of the space. I had had these two shrubs in pots for six years. It seemed only right that they should have a permanent home at last. But it did mean that there was less room for those left by our predecessors. And there are of course 80 potted plants awaiting collection from Shelly and Ron’s.

Some of the items I was working on today were trees, and therefore did not belong in the flower beds. Jackie suggested a position for the tree peony in part of a shrubbery that didn’t seem to have too much of importance in it. This area, and its invisible gravel access path, was in fact filled with brambles, sticky Jack, and other weeds entwined among some lovely shrubs and a huge rose bush that Jackie tied to a myrtle tree to keep it from gouging my scalp. So, here was another clearance task that diverted me from the planting. The path will also need raking when I’ve finished.

Again, there were trips down the garden to the compost heap. On my way there, I tended to step into other areas of growth and emerge with armfuls of the multiply nicknamed gallium aparine mentioned a few days ago. This becomes more and more urgent as the weeds’ little white flowers multiply.

Gardening, in these circumstances, is full of diversions. Maybe I’ll get the planting done tomorrow. On the other hand, I might cut the grass. After all, we did buy a strimmer for the purpose.

Regular readers will have followed the progress of the cleaning up of our new home. Now the worst of this is over, Jackie, the practical member of our team, has been applying herself more to the task of righting some of the appalling DIY efforts. She is still working on the master suite bathroom. Some rather amazing colours have been used on the walls over the years. Recently a white wash of sorts has been sloshed over these.

It is not enough simply to clean and polish fixtures and fittings. Spatters of blue, turquoise, orange and red paint have to be scraped off. Even cover-up magnolia has left its spots. To this end, Jackie, having polished it, found it almost impossible to remove a toilet tissue holder from the wall in order to scrape off offending material. Until she tried the almost unthinkable.

‘He couldn’t have’, she thought.

But he had. This photograph of the fixture was taken the right way up.

Not realising the aberration, Jackie had been, as expected, pushing the container up to release it from the wall. How was she to know that this one should be pushed downwards? She thinks it was only frequently painted-over masking tape that kept the object clinging to its perch.

We dined this evening on delightful chilli con carne (recipe), peas and rice, and garlic bread.

A Good Read

Much of the day was spent continuing with the filling of the bookshelves. By the time we had finished last night we were both under the impression that we hadn’t been out that day. We’d both forgotten the mere four hours spent on the IKEA trip which we had in our minds relegated to the day before.
I can categorically state that we have not left the house today. We made a great deal of progress on the novels, but not as much as we at one time thought. When we completed the Novels M box we thought we were more than half way through this major section. I was somewhat perturbed at the shortage of Is. Surely I had more than one Hammond Innes and another Christopher Isherwood. The task is possibly numbing our brains a bit, so I didn’t persist. I should at least have wondered where John Irving had got to.
So….. With only the two aforementioned Is to separate Harris from Joyce, we continued merrily along through to M. Neither did it occur to us that there should be more Hs. What about Hemingway and Hoban?
Determined not to make the same error (you will by now have realised, as we did, that something was awry) with N, we searched and searched for it. That box remained elusive. What we did find, however, was H to J.

One of the beauties of the Billy bookcases is that the shelves are adjustable, so that different sized books can stand alongside each other in their correct alphabetical order. These can be adjusted as you go along. It is also helpful to leave a few gaps so that when inserting an additional volume or two there is enough room on the shelf without having to move everything along, and consequently risk having to readjust the height of the shelves ad infinitum.
If you have omitted a large section like H to J there is no way you have left enough spaces, so there is more pulling out of studs to lower or raise the laminated chipboard on which to perch the books. This is quite a laborious process, and if you haven’t estimated the space correctly, you have to do it over again. Having gone through this experience once, we had a determined effort to find N. The Novels N box was, of course, in the least accessible spot in a far corner surrounded by Reference, History, Philosophy, etc., etc. I got in and heaved it out.
Have I mentioned that when I first met her Jackie was a librarian? I thought not. Well, she was, and this is proving to be quite useful.
After lunch Jackie researched the Internet and found that the

unknown shrub near the bottle brush trees is a Chinese Lantern Tree or Crinodendron Hookerianum. I updated the relevant post.

We also have a beautiful magenta pieris and and a mature lace cap hydrangea.
Two more discoveries from the treasure trove of Safestore Storage boxes are a photograph and a drawing.

The photograph is a heat-sealed print on board. It is too large for my scanner, so I have here taken the image directly from the August 1971 colour slide. Michael is reading to Jackie and me at 76 Amity Grove.

Two years later I made this quick charcoal sketch of him reading to Matthew.

Late this afternoon Shelly dropped in for a visit and brought a few of the plants and garden ornaments we had left at her home.

Jackie and I dined on fish, chips, and mushy peas, followed by a Post House Mess, the ingredients for which are similar to a Firs Mess.

A Leaving Present

There are always unexpected expenses when moving house. One we hadn’t bargained for was caused by the discovery yesterday that none of Jackie’s carefully collected saucepans – not even her precious pressure cooker – can be used on the Neff hobs. Naturally therefore, the most expensive kitchen installation requires the most expensive cooking utensils. Off we drove to John Lewis in Poole to by some with a magnetic quality.

Jackie knew what she really wanted, which was Tefal non-stick pans, but hovered and havered over the price, until I took the bull by the horns, picked up a range of pots, thrust some into her arms, and carried the rest to the checkout. Even the man who served us carried a magnet to check the equipment.
I’m no fool. Microwaved meals and eating out are all well and good, but they cannot match my lady’s culinary prowess.
On our return, I just had to photograph them amassed on the surface where they will be used in the creation of delicious delicacies. There are a couple of unplanned bonuses in the resulting image. Firstly, Jackie is seen reflected in the oven as she passed behind me. As was demonstrated by an earlier photograph, this would not have been possible before she painstakingly cleaned and polished the Moben installation. Secondly, in the top left corner, Norman’s parrot can be glimpsed on its perch suspended from a hook in the ceiling.
We had a welcome visit from Danni in the afternoon. She is much-loved niece, and it was gratifying to hear her say she felt the same way about the house.

When, in 2008, I gave up my consultancy role with Parents for Children, I was given a number of presents from different groups in the organisation. One was basket containing an array of plants in a pot. The main feature of this was a very young azalea. Neither London soil nor tap water was suitable for the plant, so I repotted it and fed it on rainwater. Miraculously it has survived, having continued to be nurtured in Michael’s Graham Road house for the last few months.

It was a joy to see that this, together with a pieris I had also bought for Sutherland Place, had, unharmed, been first off the Globe Removals van. When we get around to it, we will find permanent resting places for each of these.
Parents for Children was a specialist adoption agency set up in the 1970s specifically for finding homes for children who by reason of disability or emotional difficulties were difficult to place. With the changing financial climate, the cost of such intensive specialist work, and the development of Social Services own fostering and adoption sections, the agency’s survival became more and more precarious and closed down not long after my involvement ceased. Whole generations have reason to be grateful for their existence.
This evening, courtesy of Tesco and the microwave, I dined on chicken jalfrezi whlist Jackie ate lamb rogon josh. These were followed by treacle puddings.