planting – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Before And After: Disposal And Recycling

Jackie had, of course, not been idle during my trip to Nottingham. She has almost completed preparing the front garden beds for winter. It fell to me this morning just to extract a few stubborn euphorbia roots and reset some of the edging stones.

The Head Gardener completed the task this afternoon.

Aaron, too, had been busy. He has brought half the griselinia trees down to a reasonable height. By the time he has finished, the burning pile will be even larger.

This leads me to the next section of the garden story.

Disposal of cuttings and sawn limbs is a continuing problem. The first pile, here photographed on 17th June 2014, was just the tip of the iceberg. In my prime I was 6’3″. I don’t know what my height is now, but that should provide an idea of scale.

We will probably always need to be lighting fires. The first were contained, after a fashion, in a discarded wheelbarrow, which was, in that sense, recycled from its original purpose. Eventually it collapsed, and was transported to the Efford Recycling Centre. The first of these two photos was taken on 23rd June 2014, and the second on 25th February 2015.

Usable stone, as has already been seen, was dug up and recycled elsewhere in the garden. We would occasionally come across pits of broken tiles and other rubble. This we bagged up and disposed of in the municipal dump. After extracting a good third of a metre’s depth of these tiles, I gave up and piled earth on top. It is not an area where we are ever likely to grow anything.

We would almost qualify for a season ticket to the dump.

When writing of the preparation of the rose garden, I omitted to mention the bath I found buried against the south wall. This was full of earth and invasive plants, and hidden behind a box hedge, the only purpose of which seemed to be to conceal the plumbing. I had to dig into it to discover what it was, then empty it in a confined space, and carry it to the utility end of our plot.

It now sits behind the Head Gardener’s shed, where last winter it was successfully recycled into a cold frame, and will be used again as such this year. The top is a recycled sheet from ‘greenhouse unassembled’.

Soon, we will be off out, the purpose of which will be disclosed tomorrow.

Before And After: From Unidentified Fir Bed To Cryptomeria Bed

This morning we continued planting up the Cryptomeria Bed. Once again, this proved more difficult than anticipated. Jackie came across more vinca roots growing between the border rocks, and had to get down on her kneeler to dig them out. My task was to bore holes for the shrubs that needed deeper soil. I invariably came across more slabs of constituted rock. With a view to her stepping stones, The Head Gardener’s eyes glinted when she spotted ‘a good one’.

This one had to be prised from under a tree root.

Jackie completed the job this afternoon while I watched the Rugby World Cup on TV.

I also spent quite a time researching earlier photographs for the before and after collection.

This view from Fiveways shows the full bed on 23rd July 2014. It equates roughly to the first bed image above, featuring Jackie and a watering can.

That of the house, from a similar point to the fourth, demonstrates the overgrown nature of the area on 14th August the same year. We do trust, however, that, next spring, there will be more to peer through.

The afternoon matches I watched were between Scotland and Samoa, and between Wales and Australia. Both were superb; the first the more entertaining, the second admirably fought out.

We then dined on Jackie’s superb chicken in black bean sauce; sweet and sour chicken; and special rice with chopped pork. She drank Hoegaarden and I finished the pinotage.

I then watched England’s rugby match against Uruguay, which was somewhat painful to witness.

A Virtual Photoshoot

During a morning interlude between the rains, Jackie continued her work on the Unidentified Fir bed. Plants, including more than fifty spring bulbs were put in place; more broken tiles were dug out; and choked shrubs were freed from a rampant vinca. I did some clearing up.

I then made a virtual trip to Fremantle in Western Australia where I photographed my grandchildren. This is how it came about. At first I had been on the phone to Sam on his hands-free while he drove home. When he arrived there Malachi and Orlaith launched themselves into the car and both began shrieking at a million decibels.

Once in the house Orlaith entertained me for a while and mentioned that if we were on Skype she could show me her owl. This prompted Sam to introduce me to the joys of Facebook VideoCall. He talked me through the process, and I conversed with both children before Malachi read us all a bedtime story.

Mal was keen to show me the pictures in his book. Orlaith hampered this somewhat by thrusting the owl into the foreground.

I have been having trouble e-mailing Ray Salinger some of the photographs taken on 19th September. They have been timed out in transmission. I therefore printed some for him this afternoon.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious sausage casserole, creamy mashed potatoes, and crisp carrots and cabbage. I drank Louis de Camponac cabernet sauvignon 2014, and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.

Pushmi – Pullyu

Yesterday, Jackie made an unfortunate discovery in the Weeping Birch Bed. Roughly half this plot has been raised on top of the concreted area that we think must have been laid for Post Office vans in the past. It was therefore only a few inches deep. This also explains why water escapes from the un-cemented brick retaining wall. This meant that the border of the back drive had to be further plundered to lift the level. The Head Gardener began the task yesterday and I finished it this morning. The toad that I disturbed hopped away at the speed of an Olympic athlete. The warm weather must have kept it awake.

This afternoon I supported Jackie in replenishing this bed. She made a support for the honeysuckle, plonked a fuchsia, and planted various smaller plants, such as yellow chrysanthemums. I helped spread the new topsoil, dead-headed some roses, and divided the libertia.

This latter task required the application of two forks in emulation of Dr Dolittle’s Pushmi – pullyu; the insertion of a fairly useless sharp knife; and strenuous manual prising and tugging.

For those unfamiliar with this creature, Wikipedia informs us that ‘the pushmi-pullyu (pronounced “push-me—pull-you”) is a “gazelle-unicorn cross” which has two heads (one of each) at opposite ends of its body. In The Story of Doctor Dolittle, the grateful monkeys in Africa persuade it to accompany Dr. Dolittle to England to earn money for him (in Doctor Dolittle’s Circus and Doctor Dolittle’s Caravan.) The pushmi-pullyu usually only uses one of its heads to talk, reserving the other for eating (thus allowing it to eat while speaking without being rude) and claims that its great-grandfather was the last unicorn.

In the 1967 film, the pushmi-pullyu was instead portrayed as a double-headed llama. The doctor can immediately speak to the pushmi-pullyu, knowing that llamas speak a dialect of camel language.’

I did my best to persuade the garden’s insect life that we are now into October, but they just carried on regardless. Perhaps the talking llama could have interpreted for me.

This honey bee simply continued siphoning nectar from a verbena bonarensis.

This evening I burnt much of the recent clippings in the incinerator.

The rays of the setting sun frolicked with the smoke from the fire.

As is often so, Jackie made enough sausage casserole yesterday for several meals. I was more than happy to sample it again today, with crisp carrots and cabbage, and creamy mashed potato. We had both enjoyed a beer whilst watching the incinerator, so we abstained from drinking with the meal.

Now I am going to watch a recording which will let me know how Wales got on against Fiji in the Rugby World Cup.

It Has To Be Seen To Be Believed

Here are some of the fruits of Jackie’s recent and past creative labours in the garden:

Helen and Bill gave us this box for Christmas. It has now been filled with plants and placed on the wall surrounding the recently converted compost heap, providing a signal to visitors that they have come up the correct back drive. These concrete blocks are some of those I dug out of the kitchen garden last year.

Where there was a ramshackle, fairly useless, cobbled, fence today’s Birthday Girl has produced a natural barrier. All that remains is for Aaron to finish paving the projected rose garden, and consequently removing the bag of sand and stack of bricks. I did help bag up the rubble, and moved remaining rocks and concrete blocks to other parts of the garden, where Jackie reinforced border edges and laid stepping stones across the beds with them.

Somewhat flattened and spattered by the battering of yesterday’s gales, this large blue clematis was such a weedy little thing last year that we incorrectly identified it. It has been lovingly fed and nurtured through the winter. Still not sure of its identity, we know that its splendid sepals must belong to a different variety.

We have hanging baskets wherever a hook can be hitched. These marigolds swing from the eucalyptus tree. At least, they do today. Features tend to be moved around, and sometimes I only spot this when I bang my head on them.

This afternoon a fly engaged in mountaineering atop a new deep pink climber heavily pruned and retrained last autumn;

and a gargantuan humble bee, the pollen dusting adding the last straw to prevent a standing take-off, tumbled to the ground as Jackie carefully flicked the slug bait off the recently planted erigeron Sea Breeze, on which the creature was becoming intoxicated. The insect lumbered off, rather like Eric the pheasant. The bait, by the way, is of the type unharmful to birds.

This afternoon we dumped several bags of rubble into the Efford Recycling Centre.

With 50 m.p.h. winds forecast overnight, Jackie toured the garden taking down and sheltering her hanging baskets. Goodness knows where the above marigolds will be found tomorrow.

This evening we dined at The Plough in Tiptoe, where we found the usual efficient, friendly service, and superb, plentiful food. Jackie’s choice was the half rack of ribs. I once had the whole rack and had as much trouble managing to eat it all as I had with today’s mixed grill.

I have featured this feast before, and make no apology for photographing it again, because it has to be seen to be believed. However, because this huge plate is piled high, I bet you can’t list everything on it. Don’t be deceived by the steak knife. It is itself of proportions that would have suited Jim Bowie. Jackie enjoyed the pub’s legendary creme brûlée. I was so full I could not manage a sweet. Jackie drank Becks. My choice of beverage was Doom Bar.