roots – Page 3 – derrickjknight

Before And After: The Patio

Once more, wet and warm described the day’s weather.

Although we have created a gravelled patio at the south end of the garden, there always was a designed one alongside the back of the house. This, in April 2014 was full of weeds and the surrounding areas were overgrown. Our project is a continuing one, so will no doubt evolve still further, but The Patio is the final section, prepared today, for the garden album.

On 7th May 2014 the area was dominated by next door’s photinia and lonicera hedge; and our own ficus and poplar.

By 13th, we had weeded the cracks between the paving stones, but not yet disguised the blue painted Butler sink;

by 27th, our trees were trimmed;

and by 28th the sink was surrounded by rocks on shingle, and we had refurbished the boundary with our neighbours, using a length of ornamental wrought iron and a useless door from inside the house.

This corner was festooned with flowers on 14th August when Scooby had a look round, then went on the prowl.

After an unusually cold August, it wasn’t until September 14th that we enjoyed afternoon tea there with Mum and Elizabeth. Note that the side gate is still fixed and covered with trellis.

The rocks around the sink, on 1st January 2015, provided useful cover for a rat attracted by the bird food.

We tried to maintain the ficus with heavy pruning, but eventually decided it had to go. I finally removed its roots on 18th September.

The next day Jackie planted up the vacant space in which pansies were blooming on 12th October.

This afternoon I printed and pasted the Gazebo Path section into the album.

Chicken thighs baked in West Indian chili sauce; special fried rice; and mange touts, cob corn, and carrots were produced by Jackie for our dinner this evening. A selection of Tesco’s cream cakes was to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Reserve des Tugets Madiran 2012.

70 Years On

Jackie spent the morning planting the pansies and spring bulbs in place of the ficus.

The bamboo in the Oval Bed tends to send tentacles under the rock border and into the gravel path. At the first sign of a sucker piercing the shingle, excavation has to be carried out. This was my task.

This afternoon, Jackie drove us to Walkford for Daphne and Ray Salinger’s Platinum Anniversary party. Apart from one picture, I recorded the event in Black and White, which seemed appropriate.

Here, Ray examines the album Ron had made up largely from the prints I had produced.

He then posed with his wife.

Over lunch They both looked again at the historic photos, the album here held by Donna.

The best way of approaching the splendidly plentiful buffet was to heap your plate with those selections you could fit onto it, then return for seconds of the other dishes.

The day was warm and sunny enough for many guests, entertained by Ben, a professional guitarist, to sit outside.

The couple’s great niece, her husband, her father-in-law and a great great niece enjoyed the sunshine,

whilst Helen enjoyed great granddaughter Imogen.

Ron made a speech in honour of his parents,

and Ray gave a witty reply.

He and Daphne then cut the cake made by Shelly,

who helped her mother-in-law slice it.

Finally, all assembled for group photographs.

And the one colour picture?

Here it is.

This evening I watched the second half of the South Africa v. Japan World Cup rugby match, and the whole of France v. Italy. In deference to anyone yet to watch a recorded version, I will not give the results, but I will say that the last five minutes of the first of these games was as thrilling as any finish I have seen.

After The Rain 1

SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read to the end if you are watching the rugby recorded.

This morning Jackie weeded and planted chrysanthemums in the front garden, whilst I dug out the remaining roots of the ficus in preparation for planting the pansies.

In the event, a heavy thunderstorm ruled out putting the pansies to bed. They were therefore plonked in their trays. Even though the rain ceased, enabling us to finalise the preparation and wander round the garden, the soil was far too muddy.

The sun emerged for a while. The rain ceased, but continued to drip from the trees and the shrubbery. Battered blooms bore watery blisters.

These included geraniums;

Ginger lilies;

roses unknown,

Altissimo,

and the leaves of Deep Secret;

dahlia Bishop of Llandaff;

sweet peas;

and verbena to name a few.

Echinaceas and chrysanthemums, and others in Elizabeth’s Bed have been well watered.

Here are views down the Dead End Path;

across the New Bed to the Brick Path;

and across the Heligan Path.

Our dinner this evening, consisting of Jackie’s superb chicken jalfrezi and pilau rice, was taken on trays on our knees, as we watched the opening match in the rugby World Cup, in which England beat Fiji by 35 points to 11. I drank more of the malbec while Jackie drank Hoegaarden. I didn’t spill too much curry down my sweatshirt.

The Green Man

Today’s weather pattern was similar to yesterday’s. I therefore delved into the archives again and came up with another black and white picture of Sam looking remarkably like his daughter Orlaith, among a collection of shots of still naked trees that must have been taken early in 1982 somewhere in Surrey. I love the contorted shapes and the images they sometimes reveal. Study, for example, the last picture above. Can you see the Green Man of legend? He is a mythological figure representing rebirth, and, reproduced in every art form, whether drawing, painting or sculpture, is frequently seen as an architectural symbol or a pub sign. Very often he is painted as if formed from foliage. I have never seen him depicted in bark, which is my excuse for breaking my normal rule and altering an image.

Perhaps the fossilised Picasso-like deer in this shot is easier to spot.

As the day brightened up, I wandered along Hordle Lane as far as the path by the side of Apple Court Garden, and along this until my way was barred by a locked five-barred gate. I then retraced my steps. Two of the horses in the paddock still wore their protective masks, although the day was less fly-blown.

We now have a delicate little clematis Campaniflora rambling across the plants in the front garden.

Water lilies are still forcing their way to the light in the tiny pond created in an old water tank.

Among the most fidgety of the butterflies we have is the small white, which, like Tigger, never seems to be able to settle. They are constantly, restlessly, flitting around the garden. I managed, fleetingly, to catch one on a bidens. It didn’t stay long enough to disturb the other two basking insects.

Having noticed that Apple Court were advertising rare and unusual plants, I returned this afternoon with the head gardener to make some purchases. We bought a Persicaria microcephalus Red Dragon; a Hydrangea paniculata Phantom; two Athyriums, one Metallicum, the other dictum Red Beauty; and a Dryopteris erythrosora Brilliance.

In the sales area Meadow Brown butterflies and bees flocked to the cone flowers. In the garden itself, a magnificent catalpa shed its shaded blooms, vying with the sunlight in dappling the lawn beneath, and Primrose was having her photograph taken.

Water lilies in the capacious carp ponds had no need to force their way into the sunlight.

When we returned with our spoils, seizing upon the opportunity to contribute to the planting, and, more significantly, to take a break from digging up concrete slabs, I volunteered to dig the holes for the new residents. This turned out to be somewhat unwise. I began with the ferns, which were destined for a comparatively fallow spot where only weeds seemed to be growing. Almost immediately I hit upon large lumps of tufa. Tufa is a porous rock, formed near mineral springs, upon which some hardy plants will grow. It is popular for rockeries and alpines. Maybe a rockery was once intended for this bed. The large piece on the left of the pile in the picture demonstrates that it is useful on which to grow certain plants. Not ideally those it was harbouring. Having dug all this out, the craters left had to be filled with soil scrounged from other parts of the garden. Then we planted our ferns.

The lair allocated for the Red Dragon involved piercing a mixture of clay and gravel. Fortunately for me Jackie did most of it.

Finally, I only had to negotiate a tree root before setting the Phantom hydrangea standing proud.

This evening we again dined on Jackie’s luscious lamb jalfrezi with boiled rice, followed by evap on strawberries on raspberry twirl cheesecake. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Chateau Chataigniere Bordeaux 2012.

Roundup Not Required

This morning we both worked at the front of the house. I remained safely within our walls.

Jackie, however, diced with death by sweeping the whole length of the narrow pavement. The speed limit on this road is 60 m.p.h., and is often exceeded. Stepping back to admire your work out there does not bear thinking about.
Jackie also tidied up the front of the trellis. This was rather bad luck on me, because it involved the removal of a couple of euphorbias. A good hour of my morning had already been spent hacking out the roots of one penetrating the gravel path inside the garden. I hadn’t really contemplated tackling any more. Not previously being familiar with the plant, I had thought that this was just a large flower. Not so. It

was secured by roots as thick as those of small trees.
The front garden is on a higher level than the small drive and the road outside. This has meant earth has slid under the trellis. Some attempt has, in the distant past, been made to hold back the flow with piles of stone. This last euphorbia had grown through the stone. Sometimes it was only the clink of the rock on fork or spade that distinguished it from the apparently equally steely roots. They were also esconced on both sides of the trellis. After an hour, I gave up. Definitely a job for that powerful weedkiller, Roundup, I thought. Superwoman had other ideas. She knelt down with a trowel and, feeling like a member of The Time Team, chipped away at the earth between and beneath the stone, exposing the two large roots straddling it that were eventually all that was holding the tangled mass. Proudly, after a cut with the loppers, she drew it out.
As part of her clean-up of the pavement, Jackie had cleared a blocked drain in the gutter and hosed down the footpath.

This is a picture of the gutter opposite our driveway, at about the position of the red car in the first picture. Fast-moving vehicles come so close to the kerb that they sprayed us with muddy water.
This afternoon we worked in tandem. Jackie cleared out the earth fall from under the trellis, I toddled off and brought back some concrete slabs from elsewhere in the garden, and together we put them in place against the bottom of the latticework. We left a little of the euphorbia in place near the entrance arch, and tied up rose, clematis, and honeysuckle. A few more climbers should obscure the ugliness of the concrete.

Weeding, eradication of bramble and ivy, and heavy pruning, resulted in us at least having some idea of the shape of our front garden. As I scratch my head, determining what to write next, I am reminded of the vicious thorns on the old pink rose that seemed to make their mark each time I stood up straight.
On the inside of the wall at bottom right of the last two pictures, can be seen traces of pink and turquoise paint. Underneath the nondescript brown wash along the front, remain vestiges of these two colours. Much of the inside of the house has similar traces beneath a weak white daub. There had clearly been an overall attempt to produce a more anodyne decor than the house had once enjoyed.
After a Hoegaarden and a glass of Chateau les Gauries bordeaux 2011 on the decking situated to catch the evening sun, we dined on a repeat of yesterday’s delicious dinner. I drank another glass of wine with it, and Jackie didn’t.

Bamboo, Brambles, And Ballerina

For the time being at least, the crow has conceded defeat and alternates with the wood pigeons in patrolling the area beneath the bird feeder and picking up scraps, of which there are plenty, because the smaller birds aren’t all that tidy.

The finial of the new arch has opened into a rich apricot coloured rose with a hole in one petal. Given the treatment it has had, one little blemish is less than could have been expected.

I set about the bamboo immediately this morning. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the roots tunnelled under the gravel to the other side of the path, and were rather rampant in the oval bed. I wanted to save the parent clump which is quite attractive, and really just needs managing. I reduced it somewhat. Having to clamber over the other plants in order to remove the bamboo, there were bound to be some accidents.

The head of one of the Pink Abundance roses was dislodged from its stem, so warranted its own accident saucer.
It hadn’t been my intention to do much weeding of the bed, still less to those further back or to the right of the path. By the time, however, I had taken out the the bamboo, and the bramble that was choking the life out of anything in the other beds, I had done quite a bit. The brambles at this end of the garden seem to emanate from that behind ours.

I broke the back of the task of renovating this path, but downed tools before breaking mine. Hopefully I will finish the job tomorrow.

Beyond the right hand rock boundary of this walkway one can just glimpse a raised stone walled bed which had been completely hidden by the brambles.
Jackie continued to blaze a trail into the kitchen garden.

The ballerina rose seen dancing around the red bird box, was invisible last week.

Bay trees seem to have self-seeded and grown quite big all over the garden. We each encountered a couple that had to go. They have a cunning system of taking root between those of a more mature tree, so all we could actually do was cut them down. It seems a great shame to remove such a plant, but there really are too many in the wrong places.
Whilst we dined this evening on Jackie’s sausage casserole (recipe) with new potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, we watched, through the kitchen window, a pair of woodpeckers enjoying their meal on our bird feeder. Jackie drank Emilia lambrusco 2012. My wine was Baturrica tarragona gran reserva 2007. It seems that we, too, were being observed from outside by a little potted fir tree.