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After a day in our mother’s garden, I wandered around ours.
Lamiums rise from the Dragon Bed, where
the first of our rhododendrons is in full boom.
Another of these rich red shrubs, in Margery’s Bed,
can be seen on the grass patch side,
beyond the pieris
that stands behind the Nottingham Castle Bench,
opposite which one of the ubiquitous honesty plants presages the hebe blooms with which it will soon blend.
Cyclamens border the Head Gardener’s Walk.
These particular pansies smile in the West Bed,
where hellebores, like these among the comfrey and the tellimas, are adopting their maturer colouring,
and snakes head fritillaries hang their lanterns.
We thought we had lost the red Japanese maple from which I had removed dead material two years ago. Aaron cut some more away recently and fresh shoots are appearing.
Many later daffodils linger
and our surprise collection of tulips has revealed yet another dramatic red striped variety.
A white spirea cascades over the Palm Bed,
and at the front of the house the prunus Amanogawa is now in full bloom. Should anyone wonder at the proliferation of piping on this side of our building, that is because this, we believe, was originally the back of the house.
This evening we dined on real fusion food – Jackie’s superb savoury egg rice, Mr Chan’s spring rolls and prawn toasts, Lidl’s pork rib rack in barbecue sauce; Belgium’s Hoegaarden beer and Argentina’s Trivento reserve Malbec 2017.