The Generous Gardener – derrickjknight

Freckles (2)

On third successive day largely overcast but cooler I took a walk round the garden to see what I could find.

Trees were silhouetted against the midday sky, while birds flew overhead.

A few flattened limp leaves had succumbed to the cold.

Apart from the winter flowering Cirrhosa clematis “Freckles”, enjoying a brief moment of sunlight,

the nearest to prolific flowers was represented by the increasing lichen on the Nottingham Castle bench.

The peach climbing rose photographed a couple of days ago is past its peak but has a few buds waiting to take its place; the pink Generous Gardener bravely persists, as do yellow Absolutely Fabulous, Festive Jewel, and another pale pink climber.

In addition we have pansy-like violas, out of season hebes, bacopas, penstemon, and hydrangeas.

This evening we all dined on second helpings of last night’s Chinese takeaway meal with added spare ribs. Jackie drank more of the White Zinfandel, and I finished the Carménère.

Worth The Effort?

This afternoon, changing the category of the second to Garden, I converted these two posts from Classic to Block edits:

Scarecrows

The Name Of The Rose

Later I joined Jackie continuing watering and planting in the garden; my task was weeding and dead heading – she has provided me with a Helping Hand which enables me to reach sticky willies otherwise beyond my span.

I photographed a few roses to demonstrate that dead heading is worth the effort;

and a peony because I felt like it.

Hopefully the edit conversions are also worth the effort.

I am familiar with neither the sight nor sound of a hornet, so when Flo, at the first buzzing drone, dived under the dining table apparently shielding her daughter from an air raid, and Jackie cleared all food off the table as we began our meal of the mild curry leftovers, and went on the rampage with an insecticide spray, I didn’t react any more than I would at the sight of a bee or a wasp – on the premise that if you leave it alone, it will leave you alone – and our granddaughter, while the creature was sticking itself to the skylight above, and Mrs Knight was squirting toxic particles up at it, warned that it would land in my glass of Calvet Prestige Bordeaux 2020; suddenly, like a body thrown over a balcony onto a car below in a thriller movie, the writhing menace thumped onto the table beside the wine, to be scooped up by Jackie and tossed onto the patio – now named Rasputin, the creature refused to die and wriggles still as I draft this post.

A Sunless Sultry Day

On this sunless sultry morning Jackie watered, I dead headed, and Martin carried out the heavier garden maintenance. Before he left, I printed him an A4 portrait I had produced on his last visit.