Our own garden is rather more manageable for dodgy knees than yesterday’s veritable undulating park. I took an amble around it this afternoon.
Jackie thought that this very small daffodil, in one of the stone troughs resting on the front wall, had come up blind. In fact it has bloomed later than most.
Behind the troughs rambles a clematis Montana, one of several we have.
One shares its perch with a blue solanum on the arch to the south end of the Brick Path;
another cosies up to the lilac.
This one, adorning the Gazebo was a shrivelled little specimen, barely alive, until Jackie came along and nurtured it. In the foreground of this shot we have a bottle brush plant ready to burst open.
The clematis will soon festoon the top of the arch.
The first of these aquilegias stands beneath the wisteria; the second is at the south end.
This phlox subulata is the sole survival of six planted last year.
Jackie savages this toadflax whenever she finds it growing like the alleged weed it is. There is no doubt, however, that it makes good ground cover.
Another plant whose name escapes the Head Gardener is this rather beautiful little bulb – one of a cluster in the Cryptomeria Bed.
We have two different rhododendrons in the Palm Bed.
The viburnum Plicata now blooms in the West Bed.
Many of our bluebells are either of the incoming Spanish variety or hybrids. Fortunately we do have some native English specimens.
This miniature azalea has accompanied me in all my abodes since it came in a pot presented to me by the foster carers of Parents for Children in 2003. It has now taken up permanent residence in the Kitchen Garden.
For dinner this evening we enjoyed Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi and savoury rice followed by strawberries and cream.