viburnum plicatum – derrickjknight

Crystal Gifts

This morning we joined Crystal and Margaret for an enjoyable breakfast at The Potting Shed, after which we bade our goodbyes and regretfully saw them on the way to the next stage of their trip. We have spent three delightful days in their company.

We took a leisurely forest drive home.

May blossom at Abbotswell shared the landscape with the longer flowering gorse. One adage enjoins us to “Ne’er cast a clout (i.e. layer of clothing) until May is out.” The jury is out on whether this refers to the end of the month or to the white blossom’s blooming period. Gorse, however, promotes another, viz. “When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of fashion” reflects its all the year round flowering, although it is at its most dazzling gold in May and June.

These bluebells on the verge at Godshill are of our upright native English variety, slowly being overcome by or hybridised with the more flamboyant Spanish ones.

A pair of foraging ponies were oblivious to the traffic they were blocking. Jackie squeezed through the gap but the oncoming driver was not confident of attempting that. Perhaps his car was a bit wider.

Back home, the Head Gardener potted up more hanging baskets, completed the clearance of the onions and other weeds from the

Dead End Path,

and continued her work on the Brick Path.

The viburnum plicatum that Margaret had admired on Friday has now reached its peak.

Throughout our garden we have inherited trees and shrubs planted in the wrong places.

An example is this tree with white blossom we cannot identify too close to the cryptomeria with the result that they now vie for space. Can anyone identify it?

Crystal has given us two very thoughtful gifts. The dragon bearing a crystal ball for Jackie reflects her dragon bed and obviously the donor’s name; my ball point pen bears a pull-out scroll of the language symbols created by Crystal’s Cherokee ancestors in order to be able to communicate in writing with the incomers. I haven’t discovered how to hold the scroll outstretched and photograph it at the same time.

This evening we dined on filled crust pizza and fresh salad with which Jackie drank Sárga Borház Tokaji Késöi Szüret Late Harvest 2022, while I finished the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Garden From 2014 To Today

This morning I converted the following posts from Classic to Block edits, changing the categories of Fag Ends and Gauntlet to Garden:

The Gauntlet

A walk in the garden sunshine this afternoon produced

these photographs, each of which bears a title in the gallery. In particular we have rhododendrons, peonies, aquilegias, wisteria, ajuga, and ferns; and I must point out that the shrub with clusters of white flowers is not a philadelphus as I recently incorrectly named it, but a viburnum plicatum.

The featured image did not exist in 2014.

Beckie joined us this afternoon to stay for a few days.

At 7.30 p.m. Jackie is preparing mozzarella sticks, halloumi cheese, and salad to accompany her own baked potatoes and Flo’s coronation chicken for us all to eat on plates on our knees while watching the Eurovision Song Contest which Dillon and I have been prevailed upon to watch for the first time in our lives.

21 Chestnut Road

This afternoon we visited another NGS garden – 21 Chestnut Road, Brockenhurst.

This is my selection of photographs;

here are Flo’s. As usual each of these images bears a title in the galleries.

This evening we dined at Lal Quilla where the food and service was as good as ever. Jackie’s main course was Lal Quilla Special, Flo’s was Lamb Biriani, and mine was Chicken Jaljala. We shared pilau rice, sag paneer, egg paratha, and peshwari Nan. Jackie and I drank Kingfisher, while Flo drank J2O.

A Little Dead-Heading

Before Martin arrived today, the Head Gardener’s Walk had disappeared from view.

This is how he left it.

He reshaped a tree in need of a trim,

giving the Viburnum Plicatum beneath it more room to breathe;

and mowed the lawn as usual, while

I managed a little dead-heading of poppies like these in the Chilean Lantern Tree Bed, also containing orange calendula and bluebells.

This evening Flo dined on succulent roast pork, crisp roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding; cauliflower, carrots, and green beans, with which she abstained. Jackie and I enjoyed the hotter paprika pork with her flavoursome savoury rice, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Bordeaux.

The Nuggets

Today the sun took a breather and the wind gradually increased.

This morning Aaron brandished a bramble he had found growing in one of our dead stumps.

Yesterday Jackie had photographed

the viburnum plicatum sprawling across the West Bed;

the Brick Path;

the view from the lawn looking past the eucalyptus and through the gazebo;

and a group of poppies, irises, and honesty brightening a corner of the Phantom Path.

Intending to weed it today, she also produced one of her “before” images of the brick section of the Oval Path.

In the event, Aaron did the weeding and I photographed the result

I printed our friend copies of the bramble picture above, and one of him mowing Laraine and David’s lawn next door.

Then, following John Knifton’s suggestion, I made an A3 print of the VE Day Street Party featured yesterday. Framing will need to wait until the lockdown has ended.

During a telephone conversation with Mum she told me that the outfits she had made for Chris and me for that occasion would not have been velvet as I had thought, because that would have been too heavy. It would have been material from her “rag bag” – probably an old coat. Her method was to turn the worn out garments inside out and wash them before creating the new ones. She explained that the reverse side of the material then looked in pristine condition – something that would not be possible today. As I reminded her the washing would have been done by hand, because she had no washing machine.

This afternoon Jackie was again beset by members of the Nugget family.

The only one who stayed for a chat when I was poised with my camera was Nugget himself.

We may be in a position of referring to the family as The Nuggets in memory of

https://youtu.be/KnLhCXo_xfM

from the 1940s and ’50s.

Mrs Huggett was played by Kathleen Harrison who lived to be 105, and who Jackie knew in her last few years.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s rich red spicy pasta arrabbiata with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Carinena El Zumbido Garnacha Syrah 2018.

The Ubiquitous Red Jacket

Jackie spent all this day of intermittent sunshine and clouds continuing her

weeding and watering, mostly in the Rose Garden.

I rendered minimal assistance while wandering round with a camera listening to the avian orchestral matins.

More clematises are now blooming;

Marie Boisselot blends with Erigeron cascading at her feet;

one we cannot name has scaled the gazebo;

pale pink Montana vies with blue solanum flung across this arch

over the Brick Path.

Splendid rhododendrons compete for attention in various locations such as

the Palm Bed with its spirea and cow parsley also seen

in front of the greenhouse in the Dragon Bed.

The Viburnum Plicatum stretches wide its ivory arms in homage to the West Bed.

Beautifully crocheted Hydrangea petals cap a container

beside the lawn.

Fuchsias like the delicate white Hawkshead;

Delta’s Sarah with her pastel pinks;

and this bright red bud bowing to the moon which will remind me of its name when it opens fully, provide their pendulous pleasure.

Variably hued heucheras extend their miniature Christmas trees.

Laura Ford graces the Rose Garden

over the entrance to which

sprawls Madame Alfred Cariere.

This garden bears much evidence of work in progress;

Jackie’s red jacket

seems to be everywhere.

The green plastic trug remains on the Gazebo Path where I deposited it yesterday while collecting up cuttings.

The path between the kitchen wall and the Pond Bed is still reasonably tidy.

Wallflowers, silene, companula, and aquilegias are happily blended in the Weeping Birch Bed which also contains some of prolific

libertia.

The Copper beech is now quite well clad.

I returned to my computer in time to receive a FaceTime visit from the Australian branch.

It was so dark in Fremantle on the way back for Sam and Holly and their children that Malachi needed to empty special effects to penetrate the blackness.

When they arrived home everything was much clearer. I think.

This evening we dined on second helpings of yesterday’s sausages in red wine, with fresh vegetables. Jackie finished the Sauvignon Blanc and I finished the Rheinhessen.

Regeneration

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN GROUPS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE BY SCROLLING DOWN THE PAGE AND CLICKING THE RELEVANT BOX.

Today I was mostly digging up brambles and pruning dead branches from a yellow Japanese maple in the Palm Bed,

Garden view across Cryptomeria Bed stepping stones 2

Garden view across Cryptomeria Bed stepping stones 1

seen here beyond the Cryptomeria Bed stepping stones.

The red one was looking rather splendid in the morning light.

The magnolia Vulcan, one of a row of shrubs lining the fence shared with Mistletoe Cottage, is about to flower for the first time. Like the others this was choked by the jungle that was the garden when we first moved in.

Similarly a poor, spindly, little rhododendron that Jackie brought back to life, now shines its beacon in the middle of the Palm Bed. The roots of this were, like those of so many shrubs we inherited, pot-bound, and not properly planted.

The pink rhododendron

and the yellow tree peony, have tied in the race to full bloom.

I am happy to say that my weeding of the Back Drive borders has freed rows of irises.

The viburnum plicatum is now brightening the West Bed shrubbery,

and weigela drapes the south fence.

Today’s final example of our efforts at regeneration has been affected by the light frosts we have been experiencing recently. The apple blossom suggested the tree has benefited from pruning, but the petals are now somewhat charred.

Hardly credible in April, the traditional month of showers, Jackie has today performed a considerable amount of watering.

The Raj is the current incarnation of the Indian restaurant constantly changing hands in Old Milton. Tonight we dined on their good quality takeaway food. My main choice was prawn Ceylon with special fried rice. We shared poppadoms, paratha, and onion bhajis. I drank Château Plessis grand vin de Bordeaux 2014.

Sleeping Beauty

TO ENLARGE IMAGES CLICK ON THEM. REPEAT IF REQUIRED

Today, I continued redistributing the gravel on the back drive. This involved shifting barrow loads of the material from one end to another, and raking them smooth. There is more to be done.

Whilst I was there, I noticed, swaying in the breeze, the one Félicité Perpetué bloom that has yet arrived on what should soon be a splendid display draped over the dead stumps.

On the compost corner the rescued rhododendron is now quite prolific.

Does Wedding Day rose, on the Agriframes arch, bloom whilst the viburnum plicatum, visible beneath the arch, is still flowering? If so, the two plants will be in tune.

The Rose Garden now burgeons daily. On the wall of the shed hangs the bird bath Vicki made for us.

A Schoolgirl has come out to play;

and Gloriana is living up to her name.

In the morning this was a view from the kitchen window,

before Jackie removed the honesty to the right, thus revealing the large white clematis Marie Boisselot to anyone sitting in the patio. I put that particular heap of seeding plants onto the compost, because there are plenty more hanging up to dry, ready for scattering later in the year. The frog king, and his princely son ogle Jattie’s sculpture, the sleeping beauty.

We took a short break on the patio with our fizzy lime squash, and surveyed one of Jackie’s myriad of maintenance tasks, namely the tidying up of the corner shingle bed, into which she has set an attractive piece of stone.

Until now, the honesty has carried the purple torches throughout the garden. The batons have now been passed to geranium palmatums.

This evening we dined on our second helping of Chinese takeaway, with which I drank Patrick Chadot Fleurie 2014, and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.

The Dymo Marker

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. REPEAT IF REQUIRED. THERE ARE NO HIDDEN OWLS TODAY, HOWEVER…..

Well, I did cut the grass, and wander round the garden, but that was along time ago. The rest of the day was spent preparing my finances for my very efficient accountant. Had I done even a modicum of filing any time during the last seven months, the task may have been a little more exciting. But I didn’t. So it wasn’t.

Jackie, however, may have found her own awesome effort, rather more satisfying.

She spent the whole day resuscitating a small section of the Dragon Bed. This involved the usual method of improving the soil with compost; finger-fishing for thousands of tiny allium bulbs; prising out buried lumps of stone which now form the access path you see here; and planting new residents.

We have also been clearing the Palm Bed; enough to allow a glimpse of a hidden peony.

The inherited clematis on the Shady Path is doing well,

as is the rose Special Anniversary, in the Rose Garden where

Festive Jewel begins a bid to compete with the fluorescent heucheras.

I swear that wherever there is a breeze we can hear the jingling of Spanish doubloons.

The red mimuluses in the hanging basket slung here, not only survived the mild winter, but also self-seeded in the camouflaged blue painted Butler sink below.

The viburnum plicatum becomes daily more glorious.

This is a view from the Shady Bed towards the Waterboy;

and another across the Phantom Path, leading to the revived yellow-leaved tree, on which, when we arrived, only the bottom right hand branch bore foliage.

As we sat in the Rose Garden with our pre-dinner drinks I reflected from my chair on what it would look like when all these plants were in full bloom.

Now, boring as my day mostly was, it did have one major benefit. Jackie has painstakingly written her plant labels in black permanent marker. Unfortunately this is not proof against the wind and the rain. My files are all labelled with a Dymo Marker, which I thought would be longer lasting. So I showed her how to work it, and she was away.

Mister Chatty Man, proprietor of Hordle Chinese Take Away, provided our dinner this evening. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012.