Six on Saturday – Monochrome

This week I have, like many others it would seem, been undertaking a challenge.  My task has been to post a black and white photograph on Facebook, each day for seven days.  Usually I avoid these modern day chain letters, but on this occasion I thought it might be good fun.  There are a few rules.  The picture is to reflect the contributor’s daily life, must not feature people and the contents are to be left unexplained.   So on this dismal November day I thought I would continue this theme with my Six on Saturday, the only other internet team sport I participate in, curated by the magnificent The Propagator.

It is to be a hybrid of memes.  Six black and white photographs, taken in my garden, with a description of sorts.  To reflect the current dark depressive weather I have also decided that these monochrome pictures are to channel Ingmar Bergman rather than my usual Keystone Cops.  In that mood I will continue.

Our first photo is of a dahlia seed head; misunderstood, searching for some glimmer of hope in a loveless world.  Its damp and musty bonce bowed in disappointment, unlikely to fulfil its potential. 

Next we have a lonely leaf, clinging on desperately to the mother plant, determined not to let go, although the inevitable must surely happen.  We are all doomed to fall.

Now to the experiment in the basement.  Like a House of Horror exhibit the garlic cloves languish, infusing their magic to create a dangerous elixir.  A destroyer of aphid and all sap suckers and leaf munchers.

Onto the shag pile leaf of Salvia argentea.  This abused plant has struggled on for the past couple of years.  Once the euphoria of germination had passed, others have taken over in the affection of the gardener.  Unlikely to survive a winter outside, hanging on by a thread, but hanging on.

Pebbles, a bleached shell, a broken piece of pot.  All is desolate, unyielding and lifeless.

Lastly we have the euryops, a bud of hope in this dreary world.  All being well it will continue to produce buttercup yellow flowers throughout the winter, brightening and lifting the spirits.  Oblivious and defiant.

Well I couldn’t leave you on a low now could I?

Thanks Mr P.  Same time, same place?

Frivolous

Today was spent dodging showers.  Sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  In the greenhouse I planted tulips and potted up cuttings.  Curiously, one of the Colquhounia coccinea cuttings had produced, as well as some fine roots, an attempt at a flower.  I should probably remove this orange-lined scarlet trumpet.  Its efforts should be concentrated on producing roots and building strength for the winter, not wasted on frivolous showing off.  But I didn’t.  I rather admired its ambition.

School Days

Every day we learn something new.   I am of course being presumptuous.  What I mean is that for me each day is a school day and I am quite happy that way.  How things change.  Hopefully it is the same for you too.  Today I learned that the full name of this stunning tree heather is Erica arborea var. alpina f. aureifolia ‘Albert’s Gold’.

Every day I forget many things.  I have a feeling this may be one of them.

Bridges, Bees and a Miracle

Today my car went for an MOT.  The garage I use is on an industrial estate just outside Barnstaple, not the most convenient for us but they have always been kind and helpful and, most importantly, not patronising.  The plan was that I would drop the car off early and walk into town to do a little shopping, some chores, maybe a little lunch, and wait for their call.  If it was not for the fact that the Sword of Damocles was hanging over my head, it was a treat, it is rare that I get a few hours of enforced town-dom.  Christmas is coming and all that.  A good opportunity.

Although the walk to the centre takes a good 25 minutes, it is not a trial.   Especially not today.  After just a few minutes, passing fenced off factories, forklifts, portacabin cafes and sneaky smokers, I can dip down off the main road and onto the Tarka Trail.  This was once a rail line, a victim of the Beeching closures, and is now a cycle and walking route which will take me all the way to Barnstaple.  On such a glorious morning, I took the opportunity to dawdle, taking photos, greeting runners and dog walkers, and running dog walkers, cyclists whooshing past.  Just looking.  No need to hurry.

I love bridges, ancient stone or concrete and carbon, bascule, cantilever and suspension.  The bridge that spans the river here, the Taw Bridge, is no exception, such a gentle curve, elegant and understated.

Taw Bridge

As the traffic streamed across the bridge I wandered, wondering how many folk travelled this line on their way to holidays in Ilfracombe, and about the packed boxes of tulip bulbs and cut flowers that passed from the Braunton Great Fields to Covent Garden and beyond.  bee

Along this route something ancient still holds strong, umbellifers and bees, brambles and animal runs, crumbling boats.  Sparrows squabbled and terns drifted by silently, like spirits.

Then onto the next bridge, this time the Yeo, a wood and steel structure constructed in 2000.  Its curving ribs remind me of a book I read as a girl about a castaway girl who made a home from a whale skeleton.  Comforting, cocooning.

Cormorants and gulls vied for position, although unlike the continually dipping cormorants the seagulls seemed uninterested in fishing, rather enjoying the barely perceptible outgoing tide gently caressing them towards the sea.

And then the prize, and the final bridge, just seen in the distance, Barnstaple’s medieval Long Bridge.

The miracle was that my car passed its MOT.  So although the return journey was over-cast and I was laden with shopping, I still had a spring in my step.  The tide was almost out and a cormorant sat in the midst of a sand bar, ruler of this temporary kingdom.

 

 

 

California Dreaming

Here, especially for you, yes you looking miserable in the corner and you snuggled under the duvet, is a little sunshine on a cold, wet, windy day.  This is Eschscholzia californica, or to its friends, California Poppy.  Luckily we are very close, I wouldn’t want to have to spell that more often than I have too.  Hope it has had the desired effect.

Six on Saturday – Chocolates

Even though it was singularly uninviting, it being damp and windy and the weekend, I had to go out into the garden this morning.  Not just because of the pressing urgency of The Propagator‘s Six on Saturday, but because if I didn’t do certain jobs a visit from the local RSPCP officer was inevitable.  So I did, with dragging teenaged feet and hunched shoulders.  Not fair.  No one cares.  Not working?  OK.

Without further ado, or attention seeking behaviour, I will get back to the task in hand.  My Six on Saturday.  The first chocolate in the box today is the amazing Salvia leucantha ‘Midnight’.   It is tender, in spite of its furry coat, and takes a while to get up the energy to flower after the winter.  Hence it has only just begun to bloom here.  In my top ten of salvias.  For some reason marzipan springs to mind.  Purple marzipan, if it doesn’t exist it should be invented forthwith!

cyclamen

Now for the second morsel.  The aforementioned urgent job was to replant the containers outside the front door.  They were looking, let me chose my words carefully here, shameful.  I had bought replacements, including this cyclamen, a couple of weeks ago and they had been languishing patiently for me to uphold my part of the bargain.  Cyclamen are favourites of mine and even here, in the teeth of the wind, they will continue to flower until next spring.   What do you think, raspberry parfait?

viola

The next treat for you is a little viola, one of a mixed bunch also bought to jolly up the front of the house.  Although they have a tendency to stop flowering for a while, they always begin again just as I am thinking about chucking them out.   Somewhere beneath, I am hoping, are last year’s bulbs and corms.  Quite what these are will be as much of a surprise to me as it is to you.  I vaguely remember some crocus and perhaps Iris reticulata, oh and maybe some Jetfire.  You can’t beat a good surprise.  As for this one, I reckon it might be a mint chocolate.

apple

Now onto a definite hard centre, apple flavoured of course.  This tree was here when we moved in. Although it is undoubtedly on dwarf rooting stock, it is still too big for our little plot.  Each year the jackdaws find the fruit before they are ripe, pecking large holes in them, knocking many to the ground in the process.  When we do get to taste one they are delicious.  As it is unlikely that those clever corvids will forget where their late summer feast is, our share in the future is likely to be minimal.

fuchsia

Another of our inheritances is this fuchsia.  I am fond of fuchsias, and this is a rather pleasant one.  It is not however jaw-dropping, or stunning, or incredible, or magical.  Quite pretty, that is all.   If this was one of my chocolates it would be one of the last to be eaten, perhaps a toffee, or orange cream.   However I am well aware that there are plenty of people who would be picking this one first.  You are very welcome to my orange cream, I’ll have your praline.

Lastly we have some of the plants that have been replaced by the bright young things.  They are cuphea, argyranthemum and eccremocarpus.  These would be the misshapes, the ones that failed to meet the stringent standards.  After last week’s public outcry (OK, just John) I have potted them up to over-winter somewhere more clement, perhaps the Caribbean, most likely crammed into my tiny plastic greenhouse with a zillion others.

More thanks to Mr P for making me get out of bed early on a Saturday morning, stumbling around the garden taking photos, much to the amusement of my neighbours.  Mr P has the power.

 

 

 

A Good Day

That is exactly how it should be.  Spot on.  Today was a dictionary entry for autumn.  The essence.  Like in fairy tales and East Anglia.  New England-esque, but lacking the pretty leaves.  Dry and sunny, the low light warming our souls.  Forgive me for pressing the point, but after last week’s persistent misery it was twice as welcome.  In fact I wouldn’t complain if every day was like it.  Don’t you think about changing a thing!  Maybe a few degrees warmer once in a while, just for a  change.  But mainly the same.

You may remember that last week it was half term in this neck of the woods.   The Farm was full of the wellied and the excitable.  This week, all was calm and controlled.  Most of my day was spent rescuing the delicate and taking them to their winter snoozing ground, the greenhouse.  Here I potted them up, labelled them as accurately as I could (“Dahlia from outside the office, not the orange one” “blue” “hanging basket plant”) and lined them up in an orderly manner.  Then I planted out cyclamen.  All was well.

A very special ten minutes of my day was spent watching a goldcrest flit about the old apple trees.  I followed as it darted from branch to branch, tree to tree, at times no more than 3m away.  It was mesmerising.  This country’s smallest bird, giving this gardener the biggest thrill.