Chores

Poppy

Of course I’m not going to get away with it Scot free.  I’m talking about this indulgent month off. There are chores to be done, chores with a capital C, Chores!  Which includes sorting photos.  And I take an awful lot over the course of a year, which after a little initial attention are generally left to moulder in their monthly files.  So I will be deleting the dreadful, of which there are many, and sorting and labelling.  Big talk. I haven’t actually begun yet, but I have considered it, which is almost as good.  Here is one I looked at earlier and thought about titles and places.  Then I went and had a well earned rest.

Festuca glauca ‘Intense Blue’

Festuca glauca Intense Blue

I excused myself for buying this Festuca glauca ‘Intense Blue’ by pretending that I would pass it on to a client.  This of course never happened.  What happened instead is that I suggested to Lady Mantle that there was a really nice plant available and it would look great in a pot outside her front door.  So her Ladyship went shopping, bought two and planted them with violas in large pots, outside her front door.  They look very nice.  Then sadly this one didn’t have a home to go to, so I adopted it, and I put it in a pot outside my front door, with violas.  It also looks very nice, especially in today’s thick Devon mizzle.  Funny how things turn out.

Monochrome

Winter cherry

There was something wonderfully monochrome about today.  This photo would be quite different if the sun had been shining.  The azure blue sky, peaking through the burnt umber twiggery, would skilfully highlight the ballerina pink blooms of the winter flowering cherry.  But it wasn’t sunny. It was dull and dreary.  Therefore we have a pale grey sky, darker grey branches and off-white flowers, with perhaps a cheeky hint of germolene in places.  Not worse, just different.

Sweet Chestnut – Castanea sativa

Sweet Chestnut

Recently one of our local garden centres was swallowed up by a well known chain of stores.  *burp* The prices have gone up, the variety reduced, but the tat has stayed pretty much the same. This does not bode well.  Attached to the centre, adjacent to the restaurant, is a small garden and playground. This area of mainly trees and shrubs is solely for the customer’s delight, not for gain. Not so long ago there was also a large pond, replete with carp, for whom you could buy paper bags of food. Adults and children alike marvelled at the gaping fish mouths, gasping for the bread in a very unseemly manner.  It was filled in and laid to lawn a couple of years ago, no doubt a casualty of Health and Safety.

Yesterday we popped in to buy a terracotta pot and whilst we were there I sauntered in the sunshine.  The wonderfully ridged horse chestnut tree doesn’t care who owns it, wearing its cape of ivy, reaching its boughs into the blue.  I only hope the new owners don’t find a more profitable use for this calming space.  Fingers crossed the tree’s nonchalance isn’t short-lived.

Ipheion uniflorum ‘Rolf Fiedler’

Ipheion 'Rolf Fiedler'

This year my lovely boss (me) has decided to let me take January off.  There are many reasons for this, the most important being that I want to.  This does not mean that you will be party to the same generosity.  No, the blog will continue, perhaps in a more random manner.  Yes, you heard right, even more random.  That means I will be sorting my photos and meandering down memory lane.  I will be catching up with friends and visiting a few gardens.  I will be sorting stuff, my tools, my seed, my plants, my head.  And, drum roll please, I will be working in my own garden.

Which is exactly what I did for a couple of hours this afternoon.  One of our two misplaced apple trees was pruned.  It is far to big for our small plot (says the gal who has just bought a 12m conifer), the crows enjoy the fruit before we can get to them and those that they knock off in their vigour turn to mush.  If I had my way it would be gone, along with the other, but this is a democracy and I have conceded.  For the moment.  There may be an “oops” moment in the future. I potted up the Sciadopitys verticillata and the pack of six Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’ I purchased earlier at the garden centre (did I fail to mention this visit …..).  There was weeding and chopping and planning.

I also checked my little plastic greenhouse, the act of which is becoming increasingly treacherous due to a dodgy zip.  Here I found that the diminutive Ipheion uniflorum ‘Rolf Fiedler’, stored safe and sound against the cold and wet, had begun to flower.  Such a beauty.

Happy New Plant

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Another new year, another new plant.  This Sciadopitys verticillata, the Japanese Umbrella Pine, has irresistible charms.  It is true that I am not know for my resistance (generally futile), but when I noticed that this little darling was half price the die was well and truly cast.  A mere babe in arms at the moment, it has the potential of reaching 12m in height.  Until that point, which will hopefully not come too quickly, it is another one for the pot (terracotta not cooking).  Here it will wait patiently with the others until I move to my grand estate.  I know it will be very happy with me, as I am with it.

Wishing you all a magnificent 2017, may you both give and receive tolerance and empathy, may you share love and kindness with friends and strangers, and, most important of all, may you indulge in regular disco dancing marathons and drown in an ocean of laughter.  xxx