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Fading Beauty
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED. This was a glorious sunny day with the warmth of mid-summer. Bees and butterflies abounded in the garden. It was a good day for wandering around, but that is all we felt inclined to do. We can defer the winter preparation until it feels more like autumn. […]
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Licking Into Shape
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED This morning we bought another parasol for the South end gravelled patio. After lunch, The Head Gardener watered and I dead-headed The Rose Garden. Here there are two examples of similar but different flowers that she has been pointing out recently. These are For Your Eyes Only and […]
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Tom Daley
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED Jackie continued her creative miracles on the various beds. I rendered sporadic assistance in dead-heading, weeding, clearing up, and humping bags of compost. Here are current views of The Head Gardener’s Walk and The Gazebo Path, looking across Margery’s bed in which her hollyhocks are now in bloom. Petunias in hanging […]
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Getting The Hang Of It
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED Naturally, I couldn’t wait to get out into the garden and play with my new toy. Confining myself to the Creative Automatic setting with the zoom lens, I made a few close-ups. I had about a 60% success rate. Starting with lilies, here are some Asiatics dappled […]
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Perseverance Rewarded
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED. Until 2.30 p.m. when Jackie drove us to Brockenhurst to collect our friend Sheila who is staying with us for a few days, she continued sterling maintenance in the garden while Aaron and Robin continued with the fencing. The erigeron outside the French windows featured as part […]
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Peter The Pelican
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED Heavy rain set in for the day this afternoon. Before that, Jackie managed an impressive amount of weeding and planting. She didn’t have to do any watering. This time last year we were still preparing the empty rose garden. Now it looks as if it belongs. Absolutely Fabulous and […]
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The Darling Buds Of May
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. REPEAT IF NECESSARY. THIS IS PARTICULARLY USEFUL IN AN OWL HUNT Today being drier and a little brighter than yesterday, there were enough glimpses of sunlight to be more conducive to garden photography. New clematises are emerging daily. Mostly, as with this Piilu, I am grateful for the identity labels, […]
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More Possible Prints
This morning I placed an order with a local printer for the A2 copy of Jackie picking daffodils two mornings after our arrival in Downton on 1st April 2014. Rather fittingly, Paul has selected it to be the largest picture on display. I then continued bombarding him with e-mailed suggestions for further, smaller, prints. This […]
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‘I’ll Have To Find That Aaron’
Jackie spent another remarkably warm day working on the front garden. I provided sporadic Under Gardener assistance. First was the final installation of a Gardman Gothic arch she had bought a couple of days ago. The purpose of this is to offer somewhere for the clematis Campaniflora to roam. I had unsuccessfully attempted to drive in […]