Aquilegia roundup

As you can see, my internet connection is better.  I have spent the afternoon watching (and bidding on a couple of things) on an online auction, and loading photos!  Enjoy.  Back later with words.

The Gentleman Gardener - Little Whale helping me, in a supervisory role.

The first rose of summer, Roserie de l'Hay.  Beautiful.

Aquilegias

In recent winters, I have lost some of my more unusual colours, and even managed to lose the nearly black Nora Barlows last winter.  The commonest colours are the toughest, it would seem.  This pretty pink and white one lives in a big pot and has survived to bring me pleasure yet again.

The very dark ones seem to be concentrated in the Yard, so I must sprinkle some of their seeds up in the pale pink area this year.

There used to be a lot of William Guinness here, but now there's just one on the right (dark with a white centre).

I have a few of the very pure white ones, which start off a yellowy limey colour, as seen between my fingers.

The palest of pinks with a lilac back to it.  I have plenty of these.

Tousled Norah Barlow-ish.

Some simple blue-purple ones here in the stoney garden.

They seed themselves everywhere, including in tiny cracks in concrete paths, where I haven't the heart to yank them out . . .

I love these deeper colours.

Almost black - sorry for the blurry look of out-of-focus camera.

Equally blurry lighter purple William Guinness.

Above and below, these are from around the patio down in what was my mum's garden.  Below: showing that you can get variations of flower on the same plant.

Finally, the last surviving one of my more exotic sorts - this is yellow.  It's in a big pot and they seem to do better that way.  A lot of the little pots which lost their occupant over the winter had small white grubs in and I think these had been eating the plant roots.

Sorry for a none-too-coherant posting but I feel brain-dead this morning and just want to go back to bed, to be honest!  I'll try and update this later.

Poldark and prose

Top photo not from my garden, but to remind me that it is nearly Aquilegia time!

I sat in the garden this afternoon, with "Demelza" by Winston Graham, as I had been chatting elsewhere about the remake of the Poldark series for tv, and thinking about who I would choose to play Ross Poldark.  I think . . . and I haven't thought very long or hard about it yet - I think, it might be Toby Stephens, who played Mr Rochester in the 2006 miniseries of Jane Eyre. He seems,to me, to have that slight cynicism and edginess to him, along with charm and wit, and I can see him playing Ross. . .  What do you think?  And who would you choose for Demelza?

Anyway, as I was sitting in the garden, I relaxed and was aware of the apple-blossom buds looking just like pink lipstick, fading to pink-blush and white as they opened, and humming gently with bees.  There were sparrows squeaking, a Blackbird whistling in the paddock, and a Robin was hovering over a discarded cat bowl, like a stout and very dowdy humming-bird.

In the nearby flower bed, the deepest purple of the Cranesbill "Widow's Weeds" are  perfect for the the Bowles Mauve Erysimum, and beside it were the iridescence of the pink flowers on the Scnted-leaf Geranium.  My untidy borders have Cowslips rubbing shoulders with Lady's Smock, as the Celendines fade and wither for another year.

 

Beside the pond, the green and yellow striped blades of Iris stand straight like a battalion of swordsmen, and the breeze tousled the snowberry leaves and blew through the Mossy Saxifrage so their flowers trembled.  The sun sunk down behind the house and the Speedwells began to think of hiding their faces for the night.  Spring bliss . . .