The ping pong rose or January Bouquet

 A mix of pink roses saved from the rain. A new rose for me which has done so well and I think goes so well with the other (perhaps more frowsy) blooms is sweet Rosa Pomponella is a Floribunda (cluster flowered) rose with small dark pink flowers in an almost pingpong ball size and shape. It has a neat dark green habit and at the moment is covered in bunches of blooms.

 

Baby you’re a firework! Agapanthus zing in the New Year.

It’s funny how something that is before you all the time is ubiquitous, but recently I have taken a second look at all the seemingly mundane.

I think this has come about because the last month has been taken more slowly as we are on holidays and in my plant world I have been reading lots of northern hemisphere magazines and find it very amusing how we here think agapanthus are weeds and municipal planting (of course they are in some parts) but then things that are beloved but much more common in Europe like primroses and snowdrops are grown in swathes in English magazines that we can only dream of, let alone the wonderful array of varieties that are developed annually in the EU (they take forever to dribble down to us!).  

So here it is – my New Years resolution! To take a second look… get in a bit closer and enjoy each moment. Look afresh at the possibilities.

Skyfall

Amazing iris with a luminosity that I couldn’t capture. I am particularly fond of the scented iris which are usually white ones, unfortunately they have not flowered so far.

Sculpture in my garden...I wish

Aristide Maillol

 

 I first encountered Maillol in a very cold winters stroll near the Louvre in Paris at the Place du Carrousel, the grass was covered in a silvery frost and the landscape seemed monochrome, his sculptures rose from the ground like shadows of real women, still and silent and very powerful that morning. Do go there and have a look early before Paris awakes, the very silence underscores the serene calm power of the sculptures.

 Widely considered one of the greatest French (or Catalan) sculptors of the 20^th century, I love his work for the passion he shows for female form and his many tributes to the idea of Nature. He is quoted as saying “give me a garden and I will fill it with statues”. I’m so glad that his companion of many years Dina Vierny was able to create the sculpture garden at Place du Carrousel.

If you are in Rotterdam from now until February 2013 you can see a major retrospective of his work at the Kunsthal. Or you can read a wonderful book about him by Bertrand Lorquin, lavishly illustrated in colour.

Snow in Summer - Clematis Montana

This clematis is more like an igloo now or a mini Mt Fuji tucked in an enclsed rectangle next to the house and surrounded by a giant hedge of Rosa Edna Walling (one of my favorite roses). Joy!

November bouquet

A lovely cluster of David Austin roses planted this time last year as bare rooted stock from Trelors; Brother Cadfael, Eglantyne, William Shakespeare, Heritage, Alnwick Castle and Dublin Bay which is not a DA but doing marvellously well this year.  

Hello I dont know your name but I love you!

We have three beautiful oriental poppies flowering in the garden now, bought as individual plants from Lambley's about 3 years ago and they have self-seeded to about four plants each now, a long wait but so worth it! The first are loved by my mum and I - Papaver orientale "Raspberry Queen"  and Papaver orientale ‘Fatima’.

 I don't know why Mum does not like at all the last un-named orange that is growing most successfully, I love it and love it more because It has been so unreasonably maligned - much to my benefit though as mum keeps digging it up and I get an instant happy family of I believe "Allegro". Do let me know if you recognize this vibrant lovely oriental?

 

I highly recommend these poppies as a seasonal flourish as they seem to float across the garden like giant dinner plates - they are at least 10 inches/25cm across. In late Autumn the seed heads make great dried flower displays as well.