ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
If the forecast yesterday was right, last night was probably the coldest night of the autumn so far, though I have no thermometer outside so I don't know how cold it went before it started going up again. It was raining by six o'clock. The Dahlias and Impatiens in the garden will tell me. Yesterday…
It's absolutely sluicing it down just now, as it has been for several hours. The wind has dropped a bit though. Good thing I did my pictures yesterday when it was only drizzling. One. Camellia yunnanensis. I went down to Trelissick on Thursday to a meeting about a study day on Camellias that I'm going…
It's not great for taking pictures in the garden so I brought a few things in and tried to get good pictures of them. Took a couple in the rain too. One. I'll start and finish outdoors, pretty much the order the pictures were taken. This is Camellia sasanqua 'Navajo', which just about had its…
Here's a fine thing, six on Saturday and I had done nothing until this morning. Being in the luxurious state that is retirement, I usually have it all lined up by Friday night at the latest. It was inevitable then that the weather would conspire to frustrate me, not that it's raining or snowing, just…
When I was writing this yesterday afternoon it was 8°C and raining, as it had been all day. It was also getting brighter, like it was going to brighten up just in time to go dark. Thanks a lot. I didn't fancy going out in the rain with my camera and today I'm off gallivanting…
Last six of the year. Taking inspiration from Jane's king parrots last week I have been trying to take pictures of garden birds. We hang a couple of feeders of sunflower seeds out for them and mostly get flocks of goldfinches hoovering them up from dawn to dusk. I started taking pictures from the house, through…
"The Propagator" has just launched a new meme which struck a chord with me, so this is by way of climbing on board. Six things going on in the garden. 1) This is Camellia 'Nightrider', very dark, very late flowering and with new leaves a similar colour to the flowers but shiny. It's a very…
Camellia 'Night Rider' possesses the sort of qualities that would lead one to expect it to be massively popular, yet it is but rarely seen. Raised in New Zealand by Os Blumhardt, its parents are C.'Ruby Bells' x C.'Kuro-tsubaki'. It first flowered in 1980. The flowers are dark red and the petals waxy textured.…
Years ago, there was an Astelia at RHS Rosemoor called 'Alpine Ruby'. It was very nice, I wanted one. At the time I worked on a nursery and looking for sources of supply, there was one, in Northern Ireland. There still is. Around the same time a new variety called 'Red Devil' was launched and…
garden ruminations 