2016 in close up.

Welcome to Our Garden@19 in 2017

This is the time of year when we think about the new year and reflect on the old one.

The pictures below are close up photographs from Our garden@19 taken during the year.

Corylus avellana 'Contorta'

Iris foetidissima seeds.

 Dicentra 'Stuart Bootman'.

 Geranium sambor and Bumble Bee.

Aquilegia alba.

 Viola heartease and an unknown variety.

 Iris palliida subsp. pallida.

 Polygonatum x Hybridum Striatum.

 Epimedium x Rubrum.

 Asplenium scolopendrium Cristatum Group.

Athyrium Niponicum Pictum.

 Paeonia 'White Wings'.

 Cirsium rivulare 'Trevor's Blue Wonder'.

Hydrangea quercifolia Burgundy.

Acer griseum.

Where would we be without the 'Web'?

A frozen spiky metal Lily!

Birds are an important part of my every day life in Our Garden@19.

This is the first film I have tried to post, taken through the dinning room window, Gold Finches feeding on Sunflower Hearts.

 I hope it works!

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that’s the burden of the year.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “The Year” (1910)

I hope all your dreams and plans come true for 2017.

Please click on any picture to create a slide show

Aberglasney (Part 2) The Flowers.

I described the gardens of Aberglasney in a previous blog Here

Part 2 contains photographs of just SOME of the flowers in bloom when we visited on a lovely sunny day in September.

This bed is on the site of an old vine house...

...the wall is covered with Boston Ivy...

...and planted with annuals such as Calendula,...

...this pink dahlia, much enjoyed by the bumble bees,..

...along with Cerinthe major 'Purpurascens'...

...Melianthus major and Canna providing the foliage contrast...

...and occasional flower, this is looking towards the very good cafe area.

I mentioned in Part1, how impressed I was with the pool garden with its reflective pool and simple planting scheme.

...Kniphofia provided the main colour in September...

...blending nicely with Verbena bonariensis and I think, here, a shrubby salvia and...

...in each of the two corner beds was a young Acer davidii 'Serpentine' with delicate pink stems along with a snake bark main trunk.

The Upper Walled Garden, designed by Penelope Hobhouse, planted predominately with perennials...

...and Yew Cones providing an evergreen punctuation mark.

...I do like fennel when in flower, here, with white Anemone and Eupatorium purpureum...

...or  joe-pye-weed...

...and Helenium, all providing insect food...

...with the lovely dark pink Anemone hupehensis 'Hadspen Abundance'.

There are several woodland walks within the gardens, in one area there was a mass planting of Begonia grandis subsp. evansiana. This is a new plant to me, I thought the leaf makings were beautiful.

Clerodendrum bungei has been on my wish list for some time...

...it is a late flowering shrub, said to be hardy only down to a few degrees, (I have planted one this autumn!)

A selection of different Hydrangeas were in full flower and...

in this picture providing a colourful backdrop...

...to a mass planting of lilies.

Rosa rugosa Alba showing both bloom and hips...

...along with one of the best Roses for hips, R. moyesii 'Geranium'.

A late brood of swallow's lining up for a feed!

I hope a view of these flowers will help to brighten up what is a dull, wet day/week/month here in the UK. We can look forward to the garden visiting season starting again soon.

Please click on any picture to create a slide show.

November Colour?

The weather recently has not been conducive to strolling around the garden. 

Venturing out on Sunday to check for any wind damage and relieved to find everything intact, I fetched the camera to record what was flowering here in November. 

The Cobaea scandens, which I have posted about before, is still rampantly growing in all directions. This stem is half way up through the cherry tree by the patio. the majority of the blooms have been purple, it is nice to see some white ones.

The other rampant annuals are the Nasturtiums, this one has self sown from last year.

The Hakonechloa macro 'Aureola' adds a splash of bright green in a pot on the patio...

...also in a pot is the non stop flowering Geranium 'Rozanne'.

The evergreen Viburnum tinus provides a flowering screen to the water buts at this time of year.

Through the Vitis 'Spectchley Red' covered arch...

...to the mixed border where the late flowering Eupatorium macula. 'Chocolate', with its chocolate coloured leaves and white flowers...

...and the Hydrangea 'Blue Wave', whose white flowers have a faint hint of blue in our soil, providing the only flower colour in this area.

It is amazing when walking around your own garden, how you can miss a plant in flower, I suddenly noticed the flowers on the Viburnum f 'candidissimum'...

...I  don't think I have seen so many flowers on it before...

...close to the buds are little, tight clusters of scent.

Writing a garden blog, along with taking photos, encourages you to look closer at your garden, it is easy to just go out and work in your own garden and not stop to look around.
I have observed since writing about Our Garden@19 how some colours appear to dominate at different times of year.
In these photos white is, perhaps, surprisingly the main colour.

What colour dominates your garden at this time of year?

Please click on any photo to create a slide show.