A recent visitor identified the salmon coloured rose as 'Compassion.' It really has proved its worth here over the years, and cuttings strike easily. Good to know its name though I will always think of it as Dad's rose, since he planted the original specimen here about thirty years ago.
It is one of my favourite photographic subjects, whether as a bud frozen in ice, a heavenly profusion along the veranda or a single perfect bloom matched with our native kanuka in time for Christmas.
Roses aren't the only thing flowering along the veranda and not at all co-ordinating with salmon roses, is the magenta haze of rose campion, with a startlingly good spurge thrusting through.
Meanwhile the deep red velvety blooms of Clematis 'Niobe' ramble happily through wild raspberry canes around a water tank, and a flax that has never bloomed in twenty years has thrust up dramatic flower spikes for the first time. Dyk over at Welly Jewell has also had a tardy flax bloom for the first time this year.
But the backbone of this garden is its trees. I've never noticed this pleasing spacing before, the wild plum, the coastal lacebark and overhanging bough of weeping willow, all different but somehow in scale with one another.
Not much 'gardening' goes on here these days but there is certainly a profusion of choice flowers, specimen trees and balanced spaces to inhabit.
Rosa 'Wee Sandra'
Rosa 'Bobbie James'
Rosa 'Compassion'
Potato vine Solanum jasminoides
Kanuka, tea tree Kunzea ericoides
Rose campion Lychnis coronaria
Spurge Euphorbia sp
Clematis 'Niobe'
Harakeke, red flax Phormium tenax 'Purpurea'
Wild plum Prunus cerasifera
Coastal lacebark, narrow-leafed lacebark Hoheria angustifolia
Weeping willow Salix babylonica
11 comments:
In a word, lush. So lovely to see verdancy when the UK is currently so grey and bleak.
Glad you can feel that quality Steve. I really can't believe how lucky I am to enjoy two perfect summers in a row!
That is a gorgeous sight. All those roses! Cheered up my day no end.
Your posts are always great to read. Today's rain will keep the weeds growing too! Best wishes to you and your lovely girls for the Christmas season.
You have such a magnificent garden - and you know all the names. Your flax is a bit more upright than mine - must be the Wellington wind. My pohutukawa are out early this year and the cabbage trees are very prolific. Hope this means it will be a good summer.
Best wishes to you and the girls.
Dyk
rusty duck: You've got no shortage of exquisite winter wonders! And a late rose... didn't realise there was a Susan Webb Ellis. That/she ties in with my interest in Mid-Century china and pottery.
Gill: The weeds and what's worse the grass, but only because I will have to mow it. The rain is certainly keeping the place green isn't it. I'll pass on your wishes. Happy holidays to you too :-)
Dyk Jewell: The names feel like they are coming back to me more easily these days, though I do check references - honest. I'm a wee bit jealous that you can grow pohutukawa but I'm not short of blessings. The term 'mast year' keeps coming to mind. I remember that first summer we came to live in Wellington was a mast year... everything blooming and seeding to the max. I'll pass your wishes on too.
Your garden is really beautiful and must be such a pleasure to you.
libby: Yes it certainly is; in a hands-off-retreat sort of way these days.
rusty duck: I might check my botanical references but I didn't check your rose name or my Mid Century designers! Susan Williams-Ellis I meant
just beautiful scenery! hope it doesn't get damaged in the promised storm tonight!
Uh-oh, that cloud certainly looked black in the south at dusk.
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