OF BUTTERFLIES,BRIGHTNESS AND A ROSE

Mid-summer is when the butterfly migration takes place. I posted on it some years back over here. When I went looking for my Monty dog one recent evening, I photographed them all asleep in the grasses, where they looked like flowers. (Monty not only visits anyone who is a guest in the valley, especially if there are children present – he also all but disappears for days at a time when the neighbours’ cross-German Shepherds are on heat… as they were again of late.)

The snapshot taken with my phone which I showed in the previous post really got me obsessed about the view back across the garden, with its layers of stacked planting, and I took several more photos with my DSLR. That in turn has got me thinking about upgrading my blog theme to show bigger photographs. But as my current theme is discontinued, I dare not do anything in haste, as I won’t be able to return to the current format. So watch this space… perhaps come Feb there will be a change…

Here meanwhile are a few details. Clicking on the pics of course shows them full size, or you could increase your screen view to around 125% so that the blog fills the full screen width.

Lastly I want to share a home-grown rose which has featured before, and impressed me. Now it has wowed me. A fresh shoot, grown since it was planted out last summer, has flowered, and the way in which the flowers on it are carried is most unusual. I  might just have a second worthwhile rose of my own breeding here! (‘Cascade’ being the first; you can read more about it in these posts.)

The flowers are quite large, semi-double, frilly, lightly scented, and of a very pleasing pink with a touch of salmon, and lighter towards the centre.

The last shot shows them with the Watsonias in the adjacent bed beneath the guest room window; I have always thought of them as being salmon-coloured, rather than pink…

 

 

PROGRESS TO REPORT–AND THEN SPRING PICS

The hedges are planted! After more than a year in which the rectangle of barren earth needed constant explanation, the Mothers’ Garden is laid out, the hedges planted and the central yew trimmed dramatically in preparation for training as a pyramid. I hummed and hahed before realising the obvious… The pillars of the lower steps must be visible and the yew must not obscure the dam. But it is surprising how long it took me to realise that a pyramid would be the ideal shape. Since the newly laid grass path has a topdressing of compost similar to the beds, it rather disappears at the moment. And in the harsh light the irrigation pipes are the dominant line. But I promise you: when you sit on the bench looking across this view, with the curves of the New Old Rose Garden to your left, the big lawn and the blobby rhythm of the Upper Rosemary Border to your right, and an assortment of trees framing the view and protecting your back… it is, I believe, potentially the most beautiful spot in the garden. You can read about the planning of the garden here. We have revisited the choice of roses and made some changes. Hopefully when we go to Johannesburg at the end of the month we will collect the 26 roses due to go in here. Although quite frankly at this stage I’d be happy for the hedges to settle down first.

Here is the view from across the big lawn. To the left you can see where we dug up the grass for the paths and are still digging for other lawn work. In the process the upper border is being squared off and enlarged. This will give a new area for annuals and other flowers. I want to start collecting dahlias, as there are a great many old varieties around Haenertsburg. There is a whole new development waiting here! In the process the lawn is now finally surrounded by straight lines – the wavy top border, its shape never really planned, was more and more of an anomaly.

When I turned my head from taking the last picture, this is what I saw. With a bit of imagination you can see the water-spout beyond Alfred’s Arches. Last year I decided the Arches, of pussy-willow, had to be cut down and grow out again; then I relented, but in the winter decided that the Arches really were looking tatty. Now I look at them as they start to fill out with young green, and I find the rustic rhythm totally enchanting. What to do? I guess there is so much else that needs doing that this is far from a priority!

The dogs and I make our way down the Arches, past the Garden Celebrating an Imperfect Universe (much more of a priority!) and down to the Makou Dam. Where we stop to enjoy the reflections and the thousands of backlit plants in the arboretum.

Along the edge there is a self-sown clump of the beautiful local lily, Scilla natelensis. Usually they choose stony well-drained slopes, but these, perched on the edge 30cm above the water, are blissfully happy. Which makes me so too.

Around the corner on the dam wall grow the clump of Siberian irises we first planted there 20 odd years ago, and which we thought had disappeared. As you can see – they are back in force! Then we stop to collect stones for a rosemary bonsai I am preparing as a birthday present for Felicity, my dad’s care-giver and my adopted sister.

Here it is, settling in in the greenhouse. I know nothing about bonsai and have never attempted it before. I’m sure my rocks overhanging the container break every rule, but I’m quite pleased with the way I managed to arrange the gnarled plant as though it had grown out from amongst the stones, just like the ones I found growing in the garrigue when I was in the south of France… But onward and upward (to quote my blogging friend Frances…)

I stopped to photograph the pink flowering cherry, but it was the view of the garden that intrigued me. Look how neat the hedges are on the left, and how good the Upper Rosemary Border is looking with its regular shrubby rhythm. To the right of the red azaleas (which are looking great against the long blue line of the rosemary hedge) there is over 100m2 of recently planted scatterpack. It is germinating nicely and a green haze lies across the ground there. I’m hoping for a fortissimo display by December. And in the bed below that the cannas are beginning to make an impression.

 

This is the area I particularly came to see:  the mollis azaleas in shades of yellow and orange near the darkest of our three copper beeches. Let’s take a closer look.

Difficult to capture the luminous darkness of the beech without the orange of the azalea looking washed out by the strong sunlight.

So we need to take a look at the azalea on its own – and even then the light is far from ideal…

The yellow one, in the shade, is easier to capture. But what I can’t share is the heavenly scent of these azaleas.

For richness of colour, delicacy and perfume these azaleas are a match for the best roses can offer – what a pity that they flower for only a week or two!

I spend some time here, treasuring the moment, enjoying the scented shade.

Taubie agrees and joins me; Mateczka and Abigail snuffle around happily, chase down paths, then come back to check all is OK with us. Monty is away patrolling his territory, probably entertaining visitors at the Cheerio tea-garden, relishing his role as the alpha male (human and otherwise) of the valley…

All in all it is a good place to be… especially at this time of year.

 

EARLY SPRING

Never before have the months leading up to spring been this dry; but twice that I  know of we have had much drier years, where the water stops flowing from the dams, even if seepage means there is still a slight inflow. Those are desperate years. This year the sponge of the mountain is still quite wet after two lots of extremely good rain in early 2012, but I’m pretty certain we are at the beginning of a dry cycle. We don’t really feel climate change in South Africa – we are used to cycles of good years and bad years. In fact the last 40 odd years, from my perspective at least, have been less extreme, not more so. Unlike the UK we have not swung from one record to the next these last 20 years…

The memory of those two dry years remain. In fact my own memory of the drought of the 60s and my parents’ recall of the drought of the 30s when my maternal grandfather had to give up farming and move his young family to the city, add a spiritual dimension to the need for rain. And that is why on Friday afternoon’s damp walk, with the week’s rainfall figure heading towards 100mm, I listened to and looked at the gurgling stream and I heard my late mother’s voice say: “Oh if only my father could see the water flow on this farm!”

These shots were taken in poor light on my phone. There were many more – but most too blurred to even consider as snapshots… In the upper photo an unusual view of the rear end of the Icon Bridge, and dogwoods and blossoms and fresh greens in the distance. In the lower photo Taubie celebrates the water in her way, drinking from the brim-full overflow of Freddie’s Dam. Two more shots are worth sharing:

a white dogwood – Cornus florida and the first leaves on my favourite Japanese maple, one which has the most delicately red young foliage which turns green within weeks.

Later: the rain stopped after 101mm. Sunday was gloriously sunny and I went on a long walk with my camera. There are 65 photos I titled and added to the shortlist from 100s. The screenshot of that selection I include now because it best of all illustrates the sudden brightening, the change in the colour palette as spring kicks in… Over the next days – expect some spring colour here!

 

LATE WINTER WINDS

By mid-August I find new material difficult to come by. Remember it is our February, when even the joys of winter have become tedious. True, as I took the staff’s children up to the tar road to catch the school bus this past week, it was perfectly light on the way there and the sun rose as I returned, burning red against the escarpment sky. Red because of the dust and smoke: not only is it drier than I can ever recall, but August, traditionally our windiest month, is true to form. Result in our high biomass and forested area…. worse fires than normal at this time of year.

Today, Sunday, is gustier than I can recall, although one does tend to forget such horrors, and the wind is chilly; during last week, according to one report, there was snow in all 9 provinces on one day for the first time ever. Result: a biting wind, although our night time lows remained above freezing. In our protected valley the much more insidious effect of slowly dropping still air brings more cold than a wind which stirs things up and evens out the temperature gradient between places.

This strange bit of land sculpture  – a forest of bamboo stakes – is Lucas’ effective solution to  protecting the young tree ferns from the porcupines who, just as in the drought of the 90s, have taken to eating out the hearts of the tree ferns.

It is a while since all four dogs featured in one photo and there is not a great deal else to share. So here they are, from front to back: Monty, x Jack Russell, alpha male of all  species including human in the valley, showing he’s done a few more miles than in his youth, but still going strong; Taubie, x Bull Terrier/Border Collie, oldest and most beloved of all my dogs, the matriarch; Abigail, daughter to Monty and a Dr Seuss creation, tiniest and busiest of the dogs, who works hard all day with the staff and then turns into the sweetest of lapdogs at night; and Mateczka, Rhodesian Ridgeback and the puppy, even though she is nearly three and by far the largest. Watching her and Abigail play is one of lives great joys!

I’ve kept this shot of the Upper Rosemary Border for last, because it really doesn’t show anything new. However it is very satisfying to see how good this border can still look at the windy tail-end of winter!

Stop Press: after days of keeping my (rather unsatisfactory) long lens on the ready, I have just photographed a White Helmetshrike through the guest room window. I remember first seeing them on the farm in the late 90s, once only. Rather humorous looking with their large yellow serrated eye-wattle and grey ‘helmet’, they move in groups and are very noticeable as they flutter their way along in small bursts. They have been a regular presence the last few months. Roberts’ Book of Birds speaks of “irruptions westwards in times of drought”; having looked up irruptions, a new word to me, (Ecology - to increase rapidly and irregularly in number) I come to the conclusion that here we have yet another sign of drought. Is it that they do not like our mountain in the wet?

 

More of the end of May–and a dedication

I am in Johannesburg, (or rather: I was when I compiled this on Saturday and Sunday) attending a trade expo and, much to my surprise, there is no free wi-fi to be had. So these last two posts, compiled in quiet times – of which there are too many –  will have to wait till I am home for posting…

To get back into the spirit of things: some fingered end-of-autumn leaves!

The thick five fingered leaf of a plane tree is unmistakeable; it is more solid than any maple or liquidambar with which it might be confused. Usually they turn a rather pale yellow before browning and falling, but the reds in this leaf already indicate something unusual…

It is from my ‘red plane’! I found the tree in a rural wholesale nursery one autumn in the early nineties, sporting red leaves amongst a sea of yellow. I nonchalantly loaded it onto my trolley and looked for more. I think I selected four, but none were as red as this one. Only one of its brethren I can now identify for certain, and it has never proved itself unusual, but this tree… It shows the first signs of colour in mid-February. It is predominantly red, but there are strong yellow and even orange markings as well. And it drops its last leaves in mid-June. That is four months of autumn colour!

Here a selection of leaves lie on the grass below it…

Whilst I photograph the plane, Taubie plods off into the water under the nearby  weeping flowering cherry. Only on studying the photo now do I realise how the graft has developed into an  unsightly swelling as so often happens… to hide, or to o ignore? What does this pic achieve? Perhaps to show how lovely our days can be, even as winter approaches.

And here she is again in this season of fallen leaves…

This photo continues that theme.

As does this one, showing the bench under the beech at the top of the Beech Borders. Beyond,  the bright buttery yellow of Acer davidii, one of the snake-bark maples, lies strewn across the slope.

Another view from a few meters on; Taubie snuffling among the azaleas and shrub roses of the Beech Borders, with berberis and the bare stems of the Japanese maples along the stream from the spring; I wrote about them a few posts back.

Lest she gets jealous, here again is Mateczka, in the arboretum with birches, an oak-leaved hydrangea and a particularly neat holly.

Since in our meanderings we’ve ended up back in the arboretum, here is another view. but let us get back to the water!

The view across Freddie’s Dam is always interesting, and always changing. By the way, clicking on photos will enlarge them!

This photo is the opposite view of the one above it, taken from under the yellow snake-bark maple in the centre of the above photo.

This time we are looking across the Makou Dam and the comments in my previous post about the shrubs in the Upper Rosemary Border come to mind.

 

Viburnum x bodnantiensis is a tall scruffy shrub at the best of times, lacking the grace and beauty of many viburnums. Like several relations it makes up for this with relatively inconspicuous but nicely scented flowers in winter. However it is a touch too cold for them here, and so a perfect cluster is hard to find. And quite frankly the scent does not appeal greatly to me. I guess I keep it for its snob value: it is quite rare and the link with the magnificent gardens at Bodnant in Wales is irresistible…

A plant that does give me a lot of joy I planted as Cotoneaster horizontalis. Especially now as it is covered in berries and autumn leaves it is a delight…

But the sheer height to which it has grown makes me wonder if this really is the plant I have…

I really enjoy this rather muddled view. The last blooms on Graham Stuart Thomas (which in South Africa is a ‘climber’ – most of Austin’s roses grow very leggy in our climate) stand out against a hazel. In the background the wisteria yellows on the pergola and a Japanese maple shows some colour. Watching over it all is the sentinel of Melaleuca ‘Johannesburg Gold’ which is always this warm yellow colour – the best yellow-leaved tree of all in our climate.

However this ubiquitous yellow conifer is not to be dismissed…

I end this post with the garden that has haunted me for how long? Fourteen months! The Garden Celebrating an Imperfect Universe. In this imperfect universe very little has happened here this past summer. Children arrive and hop from stump to stump, proving my basic assumption right. The water spout wets it rocks at the end  of the Alfred’s Arches axis. Wild flowers (and weeds) have softened the setting. This last summer brought many changes in my life, but all were more demanding than I’d anticipated and I spent less time – and money -  in the garden than ever. I can only hope that the coming year will bring the opportunity to spend time here…

PS: This morning I showed all these photos to my father, with whom I am staying during the expo. When he saw the date of the photos – 29 May 2012 – he told me that I took them 60 years to the day after he declared his love to my mother and they started going steady. As the love of trees – and the planting of them – very much started with my dad, I dedicate this post to him. And that makes this a perfect opportunity to share a photo he took of our valley one midwinter in the early 50s. It contains some wonderful details and some tantalising uncertainties.

 

To orientate you: the building to the left of centre is the stone barn. The tall gum trees to the left of it are those to the right of the big house today. I suspect the top of the big gum in the arboretum is showing above the curve of the grassy hill near the left of the photo. Only about half the current area was planted to pine, seed potatoes were the main crop, and pigs were kept in the old sties near where the house now is. The old main house, over to the right of the picture, is on the part of the farm that now belongs to my cousin.

My father’s vision and energy have changed the farm dramatically, especially over the last 30 years. The arboretum in particular will be his lasting monument. And remember that the tall gum was claimed by my mother as hers on their honeymoon. But if any spot on Sequoia is truly his, it is the avenue of sequoias that lead up to his dream house where I now live. So it seems appropriate to end this post with a photo sent to me by a couple who celebrated their wedding on Sequoia in April, of them setting off on life together from under this avenue…

 

Loose ends, but not at a loose end

Interesting stats at the moment… I have most likely never published as few posts per week as I have over the last three months. I have had fewer comments posted than ever. I have posted very few comments on other’s blogs. Blotanical is right off my radar. Yet Feb 2012 has seen the highest number of visitors per day to my site since I started blogging in July 2009. Why? Bleak winter weather in the North? Could be – I’ve noticed that my viewership peaks in Jan-March, but ‘soared‘ rather than ‘peaked’ would be the right word this year. More potential business? Could be, as I advertise the open garden and the holiday accommodation much more intensely these days – yet not many people leave the sort of trace that I can recognise ‘business’ visitors by, such as clicking on the ‘visit/stay’ page… Be that all as it may, the above pic with its blue and yellow (daylily) was a composition that reminded me of one of my few remaining regular blogging correspondents, Jean from Jean’s Garden, and thus I dedicate this photo – as well as my interest in the academics of blogging – to you, Jean.

In my previous post I spoke of the Haenertsburg Lilies, Lilium formosanum; last weekend a couple planned their wedding in my garden to coincide with the lilies. An interesting wedding, where the guests were to bring their own picnic baskets and the setting was all. Unfortunately an almighty shower in the early hours of Saturday, followed by what looked like set-in heavy rain, made them move the venue back to Polokwane, 60km away, were they and most of their guests come from. By 10am the sun was shining and the roads passable… But no-one would have guessed that at 8… They were back to spend their wedding night in the cottage, and they will be back to take the ‘official’ pictures.  The above photo, taken from the veranda of The House that Jack Built, is dedicated to Amrian & Liebie.

Now this is random. I was photographing some of the various wild flowers for next week’s Wild Flower Wednesday and decided to include these grasses. But then I saw The Enemy – and include it here. You might recall my letting off steam last week about horrid invaders that are not on lists whilst the beautiful Haenertsburg Lilies are. Well, I was specifically referring to the plant just to the left of the grasses, known in our family as The Enemy. It is Conyza albida, also known as C. sumatrensis and commonly as fleabane – although there are garden-worthy asters that also go by that name. So potent is it, that it can shoot up from near invisibility to this flowering stage in only a few days. What is more, a plant pulled out at this stage (luckily quite an easy action) needs to have its flowers stripped off, otherwise the buds will go to seed on the dying stem!

Change of mood. Something bright for the northern winters again. The Ginger lily – Hedychium gardnerianum – is considered one of the really bad invaders, despite its beauty and scent. I have seen how in frost-free areas just a few kilometres away it spreads wildly. But here they get frosted to the ground every year before the seeds are ripe, and so I allow them in controlled garden conditions. Their leaves are lovely and their rather untidy flowers form beautiful heads of orange and soft yellow.

It is a while since I posted dedicated dog pics. Here Louis is playing with Mateczka, teasing her with a length of bluegum bark off the big tree.

The canna beds were recently replanted and their varied leaves form the first layer across the water in the view towards the big house. I love the massed effect of their dramatic leaves that lasts all summer. Mateczka loves the rustling sound they make when she charges through them. Ouch! That doesn’t make for good dog discipline…

On the home stretch of an afternoon walk I look up to see my favourite plant combination in the whole garden catching the late light. Besides: the gate after which Ellensgate is named has recently been cleaned up, the golden abelia hedge is trimmed and Monty is striking a pose…

Here it is in close up: the junipers that frame the top of the axis path are desperately in need of trimming, perhaps even replacing with young cutting-grown specimens. They are too big now… I have just gone through my books and I am pretty certain that what I have is a species form of Juniperus squamata. It is not blue enough to be the form ‘Meyeri’, but there is a definite blue tinge to the foliage. It grows with Berberis thunbrgii ‘Rose Glow’.

When the planting was still very young I discovered somewhere in a rustic nursery a particularly fine form of what is sold in South Africa as ‘Prunus nigra’, regardless of the detail of leaf or flower colour. More correctly, I guess, because no-one has made this clear to me, it should be classified as Prunus cerasifera ‘Nigra group’ as there are pink and white flowered forms in various sizes, but all are of the earliest blossomers. It was simply through growing them myself that I became aware that they differed greatly, and I started looking out for special examples. Which this one was. The leaves seemed thinner and more delicate, so that their claret colour had a translucent glow, very different from the lugubrious darkness of some examples. I planted it hopelessly too close between the juniper and the berberis. However the scale has always been perfect, and it has always remained a small shrub in ideal proportion to the berberis.

The above photo was taken in November 2006 (which proves how long this has been a favourite composition!) The photo below follows on the upper ones and illustrates a remarkable quality of this prunus: as summer progresses and the leaves thicken, they gradually take on a bluish tinge which relates them more closely to the juniper than the berberis.

At a later stage I added one of the Abelias introduced a few years ago – when I snoop around Google Images the name Abelia x grandiflora ‘Confetti’ rings a bell. (I know it is not ‘Harlequin’, which I have yet to try…) It adds further interesting leaf colour and foreground stature to the composition (see the first two pictures), but it is the threesome which represents my idea of a perfect foliage mix!

 

OCTOBER FEST

A whirlwind dance, snapping away on Monday as the sun dropped low; an awareness all week that the true beauty of spring was now upon us; a longing to share the spirit of my garden in this mid-October week…

Fifty five processed pics there are from that one walk. Some editing is called for… Let’s start with the expected: azaleas (other than the deciduous kinds) and cherries – the flowers which form the heart of the Magoebaskloof Spring Festival !

Cheerful, hey!

And having started with the brightest – here’s ‘ Kanzan’, brightest of the cherries…

Again.

‘Ukon’ – single, white shaded green and palest pink, is the subtlest and (sometimes) my favourite…

But this one, shot at very high ISO in poor light, whose name escapes me now, so I will call it the fluffy cherry, is really the prettiest – so here below it is again …

Everywhere there are azaleas…

Here they shine through a pin oak going into leaf, with a Clematis montana growing through it.

In several photos I needed to adjust the brightness and light balance – but I made a point nowhere to bump up the saturation levels – what you see is what you get! (This time meant entirely positively, unlike last week )

But let us leave colour right out of it for a moment. Look at the subtle variations between the various white azaleas…

      This last one is just beginning to show signs of doubling up –         a good flower to carry into a junior botany class to explain how this happens…

Whilst we are talking white – here is the white garden as seen from the side this week.

And here it is again, not looking very white (work is needed) when seen through the Ellensgate Garden where – at last – the fountain has been refurbished! And below you see the fountain again, on the opposite axis, as seen from outside the living-room window. A trio of water-features now bubble and gurgle and splash. Eureka!

In what would have been part two of my October Fest post  – but since nothing is yet published a week on, we will combine the parts – I want to share with you my deciduous azaleas.

This picture best illustrates how the deciduous azaleas differ from the evergreen varieties. In spring the upright tips erupt into either a rosette of leaves or a claw-like cluster of flower buds, almost always substantially darker in bud than in flower.

These rich subtleties in shade and the markings on the individual flower, make them of the most fascinating flowers I know.

Add to that the brevity of their season, and you have something truly precious!‘

All most all of these deciduous azaleas are from a seed-tray containing literally hundreds of seedlings I received as a gift from my friends Erie and Laurie, owners of the nearby Sandford Heights Nursery at the top of Magoebaskloof.

Unfortunately these azaleas are much more specific in their climatic requirements, and very difficult to grow in the Gauteng climate.

Enough? One more?

My patient companions on the walk also deserve mention – especially as for once all four featured in a reasonable shot.

And the clematis on The House that Jack Built deserves mention too.

 

 

 

WEEKLY PIC: JULY11 WEEK2

In winter one works on your roses –right? So progress in the new Old Rose Garden – about which I’ve warbled on (as opposed to Twittered) in my last two posts – deserves to take centre stage this week. Today I marked out the paths with sand and we used the sods lifted from the lawn where the Mothers’ Garden will go to start on the paths. Being of indigenous tufted grasses, and tough as can be, rather than a runner, it should work well. Problem: we are going to be short of grass to complete the paths. Solution: go back to the post on The Garden Celebrating an Imperfect Universe –here is a link – and see what I say about a series of reflective water surfaces on the lower terrace. These were long term plans. But the grass will be needed here. Ergo, the series of ponds become short term plans. Ouch. Or as we say in South Africa, expressing a little more of shock, horror, surprise or even excitement: eisch!!!

The string on the right of the picture marks the outside edge of the hedge enclosing the Mothers’ Garden. Sandy markings indicate where paths hive off. Taubie says “Something is happening, but I’m not certain what!”

Meanwhile work has stopped on the greenhouse, about which I can’t wait to post, as we await the delivery of the polycarb sheeting that will form the roof and walls. Anyway, next week my builder goes up to Samaria, the game farm on the Limpopo River,with us. There he will again help my cousins to build their new camp; this is my investment in future holidays in paradise! So to mark time this project fits perfectly. I mentioned in my previous post that some rebuilding – and especially realigning – of the plinth on which the Italian pot stands was needed. He is busy doing this. Also worth an upcoming post1

Lastly: when you need to move thirty odd mature azaleas, each 2m high, and 20m of hypericum hedge in order to prepare for the new Old rose Garden… you don’t just dump these plants. You re-use them. And that too takes time. Luckily the defining of the parking area, adjacent to the new garden, made sense. And so the move was not as strenuous as it might have been…

 

WEEKLY PIC: JULY11 WEEK 1

Do periwinkles wink at you in winter too? I always forget to check: I’m certain they DO flower most of the year, but their bitty display and inherent bashfulness make one look right across them. And then suddenly, when all else is drab, they greet one shyly.

Not for nought is one of the intensifiers for blue periwinkle blue! Somehow it is more a flower of spring than of any other season; and yet… that perfect pentagon in the centre speaks of hidden strengths. This is Vinca major; Vinca minor is just the same but smaller, and often an inkier blue. And this is Monty, posing among the periwinkles.

 

SLIDESHOW: OUT EARLY ON A FROSTY MORNING

I told ya I would, didden I !

And whilst I was out – with Mateczka, as you’ll see – I took a few more… Enjoy!