Late spring on Sequoia Farm

10 Oct '06 10:45 pm

Wowie!! Too awesome that I lack words to describe this beautiful wonderland of yours, dear Jack! I'll have to do justice by linking into my garden blog soonest to revisit over and over again, to recapture my rapture here! Thank you so much! Very Happy

12 Oct '06 2:25 am

Oh Jack, how beautiful your garden is in it's awakening.

I was sad to hear of the loss of your friend Stephan. In the garden of our lives, our friends and family are the brilliant flowers and to lose one so early in the bloom cycle is heartbreaking indeed.

We gardeners always think first of memorials to our lost loved ones in the garden. I think it is great that you have planned this for Stephan. I have done the same in my gardens and my Rose Berm was done in memory of my dear father who passed away three years ago on October 13th. Among the roses I planted for him are a Mary Rose and Sharifa. Another rose that I chose for him is 'Morning Has Broken' and I have been so pleased with it's performance. It seems that it will stay on the small side, but has the most beautiful clear yellow blossoms. I will have to check my records, but I think it might be a Buck rose. I would recommend it if you have a place for a yellow rose.

Alchemilla mollis is one of my favorite plants as well, but I have about given up on trying to grow it. I had a number of them at one time and they did exceedingly well for about three years before dramatically dying all at once. I think they are just naturally short lived perenniels and must be replanted regularly. I am afraid I don't have the patience for that.

I so enjoyed reading about your gardening days and your plans for all the new materials you have purchased. So much fun! I hope you will enjoy every moment in your garden this October.

A side note to Liza: You mentioned that your dreams have all the colors of Jack's photographs. Did you ever see the movie "What Dreams May Come" with Robin Williams. It is very sad and funny and beautiful all at the same time. One of my favorites.

Faith

12 Oct '06 8:51 pm

Thank you all for your lovely words, about the loss of a friend and about the garden. Faith - I will be thinking of you tomorrow, especially when I look at Mary Rose and Sharifa, which are blooming for me... What is a Buck rose? A breeder/ type or perhaps (hope against hope!) one the deer don't eat!!

Here are two pics taken this morning - the strange semi-circle of white azaleas were originally planted for purely practical purposes to mark the area between the densely planted arboritum and the meadow crescent. Time and phase two input are needed there now! Meanwhile for a few weeks this bit of startling white geometry makes me alternate between an amused smile ('what was he thinking?' people say) and darnright irritation at its intrusive nature.

I DO love the spring greens on a sunless morning - "Shades of Green" is for large parts of the year a very evocative description of my garden.

13 Oct '06 3:01 am

Wow Jack, more beautiful photos. I am so envious of your beautiful garden. To answer your question, Buck Roses are hardy roses developed by Dr. Griffith Buck of Iowa State University. I don't know if they are deer resistent. You can read about them at buckeyerose.com. My 'Morning Has Broken' is not a Buck rose as it turns out. It was bred by Louise and John Clements of Heirloom Roses in Oregon, USA. They bred it from 'Graham Thomas' x 'Gold Badge'. I have been ordering almost all my roses from them because they produce only own root roses, certified disease free. I don't know if they are available in other countries, however. The Clements are members of Rose Societies in England and New Zealand. Their website is heirloomroses.com.

Keep those gorgeous photographs coming.

Faith

16 Oct '06 7:08 pm

A lovely weekend in the garden, with the discovery of some lucky colour combos and the fancy flag irises my brother and sister-in-law gave to my father for his birthday some years back making an impressive showing for the first time ever.

If there is one flower I love as much as roses then it is flag irises – in the 80s and early 90s we had the most magnificent irises in Johannesburg; cars would literally screech to a halt, then reverse to look when they drove past. When I sold the house and moved to my townhouse I brought many to the farm, but not enough… However most of those I brought languished and expired. It might have been the eelworm in the soil (the garden was potato lands until the late 50s), the moles definitely played a role… I lost most. Eventually I consolidated the meagre remains in the bed above the Ellensgate Garden where I planted spring bulbs this year. They were dramatically decimated by a fungal ?!? attack to their rhizomes. The many white, yellow and blue irises we have are small in stature and probably close to species. They are robust, divide easily and thrive – and were a gift from an aunt. However, as I have told before, those I used to edge the outer paths in the Anniversary Garden were systematically uprooted and eaten by the moles (or more correctly mole-rats I have been told). Of all my fancy flags, only the copper-brown one which flowers at least six times a year, thrives. It was a gift from Aunty May and featured a few weeks back in this post.

Despite much care, the birthday irises didn’t amount to much, until this year – they feature rather heavily in the pics below!

The Paul’s Scarlet Climber on the wall next to the gate to the Ellensgate Gaarden might not be the best red climber, but it grew at Ellensgate when my father was a boy, and so I am very pleased to have found it and to have planted it here.

The red rose is representative of the roses that are really coming into their own now!

And then today, right under the bridge across my dam, I discovered the most magnificent primula!!! Now ages ago I germinated and got to flower with some difficulty, primulas obtained from the RHS. I assumed I had lost them all YEARS ago. So imagine my shock and delight to discover FOUR identical plants in flower next to each other – one must somehow have seeded – I remember planting a few there – and possibly even have ‘blushed unseen’ since then every year; but there, out of the blue: four of them! What serendipity! What joy!

16 Oct '06 7:15 pm

It seems as if the forum will only accept 20 pics per posting (OK, Eggy, I know I got a little carried away Dancing

... so here is number 21, the last for today (except check out the story on the Rose forum Laughing

)

16 Oct '06 8:25 pm

Jack, All these creatures are SO divine! The 1-2-3 photos are my favorites , with the interplay of the different forms and harmony of colours! The Irises DO seem so happy! Such a Divine Art on your Irises!! Oh, the Divine Painter!! The Helen's Gate photo smells of... Summertime !

You made my day! Thank you!!

17 Oct '06 1:27 am

I most definitely second Liza's sentiments - what amazing colours and beauty! I just adore irises anyway, but yours have just sent me deeper in love with the juxtaposition of their delicate beauty and bold colours! Smile

I also particularly loved the view from the dam wall - it all seems just so peaceful, I could sit on the shore of the lake for hours (or days!) and just watch nature unfold before me.

Beautiful!

18 Oct '06 3:19 pm

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. It's a lovely idea to dedicate plants in his memory.

Your garden is absolutely breath-takingly gorgeous.

22 Oct '06 5:26 am

Wow, dear Jack!...so many awesome pictures to enjoy and delight! Very Happy

I especially love the photo with the view from your living room...I'm fascinated with the countless trees in the background, besides the lovely setting in the foreground! Not forgetting to mention the one with the view from the dam wall...another impressive one! Thanks for sharing!

Good night...I'll be having sweet dreams tonight or is it good morning? (it's now 1.20 am. here!) Wink

Late spring on Sequoia Farm

Spectacular - Pics and your garden!

Magical Garden

Spring update

Roses

Irises and other colour - specially for Friends in the North

21 today!

Breathtaking!

Ditto!

Breath-takingly beautiful!