Monday 16 November 2020

The Garden in November...

 In no particular order...


Peering past the grapefruit tree, heavy with ripening fruit, onto the agrumi terrace. That cyclamen will now sit there and happily flower right through Christmas and New Year, and possibly even through the whole of January.


Nerine Isabel (I think...it's so long since I planted the bulbs that I've rather forgotten which is which)


Nerine Stephanie (probably.....see above...although equally, it could be Alba, except that I'm fairly certain those were planted in the crinum bed, and in fact the Alba bulbs have done nothing)


Hydrangea Q. Quercifolia  - one of the many Quercifolias around the garden, but the only one so far properly to have got into full autumn garb


Parthenocissus Quinquefolia, climbing over the trunk of the late-departed red plum, which turned up its toes last winter, and is due for a successor to be planted (elsewhere in the garden, though)



Pink and white ground-cover roses (tappezanti); in fact, they're called Pink Fairy and White Fairy. There should be a special circle of Hell reserved for people who give plants names like that....


The Technical Dept has christened these The Spice Girls...delivered recently by an antique-dealer from Piedmont, they're waiting to grace the new garden (when we get possession, next year, all-being-well), which will be  an extension to the existing garden, and is destined to be a labyrinth of walkways and gardens-within-gardens and vistas (half-viewed and full-on). Until then, they stand sentinel outside the sitting room window, and worry the four-footed.



Very late flowering hibiscus - they did nothing much, earlier in the year, and then began to flower energetically as soon as summer was over...still dripping with buds, as yet unopened


One of our two mature Cacci; it's perhaps a measure of how long we've now lived in Italy, that I begin to see the point of Cacci, and can by now even eat them with pleasure. These trees produce particularly excellent fruit.


One of the particularly excellent fruit...once cut open, the flesh is slightly gelatinous, and is eaten with a spoon.


Uve Fragola. The vine is out of control, and gets everywhere, with bunches of fruit appearing, like these, in the most unexpected of places. This outbreak is in the middle of a section of climbing roses. I grab handfuls of them and consume them as I do my rounds of the garden...

Tonight's Dinner:

Coddled Eggs, with Ham & Mushroom

Chicken, braised with garlic, sherry-vinegar, and dry Marsala; puree of Fennel and Cream

Vanilla Bavarois, with fresh Raspberries