Wisley

Back to Wisley at the end of last week. Booked up to receive an invitation to cancel the next day. Maybe lots of members are booking (for free) and then not turning up, having blocked slots that paying customers might have used.

Started the day with warming jam sauce on porridge. With BH, in addition to preparing the porridge,  volunteering to make the jam sauce - that is to say a dollop of crab apple jelly, a little water and even less lemon juice. Gently warmed up and stirred together. Works much better on porridge than lumps of the raw jelly.

State tree of Kentucky, small size

Started off by clocking the liriodendron tulipifera on the new terrace outside the refreshment zone. I dare say it will be a handsome tree in time. I learn today that it is the state tree of two other states besides Kentucky - when one might have thought that the first state there would have exclusive rights. Perhaps something else in their quaint constitution that needs to be fixed See references 1 and 2.

Right sort of leaves

Wrong sort of label

But the day's objective was to do the northern pinetum, have done the Battleston Hill end on the last visit. Lots of fine trees there, including a number which might easily be mistaken for young Wellingtonia.

Ancient pomegranate tree

Apparently this particular tree starred in the garden put on at the Chelsea Flower Show by the Lemon Tree Trust, before turning up here, outside what was probably once a (model) gardener's cottage, now a café. With the Lemon Tree Trust working to provide gardens and gardening opportunities for people in refugee camps.

A Lemon Tree initiative in a Kurdish camp in Iraq

An Azadi community garden, also in Iraq

Which all looks very worthy. See reference 3. All kicked off by the daughter of a Texan banker who loved plants and wanted to do something to help refugees.

The river end of a carpet of cyclamen

As well as the cyclamen there were also quite a lot of larger, drought tolerant plants in and around the plants.

Art in coloured glass fibre

Not my sort of thing at all, but apparently a scaled up incarnation of something old, that is to say paintings by one Giuseppe Arcimboldo. One of four created by a film-maker and sculptor from the US: 'Philip Haas explains: “I embarked upon the Four Seasons project wanting to re-contextualise Arcimboldo’s 16th-century imagery within the 21st-century physical world, through changes in scale, material and dimensionality...'. Hmmm. See reference 4 if you want to read all about it.

Wisley's take on the shop at Chessington Garden Centre

After the pinetum, I took tea and rock cake (good), while BH took coffee and chocolate croissant. From there to the shop to look for gloves, although we failed to find anything suitable. I then thought that it would be entertaining to find out how many suppliers did both Wisley and Chessington. Or does just one giant fancy goods supplier do everything for both of them? And Denbies too?

More intrepid pensioners

This week we had a coach from Crosskeys. On whose web-site I find old news to the effect that: '... Now, with the Government bringing into place significantly limiting measures to help the fight against the continued spread of the virus, along with clear advice on how we should all be adhering to social distancing practices, the time has sadly come where I have decided we must cancel all of our trips until the end of May 2020...'. Perhaps the Wisley people should have made all the pensioners which came in it wear scarlet stickers to warn us. Far too large a bubble for my taste. Maybe they should simply ban coaches for the duration. Bit rough on the coach operators, but they are not the only people feeling the pain.

Dust cart, plain

Home down Fairoak Lane with all its giant houses. Bit stuck out in the middle of nowhere, but perhaps that is what people who like big, show-off houses want. Wouldn't suit us. There was also a large cherry picker assisting in bringing a large tree down. And a couple of dustcarts from Amey, rather loudly painted in green. I learn from their web-site that they have done a ten year deal with Surrey, but the picture that goes with the story shows a very tame dustcart compared with the two that we saw. Also that the relevant press officer at Amey sports the splendid name of Tottie Faragher. Twitter and Facebook seem to know all about her. Bing declines to provide any pictures while Google is not so fussy. While Cambridge saw a new cycle-friendly initiative back in 2015: '... Amey is piloting a new vehicle with state-of-the-art safety features including 360° cameras and pedestrian and cyclist facial recognition systems on its Cambridgeshire trade waste collection routes. The vehicle features multiple pieces of equipment to protect the safety of cyclists and pedestrians including...'. Have yet to work out what facial recognition is there for. 

Home to grilled tomatoes and a couple of fried egg on brown. I had forgotten that tomatoes grilled with freshly pounded black pepper (in the wood, of course) and a little oil are rather good. Excellent way of dealing with tomatoes which are otherwise a bit surplus to requirements and a bit past their sell-by dates.

Wound up the proceedings by tearing up two pairs of cotton trousers for the compost heap, with the intention of seeing how long it took them to rot down. With the bin being near empty, they should have a good long time. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the foxes found them to be of great interest, digging them out every day so far. This despite their having been washed. No doubt whatever it is that is attracting them will wear off eventually.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liriodendron_tulipifera.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/justice.html.

Reference 3: https://lemontreetrust.org/.

Reference 4: https://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/wisley/whats-on/sculpture-at-wisley.

Reference 5: https://www.crosskeys.uk.com/.

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