Savile Gardens again

Autumn in the Savile Gardens. I should try to remember this lovely afternoon because I sometimes feel very down and very fragile.

Three different views of a sculpture - lovely shadows. My son said the lovers look as though they are eating each other.

I enhanced this pic for clarity but it was an incredible grass with dead ends to the leaves which seemd to improve its impact

We particularly loved this yellow planting with yellow hot pokers

This planting was completely different from last year's

But the hydrangea garden is always gorgeous. I haven't enhanced these at all.

Virginia Water - the cascade

We have had a huge amount of rain and it has made the cascade really impressive! So I stopped to take a film of it yesterday.

The Day After The Shock

If anything, today is worse! When I went out yesterday everywhere was really quiet - the car park at Virginia Water was almost empty. I heard more Urdu spoken than any other language, and I also heard Russian, and American accents. At V.W. there is a private American school - we have three of these in this area, and the Americans spend a lot of money  - they rent big homes, they pay school fees (employment for local teachers) they buy big cars, private healthcare, and our expensive petrol - I won't go on, but believe me, they live very well (and they also employ people to clean their swimming pools and have fireworks displays and so forth) - the redeployment of the Americans will be a huge hole in our local economy.

When the area is poorer the Poles and Czechs will follow the money to the part of the EU that's richer. So the Vote Outs will have had their way on immigration - but the COST!!! It turns out that they honestly believe that the EU is where the Muslims come from, and they've just stopped women in burkhas from entering the country. There were also some regrets from the Vote Outs yesterday because it seemed they regarded it as a protest vote and didn't expect to win!

Anyway, I am slightly sorry that Cameron has to go - he has behaved like a gent and kept his promises, although he was foolhardy about the referendum. The main horror is that there is no person of talent to negotiate our exit (which may turn out to be more of a quick march to the door and a hard push) because when you look at Gove and Johnson you don't feel inspired by their talent. Johnson is a good journalist and a brilliant self-publicist, but he is all for himself. One feels his grasp of issues and problems is weak. Gove is slightly mad (he took To Kill a Mocking Bird off the choices for GCSE reading on the grounds that it wasn't challenging enough, and wasn't English, also Of Mice and Men, replaced by Romantic Poetry. Hard luck, 15 year-olds!).

Apparently, according to a specialist I heard on the radio, the referendum was a choice between - Do you want everything to stay the same ? (Remain) or Do you want change? (Leave), so malcontents voted Leave.

Still shocked. Can't wait to see our friend in the IMF and find out what's going on there.

But actually - from something my sister-in-law said on Facebook I have been thinking again about the vote and why the Leavers won - they voted that way because they don't care if the economy tanks, because they think we all deserve to be poor, like them. They think we rich southerners have had it easy for too long and when we are poor too, we will get a taste of our own medicine. It's not a mistake on their part - it's an intentional vote for decline and chaos.

Gunnera - Savill Gardens

The gunnera looked extraordinary when I took Mum to Savill Gardens yesterday. They have flowers on! I have never noticed these before and how very weird they look.

Aren't they fabulous?

Tree trunks

I have been taking a lot of pictures of tree trunks.

 

 

They seem to be saying something to me about aging and about being individual. When they were young, all these trees were like their own type, but in age, all bent and scarred, they are themselves; they have achieved grandeur from survival, and I feel something like solidarity with them, and that their survival is an achievement to be respected. I love their shapes, but also their colours and textures, and it's a bad day when I don't notice something wonderful and new in the way of a tree trunk.

 

I do edit the photos, especially, of course, the ones that are not so good.

 

 



Oak



Yew

Beech

New views of Virginia Water - Savill Gardens - the Cow Pond

On Thursday I went to VW in the mid afternoon and walked until dusk; I walked to the Savill Gardens and it was very beautiful, there are snowdrops among the black grasses, and crocuses are in bloom, and I walked to the Cow Pond, which I had never been to before. I am planning to walk in the Great Park next week.

The sun was very bright - outside the temperate house.

What do you know? It's willow, biomass!

The Hidden gardens

 



Cow Pond, evening - I was trying to get a shot of a Mandarin Duck but it wouldn't move into the sun!

 

The Cow Pond

Virginia Water, 5 pm
 

Early Spring at Virginia Water

Part of my project was to walk here every week and take photos and learn by observation (and looking them up) what the plants are and what they do.



Heather garden, fine day

Heather garden, dull day

Tall white heather

Witch hazel! Also called Wych hazel. Introduced from China in 1879.

 Wych hazel was given its name by early settlers in North America. They thought that the leaves of the American species looked very like those of the common hazel in Britain, and therefore judged that their twigs would be equally suitable for water divining, which had been practised for a long time in Europe using forks of common hazel. The word wych is Old English for "pliant"; this quality had long been exploited by water-diviners, or "dowsers", who grip one fork of a hazel twig in each hand and pull them apart until they are under great pressure. As the twig is passed over underground water it will sometimes twist violently in the hands of the "dowser". There is, as yet, no scientific explanation for this phenomenon.

The bark, leaves and twigs of wych hazel, when distilled with alcohol, yield an extract which is used in medicine to prevent inflammation and control bleeding. (And is useful for soothing the eyes.)

Plants at the Savill Gardens

One day in the Savill gardens I noticed this tree with unusual cone structures, like teasels. It comes from Asia.

Platycarya Strobilacae

One of the largest and most impressive trees is called Podocarpus Salignus. It looks like a huge yew tree but the leaves are more feathery.

At this time of year at Virginia Water they feed all the trees with compost; it's very impressive how the gardeners take care of everything. Some camellias are in flower already.

Succulents and mosses on a slate roof.