Photoessay: Sleeping beauty- our garden on a cloudy day in Spring

I was going to finish off one of the series of walking photoessays this week, and then I saw that the Lovely R had lived up to his name and taken these really beautiful shots in the upper and middle gardens.  So you're getting these instead.  

​Posting to the internet and peoples' increasing tendency to view them on suboptimal platforms can knock the gilt off jpegs, so I hope the delicate atmospherics that so impressed me on the iMac survive the transition.  

R's obsession with bokeh, or out-of-focus effects, has taken him on a fairly long search through moderately-priced vintage lenses and I will prod him to comment on the technicalities of these shots in his onboard blog, for the benefit of stubborn trogs like moi who tend to dodge such fancy learnings.
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​Above: Geum
Right: Young plums on the Prune Stanley.  The ragged brown fringes are the remains of the old blossom.
Below Right: unnamed aquilegia.
Below Left: Persicaria bistorta/ Bistorta officinalis 'Superba', Snakeweed or Dragonwort.  Used medicinally from ancient times; one of my favourites.

Spring in New Zealand is usually either just premature summer or a dreary winter smoker's cough i.e. climatically it doesn't really have a discrete, defined personality.  But since green and pastels still predominate, it's probably the only time of year our garden looks remotely ordered or tasteful; by midsummer you can see just how fucking vulgar things horticultural can get when left to a plant-hoarding freak with no money for polite infrastructure and a total disregard for harmony and proportion.  Disorder is invigorating, and I'd rather please the plant than lose sleep over orange next to pink.  This year the roses are late getting started (it's Halloween and the Rugosas are only just peeping out of their cowls) but the douchebag aphids are already out in force.

Below: Rose Summer Song.  A lot of people are hating on this DA rose; I can't find too much to complain about personally.  It has a willowy serpentine charm with bronzy-golden tones in its foliage and of course
​those gobsmacking blooms.
Below that: Rose Simply Sensational which sort of lives up to its name if you don't mind waiting a long time between (the admittedly magnificent) flushes.

Below:  Rosa rugosa scabrosa, a hideous name for a singularly beautiful and charismatic plant with
​silky magenta blooms that smell of cloves and vintage beauty powder.  

Above Michelia figo.  Everyone says 'smells like bananas' but those people must have access to some pretty fucking fancy bananas.    

Compared to our Michelia doltsopa, that glorious queen of the weird-smelling trees, M. figo is pretty low-end, exhaling a modest dose of rubbed fig, half-strength classic magnolia, chopped cucumber and champa incense dust.  Try not hacking poor figo into hedge- it's a graceful little tree if left to its own devices.
Above Left: rose Royden, a few days out from showtime.  God I love this rose; it may be a fairly parochial NZ cultivar but if you ever see it for sale, buy the whole darn crate.
Below Clematis Guernsey Cream. A young plant.  Some tend to dispute the much-vaunted greenish hue but I think this pic shows it's definitely present, particularly in shade.

Below: Malus.  If you've ever tried to photograph the dappled luminosity of apple blossom, you'll know
it's a difficult subject despite the obvious visual appeal.  We have three apples (I think this is 'Discovery'), all
​of which flower away crazily and largely defy R's attempts to memorialise them.  I think he did well here.

Above: Arctotis daisy.  This shot is particularly magnificent in large format, and especially impressive given that it's basically straight out of the camera.  Below Right: Federation daisy   Below Left: Erysimum yellow wallflower.

Below: Thrift, Armeria marítima  Below that: Kerria japonica pleniflora

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