Madam Arcati's latest Delargo Gardens post once again had me reminiscing about the tight, jungly confines of my own Back Passage when I lived in Norwich twenty-odd years ago. So much so, in fact, that I found myself trawling through reams of old pictures on a USB stick trying to find some photos.
While you explore my back passage, why not listen to Ella Fitzgerald singing about it (she misheard "Back Passage" as "Black Magic", but she is getting on a bit...):
Note: I spent ages getting all the photos in date order, from August 2006 to December 2008. Then, as soon as I viewed them all together, I realised that they'd look better in month/season order to show the progression of growth, so that's how I've displayed them here.
Late April (2008) - Left: Halfway down my back passage and nearing my back door, an avocado tree (grown from a pit), arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), various ferns, a hanging basket in need of a good sort out, and some bamboo.
Middle: Just inside the entrance to my back passage are a couple of New Zealand flaxes (Phormium somesuch), heuchera, a tufty old bit of blue-green grass, and some daffs.
Right: The paysho - or staging area to my back passage - repleat with a potted box (Buxus), rose, bluebells, geranium, daffs, scylla, and violas.
April still - Above: View from my back door - mainly avocado, arum lily and ferns.
Below: Close-up of the arum.
Early May (2008) - What a difference a couple of weeks makes. That's a mock orange (Philadelphus somethingorother) in the pot with the small fern at bottom left, and aspidistra poking out from behind the big ferns, and an array of bulbs on the windowsill (I think the ones in the oblong pot are snake's head fritillaries).
Late Spring (2007) - Left: Even though the original date stamp of these photos are lost, I know it must be late spring because I've put my Madagascan dragon tree out (Dracaena reflexa var. angustifolia AKA D. marginata) in front of the arum.
Right: Also evidence of late spring - the triffid rose enveloping the bathroom...
(photos can be found on my blog here)
Uh, oh... How did you sneak in here, Beaky?! Get back to your own post.
And take your vile offspring with you!
Early Summer (2008) - Some wild flowers growing in the gravel path next to the paysho.
More early Summer photos - Right: My rather lush looking back passage.
Middle: The triffid rose not looking as triffidy as it did in 2007.
Right: My Giant Honey Flower (Melianthus major) swamping the foxgloves growing around the cherry tree (one of my palms is in there somewhere as well).
A close up of a variety of hawkweed (I think?) from the gravel path.
I think this Hippeastrum was a gift?
Mid-Summer (2008) - Some wildflowers growing under a Mexican orange blossom (Choisya) and the triffid rose in the little border between the paysho and bathroom. There are a couple of fuchsia cuttings in pots on the right (which I still have!), and my Not-Dragons (Selenicereus undatus).
More wildflowers growing amongst the wild violets and wild strawberries at the bottom of the garden in front of the garage. The seeds were sent to me by Eros.
I included this photo (from July 2008 featured in this post) as it shows how the outside greenery continues inside.
Late Summer up my back passage (2006) as seen here (left) and here (right).
All but one of you must ignore the Freakin' Green Elf Shorts and concentrate instead on the out-of-control growth of my Passionflower (Passiflora caerulea) as it swamps the paysho.
Ah, the October garden. I got home to find Margaret 2.0 lounging about on the paysho after she tired herself out doing shit-all all day!
And, finally, Winter.
Shhhh! It's Beaky! Keep still and don't knock into the ferns.
I'm not hiding from him, you are!
I had no idea your back passage was at a time unruly looking!!!!
ReplyDeleteI like you passage better now dear. One likes to see what their working with.
Since then, I have discovered how necessary a good, sturdy pair of shears are!
DeleteI'm finding myself very fond of your cottage. And I do like prolific growth around a rear entrance myself. Very nice indeed
ReplyDeleteI do miss living there now and again. But those were different times...
DeleteI'm afraid I prefer it to your current chateau. Did it have a special entrance for the coalman as they did in the Black Country?
ReplyDeleteIt is more traditionally "witchy", I'll grant you. And, although the coalman never made it inside, certain special entrances were in use for other visitors.
DeleteWhat an impressive back passage you have/had, dear!
ReplyDeleteLike us, it seems, you have had many a move over the years - we're on "Dolores Delargo Towers #3" now (before that we only had a window box in an upstairs abode). Yet some of our plants have dutifully followed us on our travels - do you still have any from this "jungle" with you in Hexenhäusli Device? Jx
It is said that one always remembers/has the fondest feelings for one's first, and that's true for me with this back passage. Castle DeVice was my first home - and garden - after moving out of the childhood home.
DeleteEven though the avocado has long since carked it (it made it to Castle DeVice #2 with SP but was frozen to death in the winter of 2010/11, I think), and the Zantedeschia turned to mush in a previous cold winter, a handful of smaller specimens have moved with me to see two castles, a castelette, a chateau, and now Hexenhäusli Device: Some of those little ferns around the mock orange in the May 2008 photo live on; as does that variegated agave in the Hippeastrum photo, and the little semperviviums and fuchsias in the Mid-Summer 2008 pic below.
Oh, and amongst that lot somewhere is a magnolia, and an unintentionally bonsai-ed pine tree (grown from a seed brought back from Spain by my landlord [who lived next door] in a huge pine cone), which have also made it to Hexenhäusli Device!
DeleteIt's lovely to have little treasures by way of continuity. Our first garden together was, of course, not our first home (there were two in Plymouth before moving to London, then a shoebox in Ealing before we spent almost a decade in our first flat in Harringay, also upstairs). The first actual downstairs outside space was rather tiny and our plants there were mostly annuals; however we still have the rather splendid "Bishop's Children" Dahlia (grown from seed) from this era, as well as the Asarina (which tbh is probably seed-of-a-seed-of-a-seed by now) - any other plants we transported from there either died (lilies, pelargoniums) or ended up moving to friends' gardens eventually (crocosmia, delphiniums). The garden immediately before this one, however - apart from our entire first collection of fuchsias (casualties of the dreaded mite) and a few other border plants that we reasoned would never adapt to growing in pots (knautia, coreopsis, kniphofia, gladioli, which also went to new homes) - I dug up (in a snowy January) and transported in its entirety to adorn our current extensive gardens of Dolores Delargo Towers, and are still flourishing. Familiarity breeds contempt, my arse! Jx
DeleteOh, yes, I forgot about your January escapades in the previous Delargo Gardens! I hope that's something I never have to contemplate, nevermind actually do.
DeleteHaving said that, I've just opened the curtains to a blanket of frost - time to get the Eucomis and Asarinas into the greenhouse, perhaps...
Since our plastic greenhouse was destroyed by storms, we've taken pot luck on things surviving by being tucked away on shelves against the wall of the house. Fingers crossed... The only thing we've lost so far to frost was a venerable old scented-leaf pelargonium. All our pots of bulbs are already sprouting, so maybe they know something we don't? Jx
DeleteAh, the plastic greenhouse! I used to have one at Castle DeVice that lasted several years - in fact, a sliver of it can be seen behind that slovenly cow Margaret 2.0.
DeleteI've just come in from putting plants in the greenhouse and tidying up, and while I was out there I noticed that the dwarf irises and crocuses are coming up!
The plastic greenhouse was always a bit of a false economy. At the last place we went through at least two, if not three replacement covers (the little squares of plastic held together by mesh kept falling out, so rendering it useless in the rain) and had to peg it to the ground with tent pegs to stop it blowing away. We erected it on the paved-over garden here with bricks to weight it down but it only lasted a couple of months before we gave up on trying to keep it upright and the whole thing ended up in the bin. Jx
DeletePS It's not only the bulbs - two of our osteospermums are covered in buds! Weird things, plants.
Weird indeed - the greengages in the hedge down the road are in flower!
DeleteYou didn't even use the words "back passage" as labels.
ReplyDeleteWell, I didn't want to over-egg the pudding, so to speak...
DeleteI love your jungle-y garden!So many things that do not grow here.In fact, right now, there are more things on the verge of dying.So far, our wet season seems to have lost the coordinates...
ReplyDeleteFear not, Dinah! I forsee rain at lunchtime. Albeit Tuesday lunchtime, so hopefully your garden can hang on until then.
DeleteTFGES! Oh, pardon me. I was meant to ignore that.
ReplyDelete"TFGES" sounds like a partiallly withheld sneeze - I grant you a pardon.
DeleteHow lovely. I can see the similarity. We share the love of Ferns and jambing in as much as we can. It is not the size that matters it is what you do with it !
ReplyDeleteI like the way you can see the garden change from month to month. Plants and flowers filling up all the space to bursting point. Your Passion Flower looks like it is trying to take over the world or at least Norwich.
Glad you still have the Ferns, they must be quite a size by now
It is Ab Fab to be reminded of the Spring and Summer along with the essentials of any garden, namely Ella Fitzgerald, a Blackbird and a Pixie or Elf or two.
We only have a Gnome
ttfn
Quite! I rather liked the small space as it meant I had to be more creative in fitting everything in. One might think that selectiveness would be a key trait too but, like you, that went out the window as soon as I saw a plant (or twelve) that I liked!
DeleteThe ferns stayed pretty small as they ended up in a pot which I haven't moved them from in a decade or so.
I do sometimes wonder if the people who moved into Castle DeVice after me managed to keep that passionflower in check once it got going again in the summer (I moved out in February). Or if they got swamped?
Apologies! I am late!!!
ReplyDeleteOh. You mean me, don't you? I'm supposed to take a hint. Okay then. It is almost in hand :-)
I adore the jungly back passage - it gives me hope that one day I will gain control over my unruly bush.
Meanwhile, is it a rite of passage that every Brit, at some point, lives in a house like your old one?!
Sx
Did you live in a house like this too, Ms Scarlet? Perhaps once we leave the EU (next month - Gulp!), Boris will make it mandatory that every Brit MUST live in a terraced house with a tight back passage for at least six months of their lives?
DeleteAs for the hint, don't worry if it doesn't come to pass this year (we don't want you adding more stress to your life/Christmas/teeth) - although I am now intrigued...
I used to live in a house like that too, Moorfield Road, Bridlington, it was opposite the gasworks. I must stress that I did not own the property nor was it the family home and it wasn't for very long either, it was my 4th husbands place, very Coronation Street, he had lino instead of a bedroom carpet. I can't believe that was 27 years and 652 husbands ago!
ReplyDeleteDid you know he had lino in the bedroom before you married him, Mitzi? Or was Husband #5 on the cards as soon as the honeymoon was over and you spent the first night of conjugal bliss in a linoleumed room (I hope he had the decency to have a faux-polar bear fur rug on it, at least?)?
Delete