I saw the underside of a painted lady...

... and her name was Vanessa

 Anyway, before we see more of Vanessa and her ilk, here's a summery tune to accompany your scrolling: 

 

Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Dolce Vita

This tatty silver-washed fritillary alternated between feeding...

 

... and fannying about amongst the webs under garage's eaves.

Hey Hi Hello

Alison Goldfrapp - Hey Hi Hello

 

 

 I think it's about time for a Garden Photos Event reminder, don't you, Very Mistress?

 

The House of

 

I N F O M A N I A C

 

Garden Photos Event 2025

 

 As with previous years, this year's GPE will be held throughout November, with the event kicking off on Hallowe'en with the now traditional Terrifying Triffidery exhibit.  This leaves you little more than three months to take photos of your green spaces (if you haven't already made a start) and curate them before emailing them to me by the end of October.

 

 Infomaniac Bitches should already know the score, but for the muddled, forgetful, and easily startled/distracted - not to mention anyone new who'd like to take part - there's a potted history of the Infomaniac GPE on its own dedicated page at the top of this blog so you can see what you'll be letting yourself in for/getting involved in.  And despite some comments to the contrary, the GPE is NOT a contest, so your gardening efforts (or lack thereof) will not be judged and there will be no winner.  This means you, Savvy!

 There's no particular theme this year - we'll accept photos of pretty much anything garden-related, whether selected prize specimens that would make Monty Don weep or breathtaking vistas of your expansive grounds, to the potted dwellers on your balcony/windowsill, to a resilient plant that you haven't managed to kill yet. 

 And if you have a straggly and unruly bush that you suspect may be a weed but fascinated you enough to wonder what it is, the Official Plant Spotter of Hexenhäusli Device and its Extensive Witchdom, nay, All of Blogdom Itself, Jon, should be on hand to identify your unmentionables. 

 

 Right.  That's that bit done.  Here are a few bits & bobs from my garden this month to goad you into action:

 

View over the Circular Paysho from behind a hebe.

Four Photos: Wishful Thinking?

A hummingbird hawk moth drinking from one of the buddleias in the Hexenhäusli Device gardens this afternoon.

 

Oh my gods!!!  They're almost holding hands!  They're going to do It*!!!!!!

(Two of my three favourite** lowest of the Lower Deckers - Fin*** the super-hot, pretty boy human med tech and Charlie**** the adorable Andorian engineer - from the first episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, "Twovix".  I took this photo back in April as I couldn't take a screen shot and couldn't find one online [I have found one since then, though] - I wanted it for research purposes, the end result of which will probably be posted here at some point.)

 

Bitey on the beach on Wednesday evening.

 

Someone in this house had this for tea on Wednesday - and it certainly wasn't me!

 

 

* According to First Officer Jack Ransom (in "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place"), the Cerritos is the "horniest ship in the fleet" (and doesn't have any married couples on board).

** The third is Buddy the Vulcan, as featured here with the other two.

*** He's not named in the show as he's just a non-speaking background character, but he looks remarkably like my backup lifeguard at the pool I swim in, so I've given him the same name.

**** Again, unnamed in the show, but someone has named him Charlie.  I'm going with it for now as I haven't thought of anything better.

Four Photos: Bat!

 

Look what I found crawling up the inside of the carport on Tuesday morning: a tiny bat!

Probably a pipistrelle of some description.  Unless it was a young 'future predator'...?

 

An hour or so later it had disappeared - probably having climbed high enough to launch itself into the air and fly away to somewhere more hospitable (and darker) than my carport.

Four Photos: Let There Be Light

 The first foxglove of the season - and it's self illuminating!

From six years ago

 

 

G&T time! (July 2023)

 

 

From Madam's Lane (June 2018)

GPE #11 : Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue...

 

I D V

 

 No, I'm not getting married.

 

Fatsia japonica flowers from two weeks ago

 When I was trying to decide which of my plants to include in this year's Infomaniac Garden Photos Event, I knew I wanted to show some existing specimens that didn't make it into last year's event ("Something Old") along with my latest acquisitions ("Something New"), and the plants I'd rescued or been given by friends & family ("Something Borrowed").  I've tried not to feature anything that appeared in the previous two years - so no pineapple lilies (Eucomis comosa "Sparkling Burgundy"), no Fuchsia "Blacky", and no Green Gate (the latter two didn't do as well this year, anyway) - but you may spot them in the background of a few photos (and they've already been featured in the GPE reminders leading up to this year's Event).

 As for the "Something Blue" - I'm somewhat colourblind and they look pretty blue to me...

 

Something Old...

 

My potted Magnolia did very well this year, putting on loads of blooms.  Here's a particularly nice one from early April.

The Chocolate vine (Akebia quinata) did pretty well too, but I didn't take very many good photos of it - this one of the (relatively) large female and tiny male flowers (also from early April) was the best of the bunch.

Incoming! GPE at Two O'Clock!

Or is it ten past twelve?

Who knows?  I think Witchface must've been having a moment when this title came to mind.

 Oh, all right.  Forget the time/direction, then.

the House of

I N F O M A N I A C

Garden Photos Event

 

is almost upon us!

 When you say "almost", what exactly do yo-

 Christ!  Shut up!  I'm doing this and I don't need any of your 'help'.

 Well, I just don't want anyone to start panicking because of a misunderstood deadline.

 They should be panicking.  There're less than two weeks to go!

It sounds like you're the one who's panicking...

A few deep breaths later...

 Right.  As I was saying: it'll soon be Garden Photos Event time so I hope you've all been taking photos of how your expansive grounds | bijou courtyard | overgrown wilderness | rampant houseplants | tasteful city garden | impenetrable jungle | potted paradise | graveyard that you frequent [delete as applicable] has grown over the year, as I'll want your carefully curated selections - along with terse or verbose captions - in my in-box by Monday 28th October, please.* 

 And remember also to include a photo or two of a particularly spooky plant in your collection - or, failing that, a rather more mundane plant which has been snapped at an odd angle/close-up/while drunk - for the GPE preview Terrifying Triffidery on the 31st.

 This blog's gmail address for sending your photos & captions into is in my profile on top of the Sideboard over there.  Or, if you have the Host's personal hotmail address, you can use that instead.

 

☙❧

 

 For anyone new to this/with only a few houseplants/concerned about your gardening abilities (etc.) who may be wondering if you can take part: Yes, you can! 

 As you can see by looking back through previous Garden Photos Events (see my handy GPE Page) pretty much anything goes - and the more the merrier!  You don't have to provide dozens of photos - one or two will be fine - and there'll be no judging or negative critique.  After all, in the exasperated tone of the GPE originator herself, The Very Mistress: 

 

May I remind you that the Garden Photos Event is NOT a competition!

 If you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas about the GPE, please sound off in the comments.

  

☙❧

* But, because I am a soft touch, as long as some of you send in your photos by then, the rest of you lallygaggers can have a bit longer.  But not much longer, mind!  I have things to do, and I don't want to be curating photos all the way through November.

(I'll leave it up to you to decide who's going to be in my good books by getting their photos in on time, and who will earn under-my-breath mutterings and a spectacular eye roll come 29th October.  Or later.  Almost certainly later.)

 

See you and your triffids (good or evil) next week!

An Oddity or Two

 You can thank Madam Arcati for this post, for if she had not seen fit to furnish us with her August flowering foxglove, you would be hastily scrolling through/clicking past a Star Trek fan art post featuring a barely clothed Rutherford.*

 Except for the first photo, here are some late blooming floral oddities from the gardens of Hexenhäusli Device this morning:

From yesterday's Bitey walk: A foxglove in the wild.

Sorry.  Please ignore Bitey's fluffy bottom, and focus your attention on the rather lacklustre foxglove.

Reminder: The Infomaniac Garden Photos Event 2024

If the previous post wasn't enough of a prompt, here's an official reminder:

 

 

the House of

 

I N F O M A N I A C

 

Garden Photos Event 2024

 

is only two months away!

 I hope you've all been snapping away in your green spaces this season in readiness for the event of the year?  If not, you'd better get to it as I don't want to have to get my wand out and turn you into one of these:

☙❧

 

  Let's have a bit of musical accompaniment, shall we?  I've only recently discovered Sophie Ellis-Bextor's cover of Propaganda's "Duel" and, needless to say, it's fabulous!

Lurking Green Old Friends

 With nothing prepared and not much time to conjur up a new post - especially that Garden Photos Event reminder I said I'd do last time (and the time before) - I thought I'd publish this post which has been lurking about unfinished in my drafts since the end of March. 

 I haven't finished it - I was going to add some more photos and a couple more plants but can't be bothered haven't got time.

⌇  ⌇  ⌇

 I can't remember when exactly, but not too long ago - within a year or two, I'm sure (maybe three?) - Jon said something somewhere about plants that he'd had for years having survived/coped with several moves, and I'd replied with some examples of my own.

 Well, after showing my pot-bound bonsai* Acer in the previous but one post, I thought I'd do some research - i.e. trawl through loads of old photographs - to find out just how long that Acer had been if not flourishing, then at least suriving in its shallow, blue-glazed pot.  And find out I did. 

 Along the way I also discovered the origins or early days of a few other green old friends, so I've collected them together here so as not to have wasted all that time and effort for nothing.

* Thank you, Mitzi. 

Acer palmatum: After much to-ing & fro-ing between batches of photos from 2010 and 2011, I can safely say that my Acer has been with me since mid-late 2010 at the earliest or early 2011 at the latest.  I didn't buy it in the blue pot it's currently growing in - I'm pretty sure it came in the usual plastic pot and I then decanted it into a terracotta pot before moving it on to its current home.

 

This is my Acer's first photographic appearance - a cropped & enhanced shot from a set taken on 2 May 2011 at the second Castle DeVice (the one I shared with SP).  I think it must have been drunk on fertiliser as it's staggered over.

Midsummer Mix

A bit of exotica for this, the longest - and possibly sunniest & warmest (so far) - day this year: The Mother's bottlebrush plant (Callistemon somethingorother)

 

. : .

 

 Yesterday's Sounds of Summer should also have featured this track which I first featured back in 2015:

"Love Like Mine" - Miami Horror feat Cleopold 

(I'm still none the wiser about Cleopold's identity and I just don't have it in me to google them.)

 

 . : .

Get up off your quince!

 I'm pretty sure that I don't need to post a reminder that the Infomaniac Garden Photos Event will be taking place in a scant few months - November, to be precise - because I just know that you've all got it marked on your calendars and have been snapping away at your various flora since Spring. 

 

 You have, haven't you?

 Well, just in case it's slipped someone's mind, or someone's been putting it off because they can't be bothered to get up off their quince* and get out in the garden, or someone's already taken some photos of their roses and thinks "That'll do - I've got this in the bag!", let this be your wake-up call: Get the GPE on your mind!  Get up off your quince!  Get out with your camera because you can never have too many photos!**

 

the House of

 

I N F O M A N I A C

 

Garden Photos Event 2024

 

waits for no one!***

 If you really have no idea what I'm going on about, just click on my Garden Photos Event page at the top of this blog for some background and links to previous GPEs.  But if clicking a link is too much like hard work, basically, the GPE is an opportunity to share photos of your greenspaces and then snout around other peoples' to see what they're growing, ask questions, and get some ideas & inspiration for your own plot.

 You don't need to be particularly greenfingered/thumbed or even have a garden to take part, just a plant or plants that you're nurturing/keeping alive at your allotment, on your balcony, in your windowbox, or on your kitchen windowsill.

 

It's up to you whether you send in photos of your entire garden...

'Tis Foxglove Season

Last Thursday I walked Bitey into Cromer so he could go to the vet's and have a finger stuck up his bum.  He was not amused.  Anyway, to make up for it, I took him on the scenic route back: off the lead through Happy Valley and up to the lighthouse...

... then down Dick's Close Hill through the bracken and foxgloves.

The INFOMANIAC Garden Photos Event 2024 Primer

The 2024

 

I N F O M A N I A C

 

Garden Photos Event

 I thought it was about time to get up off my quince and do something about this year's GPE.  I mean, Savvy's already on it, for Christ's sakes!

 I am sure that you all know what the Infomaniac Garden Photos Event is and why it's held here rather than at The Very Mistress's hallowed blog, Infomaniac, these days.  But for anyone new here, or for any Blogorati/Bloggerati* having a senior moment or just waking up after a cooking sherry bender that began two days ago while making a trifle**, my GPE Page explains all.

 

 Anyway, forget the trifle for now (If you can.  Mmmmmmm... trifle!), this is all about the GPE.  There's no theme this year, not least because I've left it far too late in the year to foist one upon you, but also because I can't decide between the handful I've thought of.  So, all you need to be thinking about - and doing - is preparing your expansive grounds, modest gardens, compact courtyards, payshos, balconies (juliet or otherwise), windowboxes and/or indoor pot plants and taking photos of them in their entirety, and/or specific/favourite/interesting views, planting schemes, specimen plants/leaves/flowers, or any other aspect of your greenfingering that takes your fancy.

 As with previous GPEs held here, there will also be a pre-event Terrifying Triffidery exhibit at Hallowe'en, so be sure to take photos of any particular scary, unusual, or downright rude (because we know what you're like) plant, too.  Or, failing that, photos of a perfectly ordinary plant taken while drunk, close-up, or filtered/photoshopped to Hell!

 And remember, the Infomaniac Garden Photos Competition is NOT a competition, so there will be no judgey comparisons or winners/losers.  The Event is open to all no matter your gardening skill level or plot/pot size, and you can submit just one photo or many.  I usually ask for photos to be emailed to me by the end of October as the Event will be held throughout November, but I'll confirm dates & email address etc. later in the year.

 

 Finally, for any friends-of-friends, lurkers, irregulars, or newcomers reading this, it would be lovely to see some garden photos from you, too.  Lady Goldberg-DeWoofs, I know you've moved to a beach front house recently - Have you found some suitable specimens?  Sixpence, how does your garden/terrarium grow?

 Right.  Now that's out of the way, here are some GPE preparation photos from Hexenhäusli Device's grounds to get you in the mood:

The Assistant Gardener

 Apologies for being somewhat absent lately.  Amongst other things, the assistant gardener of Hexenhäusli Device has demanded a lot of my attention...

 

 

 Normal service - should such a thing even exist anymore - will resume shortly.

 

A Turn Around the Grounds

 I had intended to do some gardening today, but the West Wind is bitter (and, as I type this, it has just rained), so instead of getting cold and mucky outside, I have sorted out some photos from yesterday's turn around the grounds. 

 Above, the daffodils I planted on the embankment behind Hexenhäusli Device when we first moved in are in full force.  And below, my shade garden behind the garage has been brightened by blooms:

 There have been some changes since this time last year: I moved the pheasant berry/Himalayan honeysuckle (Lycesteria formosa) from its pot next to the table into the ground next to the square compost heap (you can see its tall, dark red stems at the back right of the photo above).  In its place I put the chocolate vine (Akebia quinata) which is going great guns and competing with the Pyracantha (behind the pheasant berry).  It's also flowering, as you can see on the right.

"I Slipped On Mah Beans"

 I think I've been in the Winter Doldrums - although, if I have, I seem to be coming out of it now thanks to two things: Janet & Rita, and new growth in the garden & up the allotment.

 First, old ladies Janet and Rita - AKA Bluey and Bingo Heeler from Bluey, a cartoon my youngest niece, vom Smallhäusen, introduced me to while I was babysitting a week or two ago.  They are hilarious!  The costumes, the voices, the shoplifting, the driving, the absolute glee with which Bluey and Bingo portray Rita and Janet - and the reactions of their parents Chilli and Bandit - all combine to form a delightful two or three minutes of fun that had me almost crying with laughter.

 There's a snippet of first appearance of Rita & Janet in the first minute of the video at the end of this post, but the video below is of the whole Heeler family having some fun:

(It didn't take many episodes for me to want a smoochy kiss with Bandit Heeler, either!)

. : .

 Anyway, enough of adorable Australian cartoon dogs, let's have a look inside my allotment compost heap, shall we?

Cold

A prickly Mahonia up my side return

 Somehow, a cold virus or somesuch has managed to get through the Host's bodily defences and take hold.  I don't know how it happened because his immune system has been trained over the last few years with dirty, germy urchin nephew & nieces jumping all over him and smearing their filth & pestilence everywhere!  I am not amused.

 

 Anyway, after the paracetemol and ibuprofen kicked in earlier this morning, I took Bitey out for a walk and we ended up wandering along the prom - from where I took the photo above.

 

 The rest of the photos are from the grounds of Hexenhäusli Device, and show what few flora - and fauna - can be found at this time of year.

A male muntjac on the embankment behind the South Lawn

A female muntjac.  Sorry about the poor quality - this was taken through dirty glass

Snowdrops (and sprouting daffodils behind them)

Hellebore somethingorother

 Oh, almost forgot: The point of the flowers in this post are as a little prompt to get you thinking about this year's Infomaniac Garden Photos Event.  Is there anything Event-worthy in your garden - be it a frozen wasteland (Very Mistress?) a boggy mudscape (Ms Scarlet?) or tropical jungle (Dinah?) - at this time of year that it's worth taking a few photos of now before it's too late?

 Don't worry if not as I will be nagging haranguing reminding you about the GPE regularly througout the year!

"She doesn't want to see Fanny on camera"

 Just popping in to drop off a few things before returning at the weekend to wrap up the year and stuff it in the Sideboard along with all the previous years.

 

 First up from the 21st, I had a wander down to the promenade where the North Sea waved to me rather enthusiastically:

 

GPE 2023 : IDV's Zoological Gardens

 This, the final array of flora & fauna from the Infomaniac Garden Photos Event 2023, is my own.

 

Take a Turn Around the Grounds with

M E,  I D V

☙❧

 

 I thought we'd start with the zoological specimens first as the display includes the majority of Hexenhäusli Device's grounds, so you can see the layout of the gardens and many of the plants too (not pictured: the North Lawn and Gardener's Private Retreat):

 

Arial view of the South Gardens

Widdershins from top left: Nursery web spider (Pisaura miribilis) in the red greenhouse [April], Large yellow underwing moth (Noctua pronuba) x2 in the potting station (not the related Satellite as incorrectly marked on the image) [July], Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) [August], Peacock (Aglais io) [August], and some sort of spider that I can't be bothered to try and identify on a rock next to the pond lake [June].