Sweet clover and orchids

About ten days ago to Polesden Lacey. A hot day which meant that it was not as busy at 10:50, when we turned up, as it might otherwise have been.

Started with the now traditional tea and fruit scone, and then proceeded down the avenue leading to the back of the house and the rose garden - to find a colony of pyramid orchids getting established there. I am fairly sure that we have not come across them there before. And I have yet to see any this year outside what is now the Padel Hub in Blenheim Road  - and probably won't as they like to keep their grass short.

There were quite a lot of them, but none of my attempts at shots taking in lots of them worked. Light all wrong.

We also came across a lot of these flowers; rather past their best, but they must have looked well a few days previously. BH opted for Canterbury Bells, which Google Images more or less agrees with, although he goes for Campanula alliariifolia. I abstain, but see references 3 and 4.

A fine convolvulus, in among the ivy. The five snaps I took offered a range of contrasts between the green of the ivy and the white of the flower. You get more floral detail with high contrast, but I found them a but unnatural, so settled for a mid range one. I guess a painter has a bit more flexibility.

The rose garden, when we got there, was looking very well indeed, various beds put to fallow notwithstanding. We were told that sweet clover and buckwheat were the ground cover used.

This stuff did not look much like clover and looked even less like wheat. However, this afternoon, Google Images says buckwheat, and reference 5 explains that buckwheat has not got much to do with wheat, being more closely related to rhubarb. But you can use the seeds in the same sort of way as you can use those of wheat. 

A bit further on, we came to a bed of this yellow stuff, which did look a bit like clover. So, with a bit more help from reference 6, it looks as if Google Images is right by elimination.

Clover with roses round about.

We had missed the peonies, but the delphiniums were out, there were some fine foxgloves and there were plenty of other flowers to admire. And grist for the phyllotaxis mill, as snapped above. And plenty of benches to sit on, in shade or sun, au choix.

BH felt sure that this was borage, an identification confirmed by reference to a former neighbour who had served in HMS Borage during the war. A vegetable class corvette? I was holding out for some kind of comfrey. Google Images goes for borage, coming up with various varieties.

And we do get a back view of one of the distinctive flowers offered by Wikipedia at reference 7.

Grist for the mill of bus bodywork, the subject of a diversion of a couple of days recently. Two pressed steel frames running fore and aft, springing up from the floor, one each side? Rather feeble transverse frames between? No timber elements at all?

Having got on pretty well last time, went for lunch in the cafeteria. For me, fruit scone to keep me going while the hot food turned up, some sort of bean stew and a sausage bap. BH went for macaroni cheese. Lots of young people serving, presumably fresh out of school or college. All very satisfactory.

Home to siesta - and then out again to attend to the trolleys noticed at reference 8.

PS 1: along the way, I discovered that Pearl the chemist, who do my pills for me, have taken to customer satisfaction. They have thought it worth their while to install a floor mounted contraption with a screen, in front of the counter, which you can tell about your satisfaction. Maybe a couple of hundred pounds worth? I have yet to see anyone using it and I have no intention of using it, but I would say that I have always had good service from Pearl of Tooting since they took over from Lloyds of I know not where.

PS 2: while in the margins of this post, Microsoft brings me news of a new development in the troubling Letby case, last noticed at reference 2. For the BBC version, see reference 9.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/beans-with-polesden.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/unlikely-crimes.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campanula_medium.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campanula_alliariifolia.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melilotus.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/trolley-884.html.

Reference 9: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62ddkde7y5o.