Amaryllis

Posted on March 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Amaryllis, Bulbs, Feeding, Flowers, Gardening, Indoor plants, Leaves, pots, Red, WateringLeave a comment

IMG_20200302_112003_579_optimized It’s flowered. My Amaryllis is in flower. Bright red trumpets. Three big flowers.

There are two other plants, they have leaves, but no flowers. I hope they might still send up long stems with buds. I’m watering them, but it might not be till next year, then perhaps they will flower. Amaryllis like to be tightly packed into their pots, and so I don’t re-pot them until they have started to outgrow their pots. The one that is flowering is over ten years old. It was a Christmas present from my mother. It has a second bulb growing next to it, and when that gets large enough I may try and dislodge it and grow it in a new pot.

I do think they have possibly been overfed this year. When I have fed my orchids I have given any spare water with food in it, to the amaryllis plants. Usually I don’t bother to feed them. They do seem to have put on a lot of leaves so perhaps that is why they are not flowering as well as normal.

Morning glory plants

Posted on March 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Blogging, Blue, Flowers, Gardening, Green, Hanging basket, Landscape, Morning glory, Painting, Plants, Summer2 Comments

A few years ago painted this morning glory as it flowered. I’d nurtured the plant on a windowledge, carefully watered it. Put it outside when the summer was warm enough so it would stay alive.

It was in a hanging basket outside in the garden when I decided to paint it in situ. As I painted the flower opened and then at the end of the day closed and wilted (the same thing happened with the following days flowers). Hard to capture but beautiful. I might do a copy or similar painting.

Acrylic on canvas. Small flowers are lobelia, and the cream ones are surfinias.

Hydrangea

Posted on March 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blue, Colour, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Hydrangea, Inspiration, Life, Petals, pH, Pink, PlantLeave a comment

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New plant for the garden, although its really too cold to go directly into the garden at the moment. Hydrangeas change colour depending on the acidity of your soil. I don’t remember which way it is, but they either turn blue or red depending if the soil is acid or alkaline. You can do a pH test if you want to. The flowers appear as florets, lots of little flower heads spread across the bloom. There are different sorts, some with small flowers which looks like lace, others are chunkier, some are flat headed, others have rounded bunches of flowers. Leaves are large and usually mid to dark green with serrated edges to the leaves.

I remember the pink hydrangea in my Grans garden, it was pink with huge heads of flowers. I did a painting of her in front of the plant. I will have to try and find a photo of it.

Sprigs of spring?

Posted on February 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Cold, Colours, Environment, Flora, Flowers, Grey, Life, Photo, Poem, Poetry, School, Spring, WinterLeave a comment

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In months my garden

will be aflower,

floral fancies,

blooming anew.

But sadly now

the sight is of grey hue.

Cold sprigs of twigs

leaden coloured,

deadened stems.

Give them some sun,

some warmth

some food?

Then they will improve their mood.

I wait and cry

with many a sigh,

Looking around

For colour on the ground.

Daffodils and Tulips

Crocus and Snowdrops.

Then Bluebells and Violets,

will stir the air,

colours will flare!

Brighten the world,

set bees abuzz,

and waken my love,

of nature.

Painting mugs

Posted on February 6, 2020 Posted in Cat, Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Canal, Cat, Design, Etruria, Etruria Artists, Etruria Industrial museum, Flowers, Horses, Mugs, Painting, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Trent and mersey canalLeave a comment

At Etruria Artists today we painted mugs, they were blank white mugs and we used on glaze paints that stay the same colour when they are heated. The most exciting thing is that they can be heated in an ordinary domestic oven. They have to be dried for twenty four hours, then heated at 150°C or gas mark 2 for 35 minutes to bake the colours in.

The outside photo is lock 40 on the Trent and Mersey canal. It was a beautiful morning, bright and sunny. I really do prefer coming to Etruria Artists ‘hands on Art’ at the Warehouse next to the lock in the morning rather than the evening. It is on from 10am to 12 noon if anyone wants to come along.

Today’s challenge.

Posted on January 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Elephant, Environment, Extinction, Flowers, Guns, Hunters, Life, Lion, My superpower?, Poem, Poetry, Rose, TigerLeave a comment

Day twenty three of the 64 million artists January challenge. I wrote this…

Day 23, I can’t find the actual challenge, but I think it is to write a poem to support nature and say what superpower you would have.
My super power would be to turn hunters guns into flowers so they can’t kill majestic animals like Lions and Rhino’s and Elephants.

If you shoot at Rhino,
Elephant, or Giraffe,
I will turn your gun into
A flower for a laugh.
You won’t be able to kill,
Despite your evil will.
And with rifle now a rose
A Tiger might bite your nose!
Leave the scarce alone,
Don’t bother to wail and moan,
Elephant want to roam,
Panthers need a home.
No more evil deeds,
Turning guns into seeds!

Amaryllis

Posted on January 18, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Amaryllis, Beauty, Blogging, Bulb, Flowers, Life, Plant, Red petals, WateringLeave a comment

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My Amaryllis plants are coming into leaf again. They die back after flowering and being in leaf over the summer and autumn. I generally leave them to dry off for a couple of months, then start watering them again about now. The leaves emerge and then the flower spike from the large amaryllis bulb. They prefer to be tightly fitting in their pots. One of mine is about ten years old and has grown another bulb next to it. I love the large flowers, they are always brightly coloured. As you water the plants and the leaves and watch the flower spikes grow, you can almost see them expanding by the minute. If you got one at Christmas don’t throw it away when it dies back, keep it and water it next December or January, you should be lucky and get new flowers x

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Flowers

Amaryllis

Morning glory plants

Hydrangea

Sprigs of spring?

Painting mugs

Today’s challenge.

Amaryllis