New paintings and regular art updates.
Helibores are flowering,
Snowdrops soon will bloom,
Then will follow crocuses
With the light of the moon.
Daffodils and Tulips, all in a row,
Then come the wind flowers,
Wood anemone,
Finally in sunshine
Bluebells, for to see….
Spring will alive
With flowers for you and me.
One of my favourites. The centres of these are a multitude of flowers with petals round the edges (think of sunflower hearts). There are oxeye daisies and osteospermums, cone flowers, asters, all sorts of types and colours. Life in all its variations can be wonderful. This photo is of Rudbeckia I think, taken at Trentham Gardens in the autumn. What I like about daisies is the length of time throughout the year that they flower. They cheer me up.
Have you ever made daisy chains? We used to when we were kids. Pick a daisy and make a hole in the stalk with your fingernail parallel with the stalk, then thread another daisy through till the flower head is in contact with the stem. Then do again till you have a chain. (I’m not suggesting you do this, just how we did it, you shouldn’t pick wildflowers).
You know how it is..
You go into the garden
When it rains
And there are slugs.
What are they for?
They munch your broccoli,
Eat the hearts of your lettuce,
Nip the buds off peonies,
And eat your ripe tomatoes.
But they also eat old and diseased vegetables.
They help clear up leaves
In the autumn,
And they are food for blackbirds and frogs.
So not all bad then…?
Cold, wet and windy, but still a bit green where the ivy is growing up trees in the garden. Really it needs cutting back. I don’t want it strangling them. There are bird feeders out there, but there seem to be less birds than normal. Perhaps they have enough food, we haven’t seen evidence of them being predated by cats thankfully. I want to get out there and cut back the buddliea bushes. They need pruning.
The pond is OK, it’s hidden below the cherry tree. It has only frozen a couple of times and only thinly this autumn / winter. We hope to have tadpoles in the spring.
Firstly, I’m not a garden designer, but I just wanted to talk about putting ideas down either on paper or digitally. I’m using my sketch app on my phone to work something out. It’s a bit scruffy but gives you an idea. I’ve used a short oblong because it’s approximately the shape of our garden. I’ve drawn in some of the trees using the elipse tool. Then marked in possible paths using a ruler tool for straight lines. Then filled in with a spray tool. I’ve added a blue patch to indicate a pool and sprayed in colour where I want flowers. As there are a lot of trees I’ve shifted the flowers over away from shade although you can get woodland flowers to cover the ground below the trees.
Basically it’s worth doing a drawing if you can to get an idea of what you want. Also work out the compass points. Then you will know where plants will do their best.
Soon all the leaves will be gone. A big storm is due in overnight so I guess they will be torn from the trees. My hanging baskets still have a few flowers opening in them despite the minus temperatures we have had. The sky has been lovely in the last few mornings, with gentle hints of colour, rosy glows and golden hues.
Then it will be time to cur back and prune some of the trees. Tidying up a little bit, but not enough to harm where the birds sleep. Now dawn is getting later, after 7am. It means I get to see more of them. X
Bright poppies shine,
Glow with sun
Grow so red,
Buds stretch and burst.
Dehissance it might be called?
Or is that leaf fall?
Something like that,
There is a word…..
Turgid petals push out and open,
Colour shoots out
Shocks
Surprises
Cheers!
