Pear time

Posted on September 28, 2022September 28, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged annual crop, Crop, Food, Garden, Gardening, Life, Pears, Plant, sapling, Tasty, Tree, WoolworthsLeave a comment

Pears off our tree and oranges from the supermarket. This shows just how big our pears have grown this year. They needed picking as they won’t ripen on the tree. The tree was a small sapling from a woolworths store in Stoke twenty years ago or so, before the stores went bust. It’s now a tree about fifteen foot high and spreading branches about twenty or twenty five foot across. It grew leaning over because of the weight of the pears. I have to say they are very tasty when they are ripe. I think they are a conference style of pear. We have had around fifty or sixty pears but most of them are too high to reach, the ones in the bowl were low hanging.

Yard time

Posted on September 27, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Colours, Flowers, Frost, Gardening, oranges greens, Plants, Reds, washing line, YardLeave a comment

Still a sea of flowers. The weather forecast says temperatures of 5°C tonight but I hope that the enclosed yard will protect the plants. I will see in the morning…..

The red flowers seem to be the main things that are still flowering. The yellow line at the top is our washing line, but it’s hard to dry clothes on it in the summer.

Surviving

Posted on September 27, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Chilled, Cold, fading, Gardening, Hanging baskets, Life, Photo, Plants, Poem, Poetry, SadnessLeave a comment

The baskets are fading

Flowers crumple

Heads droop

Cold chills damage

Frosts pinch

Petals weep.

My beautiful baskets

The soft stems bend

Leaves are yellowed

Colour muted.

My sad eyes watch

Summers splendor fade

My floral glories

Gone soon I fear.

Some are stronger

Woodier stems

Allow life to continue

A little longer.

Farewell summer

Posted on September 25, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Colours, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Hanging basket, Life, Plants, WinterLeave a comment

The flowers and plants will wilt and die over winter. Autumn is still slightly warm and they are clinging on, but I’ve noticed the delicate leaves are yellowing. I will try and get a few photos of the back yard before the hanging baskets die off. I might plant some of the more robust plants into the main garden to give them a bit more shelter to overwinter. I will miss the bright colours that have sparkled in the sunlight this summer. I know things probably will last till November. Early this year we still had a few flowers in January!

Friendly flowers

Posted on September 23, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Colourful, Decorations, Flowers, Food, Gardening, Growth, Nasturtiums, Plants, spicyLeave a comment

Nasturtiums like poor soil. They have large seeds about the size of a pea. I think they would be great for children to grow. You can plant them in succession over a few weeks and they first put out tendrils with umbrella shaped leaves. When it rains droplets gather on their leaves. Then in late summer, or early autumn the flowers appear. Trumpet shaped, the flower from pale yellow to deep red, with diffeepatterns and stripes as well as full colour ones. You can eat the spicy leaves and flowers in salads or on cold soups. I think the victorians used to use them as food decorations.

Seeds

Posted on September 12, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged clones, Flying, Gardening, Growing, layering, Plants, Seed heads, seed pods, SeedlingsLeave a comment

Fluff that flies

Aren’t plants amazing? So many ways of spreading seeds around the world. From coconuts, to tiny seeds, and ones that have their own parachutes attached so that they can fly miles. Some plants have built in springs, like himalayan balsam. The seed pods pop when they are touched casting the seeds around all over the place. Obviously some plants don’t use seeds, they can create new roots just by touching the ground. It’s called ‘layering’, basically the new plant is a copy or clone of the original.

Green memory

Posted on September 7, 2022September 7, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Fine Art, Gardening, Green, Green man, Hubby, Memory, Planting5 Comments

Three years ago I painted my hubby ‘my green man’. It came up on my Facebook memories today. He is a green man, gardening does him good, helps him to try and relax. He is a bunging in gardener, there’s no rhyme or reasoning to his planting, and he just plants things where he likes, but he must have green fingers. That’s why I painted him as a green man. Acrylic on canvas.

My favourite poppy painting

Posted on September 6, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Fine Art, Flower, Gardening, Life, pale centre, Poppy, Red, Ten years ago2 Comments

Ten years ago I painted this beautiful flower. I think it’s a type of poppy called Shirley, I grew some from seeds. What I like is the pale centre instead of the usual dark, or black pattern in the middle. I deliberately used a pale background to compliment the light reflected on the petals. When poppies unfurl from their buds they look papery but they are quite strong, not delicate, its just a shame they don’t last very long and soon fade.

Garden in sunshine

Posted on August 28, 2022August 28, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Colours, Garden, Gardening, Growth, Heat, Humid, Moist, Plants, Summer, Water, WetLeave a comment

A less blurry shot of the yard. People asked me why its not as dried out? I think we have a microclimate. The yard is enclosed by bushes and the houses. The sun comes round in the afternoon but doesn’t stay on it for too long because we are on the ‘wrong’ side of the hill so it gets shady at East an hour before sunset. I also think because there’s a wall and we cram plants together everything stays moist. I have trouble drying my washing because it gets quite humid. Also because I put one hanging basket under another when one gets watered it flows through to the bottom one. And as they are underneath they are a bit more protected from the hot sunshine. Each pot has a bowl or a saucer underneath to catch and keep the water and I make sure each pot has crocks or broken polystyrene in them so the roots don’t get swamped.

Cherry tomatoes

Posted on August 28, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged cherry tomatoes, Food, Fruit, Gardening, Hanging basket, Harvest, Plants, Tasty, TomatoLeave a comment

Cherry tomatoes from a little hanging basket in the yard. They ripened over the last few days. Each one is a little burst of flavour. Sunshine in a red, shiny, tiny globe. Held in a yellow bowl. Delicious in today’s salad. We don’t grow much of our own produce but it is great to harvest things like this.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Gardening