New paintings and regular art updates.
Variegated leaves
Your identity mottled,
Yellow and Pink,
Magenta and green.
Veined and speckled,
Xanthaphyl and
Chlorophyll,
Anthocyanine.
These are pigments,
Changing light to food.
Shade loving or sunlit,
Deciduous wonders,
Delightful colours.
Wisps of fantasy,
Patterned delights,
A figment of imagination
Made reality.
Never seen so many pears on our pear tree! This year there are over fifty. Sometimes the flowers don’t get pollinated, get caught by a late frost. Or it’s to hot and dry in the summer for them to grow. Sometimes we get too much rain and they swell up too quickly and split. Last year a lot got blown off in June. The tree leans over so we propped it up this year to stop it getting twisted by the wind. Perhaps that’s why we have a bigger crop. Anyway fingers crossed for a bumper harvest. X
One of the most interesting flowers, simple to grow from seed in poor soil. The leaves are flat and round with veins spreading in rays from the centre. The flowers have petals spreading out from a centre that has holes in it and a sort of pointed spike on the back, (hard to describe). The flowers come in a variety of colours, from cream, yellow, orange and deep red, usually with stripes on them. The plant trails and sprawls and climbs.
The flowers are actually edible! They taste like a sort of peppery orange. You can use them to brighten up a salad. A taste of summer. I’m not sure about the leaves and the seed pods, always make sure a plant is safe to eat before you try them.
X
The hanging baskets were fine last week but when we came home two of them were upside down on the ground. The screw they had been hung on had given way under their weight and with heavy rain they had collapsed down onto the ground. Now they are hanging forlornly lower down the fence. They might grow and recover. I’m feeding them and watering them. Anyway the photos are of the growth of the other ones. Some are doing better than others. I really need to dead head them (take off dead flowers). It will have to wait till I feel better.
Here’s some patterns I did from them…
We planted lots of cucumber and squash plants this year. But this was all I managed to grow.
It’s about 7 or 8 centimetres long and curled round with a thin stalk end and a bulbous end where the initial flower grew.
What to do? It’s come loose from the stem so it’s now in the fridge. I’m going to peel off the rough bits and chop it up finely. I might add it to some spicy tomato chutney I’ve got in. Then I will add that as an accompaniment to some cheese sandwiches on fresh brown bread. I hope that is a suitable use of my little friend.
X
PS… It was very tasty!
This is how I avoid hayfever in our garden. By completely eliminating a lawn. Luckily I don’t have an allergy to tree pollen. Over the years the trees have grown big, but I like having my own personal forest glade with bird life and small mammals like hedgehogs and of course cats who patrol the garden and mug my hubby for fresh cat food. At least that stops them getting interested in the birds…. Tweet tweet tweet pounce! I’m sitting here with a busy road just yards away and although I can hear the traffic it’s not as loud. I can hear the tsee tsee tsee of birds singing. The flap of wings as they look for bird food in the garden. The rustle of vegetation. At the moment I’m sitting on a bench in warm dappled sunlight. I guess this type of garden is good for capturing CO2 and for feeding the birds. We got very few cherries this year but the blackbirds are gobbling the ripe ones up high in the tree. In previous years we’ve made the effort to climb step ladders to get them but this year we are being generous!
A few years ago we rented the garden from the previous owner of our house. She then decided she wanted to build on it, and while she sought planning permission we were not allowed on it except for a four foot strip of path alongside the house, she even painted a line along the length of the path to show where we could go! Luckily she was refused planning permission so after three years we bought the garden off her. But the damage was done. Everything had grown enormously and out if control. We have struggled to get it back to some sort of tidiness.
I’ve been very busy with the election and the mystery play over the last two months so I haven’t been able to sit and chill. But today is dry and sunny, came and ate breakfast out here and since my WiFi seems to reach this far I thought I would write about the garden. No sneezing, my eyes are not running and I don’t feel like I can’t breathe, bliss.
Later I will do a bit of pruning. There are a few stray Ash and Sycamore saplings that need removing. Also I want to try and let a bit more light through.
Gardening, never-ending……
Loads of ripe cherries
High in the tree
Out of reach of human hands
But not from beaks you see.
Blackbirds, pigeons and magpies
Each have their fill
Of sweet red cherries
They have the skill,
Of flying high above me
Pecking at the fruit
Eating all the ripe ones
In their aerial persuit.
Sweet red cherries
Small and round and neat.
I go without
And the birds get a treat!
I took a few photos of them this morning. The sun wasn’t shining so I think they don’t look as bright as they could. There’s lobelia, fushia, begonia, surfinia, pelargonium, nemesia and other plants in them. There are other plants in the yard and I’ve taken a photo of the cala lily as well.
My back yard, fern at spode, carnations at spode.
Just a few plants I saw today. The ones in the yard are mostly in hanging baskets that are billowing out in great waves of colour. The fern is a shuttlecock fern I think because its fronds radiate out from the centre and it looks like the shuttlecock used in badminton. The third picture is of carnation flowers planted up with a blue grass. These last two were taken at the Spode Site at Stoke. There are plants that are planted up by our stairs that soften the edged of the semi derelict buildings there. I love plants.
I took these photos a couple of days ago outside the studios at Spode. Su Hurrell is an artist there and she works with urban garden planting. She works with other artists and uses objects like washing machines, old chairs, a chest of drawers and other objects.
Other places are being greened in the town centre. There is Spode Rise garden by the China Halls in Kingsway, Stoke, and then some wild planting along London Road and Hartshill and in Lonsdale Street.
I enjoy seeing these plants, it’s great to see people using planting in exciting new ways.
Mallaband-Brown