New paintings and regular art updates.
I have a huge buddliea bush that has grown upwards and has reached outside the upstairs landing window. The bush hasn’t been pruned as it grows huge bracts of white flowers which butterflies love. The flowers are pressing against the window pane, starting to go over now. I really need to get it cut back. My garden is full of big plants that have overgrown too much. I guess my green fingers must be working too well? I hope it means my carbon footprint is quite low.
Flowers everywhere. I love these deep pink petunias. It’s a close up of one of my hanging baskets. When the sun shines they seem to glow.
The head in the background is a ceramic one I made about 30 years ago. It’s got a few flowers trailing from it that managed to survive the winter.
There is an ancient song from the 14th century I think?
Sumer is icumen in,
Loude sing cuckou!
Groweth seed and bloweth meed,
And springth the wode now.
Sing cuckou!
Ewe bleteth after lamb,
Loweth after calve cow,
Bulloc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Merye sing cuckou!
Cuckou, cuckou,
Wel singest thou cuckou:
Ne swik thou never now!
We sing this at choir practice (with slightly less difficult wording).
Sun shining through the kitchen window. My cctv camera seems to be being affected by the brightness of the low sun. All the colour is washed out. It looks like a black and white photo. You can see how overgrown it is. We really did create a wood by the side of the house. Cherry, walnut, eucalyptus, plum, apple, and other trees were planted over twenty years ago. They have grown large and healthy. It’s one way of mitigating my carbon footprint I guess.
Each year we have cherries and pears on our trees. The birds get most of the cherries but we get good pears, that is until this year.
We had a lovely display of blossom. The cherry and the pear tree blossomed first. Early in spring. Lots of flowers, pink and white. But I was worried because it was cold and wet and windy and I didn’t see many insects (and we don’t seem to have had birds nesting either). A couple of weeks later the blossom had faded and petals showered the ground. Then the apple tree came into blossom. The sun shone and bees arrived. Now I have no cherries, I saw the little stalks with tiny pips all over the ground, and no discernable baby pears. It’s so sad. It’s like they have given up now hubby is gone.
My only consolation is that there are lots of apples on the tree. But it hangs over into my neighbours yard and I am worried they will cut it back, and as there is a trellis fence in the way I can’t access the fruit. Drat!
My hosta has flowered and the slugs have left it alone. Yippee!
Walking through the middle of Stoke today, there is a small patch of land next to a car wash that was seeded with wildflowers a few years ago. Every year I walk past and I’m amazed with what springs up. I think the local bees must be happy. Just down the road from there another patch of land in front of a large billboard has become overgrown with buddlea and grass and amazing clover flowers. I hope they don’t get cut down!
I like petunias, so bright
Shine in the light
Bedding plant winner,
Trailing around the pots
Hanging from baskets
Tough as old boots
I love this gem
Of colour on a stem!
I added shading to a rose painting I started a couple of weeks ago to give it more depth. It is one of those blush roses, with pink and red on the edges of the petals and some yellow further down. Roses are beautiful flowers, but the simplest of them, like wild roses, Rosa rugosa, are better for insects to pollenate and collect nectar. That is because the petals are open and the central part of the flower is easily accessible.
Unfortunately a lot of flowers are now being bred to have twice the petals (doubles). They look beautiful and interesting, but they make it hard to pollenate by insects like bees and they are frequently infertile so they don’t produce viable seeds.
Look for bee friendly plants if you are looking for flowers for your garden.
Marigolds in a bag, something seems to have broken the flowers off. I’ve got to get them planted but yesterday the rain fall was stupendous. Today the weather was better, but I am very tired. Tomorrow could be the day they get planted. Meanwhile, the forecast is for more rain and cold winds coming from the north. June seems to be below par for the time of year. But I’m determined to get my garden looking good instead of full of overgrown weeds!
Alliums, a form of ornamental onion. Photo taken at the Dorothy Clive garden today. I really enjoyed seeing such a lovely garden. I wish I could reproduce it at home. Gardening is such a, wonderful skill. I wish I had the energy to do it
Mallaband-Brown