At a local garden centre I saw this lovely passion flower. Mine has died off so I will have to plant a new one.
My Parkinsons is playing up this weekend and I haven’t been out. All my limbs are shaking and aching and I’m having to hang on to my phone hard to stop it jiggling all over the place.
I would like to go out and do some gardening, but there have been loads of heavy showers and I don’t feel stable enough on my feet. Tomorrow a lot of things need doing and I hope I feel a bit better by then.
We went out this afternoon for a shopping trip because I need new shoes. I managed to drive myself to the shopping village in Trentham. It’s been a month since I have been allowed in the car because of my eye operation. It’s only a couple of miles but it could have been fifty. I felt so anxious, but so pleased to get the skill back. Luckily I was with my sister so felt more confidence.
While I was at the village I saw this lovely passion flower. A good reminder of the day.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was South America, I was looking for something unusual and found out that Passion Flowers are native plants of South America. I have to say I’m amazed how complex they are. This is a twenty minute sketch.
Yesterday in a garden centre, at the end of October we found this passion flower still in bloom. Its amazing how warm it has been over the last few weeks in Britain. Lasr week it was about 23° Centigrade in London and 19°s where we live. About 5 or 7° higher than usual. In some ways that’s good because we haven’t needed to put the heating on much. But it is unnatural. Apparently every month this year has been hotter than previous ones. Animals are not getting ready to hibernate, will they have enough food or energy to survive if the winter gets very cold. Who knows, it’s worrying.
Deep in the jungle of vegetation that is our back garden are a few passion flower plants. They were coming into bud over the last few days and at last one has flowered! It’s sitting next to a fushia plant and is on the ground. Another one is trained up the downpipe to the guttering and a third is trained along the trellis fence above the wall. The only worry is the hot weather and lack of water. We have been using a hosepipe but that is likely to be banned soon. That’s part of the reason why I hang the hanging baskets one above the other.. It drops through and waters the one below too..
Suddenly there was a passionflower in the garden. She didn’t know where it had come from. Could it have been planted there by a bird? A squirrel? She knew she hadn’t planted it… At least she thought she knew…
A week later she was pottering in the yard. A beautiful lily caught her eye. Again she racked her mind, thought back to spring? It might have been in a bag of bulbs she had bought? It was early autumn. Too long ago to remember.
Over the next few weeks new plants appeared in her borders. Beautiful flowers and plants. Expensive plants. The gate was locked at night, and she only went out occasionally in the day. Was she being stalked…?
The revelation of who was doing the planting came late one Friday evening. She was having a drink with an old school friend. As she sipped her red wine she told her about the plants popping up in the garden.
Her friend blushed and smiled. Oh dear, she said. I’d better tell you. My garden is full, too full. I decided to spread plants out to my friends gardens, you, Jackie, Maude and Sisley.
Well it started as a bit of a joke, but once I realised I could push through the hedge down the bottom of the garden? Well I just kept coming back. I hope you enjoyed the plants? I should stop!
Don’t you dare! I love them. I was spooked, but now I appreciate the surprise. Thank you. Keep going, its fun.
Mallaband-Brown 