New paintings and regular art updates.
Last week when I saw these on the local allotment they were hardly in bud. Not anymore! They are glorious. The red pops against the greens. The sunlight splashes down onto the plants and paving. A cool breeze made light shimmer over the heads of the poppies. What a warm sunlit spring it’s been. But we might have a drought!
My sister was going to visit this weekend but she’s got to work. I was really looking forward to seeing her. We would have bought some plants for the yard and I would have twisted her arm to help me put them in the pots round there.
I feel like I’ve abandoned my garden. I can’t do as much as I used to, I need to be stable and not risk falling over. Friends are busy and I have got into a situation where I don’t want to ask for help. I’m as disappointed in myself as anything else. I’m losing my ability to want to keep going.
This is the planting pocket I made at BArts pottery project a few weeks ago. It was made with rolled out terracotta clay and coloured with bright slip. I used plants to impress patterns into it’s surface. It looked OK, but the colours intensified during firing. I think they are almost too bright. I hope when it has soil and a plant in it, it will look nicer. X
Primrose, daffodils, forget me nots,
Bring me riots of flowers
Cascading colours
Twining stems and leaves,
Blue skies, warm breezes
Am I too optimistic?
Soon I’ll know if the roses I planted last year have survived the winter. I put in five of them. Climbers and ramblers. I wanted them to grow on the remains of the hedge our neighbour (a builder) had torn out and made our garden vulnerable to being burgled two October ago. I’m hoping they will make a prickly, but beautiful barrier. I love scented roses and I might try putting a few more in this spring. You can get bare rooted ones that you just use a slit trench (push the spade into the soil and make a slit) to plant. Fingers crossed.
My pear tree didn’t set any pears this year. I think it was in a sulk because my hubby passed away and I think I neglected it. He used to water the garden for hours but I can’t get the hose pipe round into the main garden.
Moving forward, I’ve been getting help trying to trim back the overgrowth. I still have tall trees but some of the lower branches have been cut to allow more light in. How will it progress? I’m hoping for a wildlife garden but with a few brighter plants to cheer it up, (and plenty of pears again)
These were my plants in summer, now they are starting to wilt. I will be sad when they are gone. I want to time travel to next summer till the next lot of flowers can be planted. I might get some winter flowering pansies to cheer the yard up in the meantime.
I’ve bought loads of bulbs to put in the big garden for winter/spring. Somehow I need to get them planted.
Sport in Botany defined by Wikipedia :
In botany, a sport or bud sport, traditionally called lusus,[2] is a part of a plant that shows morphological differences from the rest of the plant. Sports may differ by foliage shape or color, flowers, fruit, or branch structure. The cause is generally thought to be a chance genetic mutation.[3]
I saw a sport once. Eight or nine twigs on a forsythia bush, each fused to the next, like a pan pipe. It still had leaves and flowers. I was reading sci-fi books at the time, I was only young and found the strange formation almost creepy. I cut the sport off the bush and it never grew back. But I always remembered this sporting image!
Describe one habit that brings you joy.
For years I have filled the back yard with hanging baskets and flowers. This year I had to get help from my sister to hang the baskets as I can’t climb ladders. Then I got plants from a wellness group I visit every week. Some of the plants were going over so I got them for a small amount of money.
I love this habit, but it has its dangers. I use a hose to water the plants as I can’t lift my watering can up. But it’s a trip hazard! I have to be very careful not to fall, luckily I have a grab handle by the back door. But sometimes things get very precarious!
Which activities make you lose track of time?
I can’t remember where I took this photo. I think it might have been the Trentham Gardens show gardens?
I lose track of time when I visit (which is not very often). I will try and get a friend to come with me so I can explore a bit further. It takes me a while to walk around a garden, and I frequently take photos so that I can rest on the way round. I’m slow and not sure so handrails can come in handy. But I love seeing how gardens change with the seasons. But sometimes my progress is glacial! I keep checking my heart points on my phone. They generally stick at 0 because I’m so slow!
Mallaband-Brown