New paintings and regular art updates.
Looking for comfort food, I’ve got strawberries in the fridge but no cream. I’m going to get some tomorrow. I want something fresh and summery to remind me summer is going to arrive, that picnics might happen again. That I can visit the park again with friends one day. That life can be restored.. All that in a bowl of strawberries and cream….
Morning plants, 6am digital observational drawing of a citrus plant and Christmas cactus. The sun hasn’t risen yet!
I’m watching Gardeners World on BBC TV. They arr showing a compilation programme of the best bits from 2020. One section was about the crocosmia plants that you grow in the garden and the fact that their anticedants came from South Africa.
My garden has crocosmia Lucifer growing in it in the late summer, but its several years old now and I think it’s time to get new bulbs so I’ve painted this to remind myself to get some more..
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We breathe in breathe out…. Carbon Dioxide. But trees and plants breathe out oxygen after taking in carbon dioxide. Why? Because they photosynthesise. They turn gas and water into food and grow. Oxygen is a biproduct.
Looking at a tree in winter you can almost see the bronchial tubes of lungs, the alveoli would be the leaves in summer.
That’s why we need to plant trees not cut them down. In the Amazon and other rainforest millions have been cut down. All over the world trees and plants are burning, either at the hands of humans or through fires caused by global warming.
We must change this. We must care. Even my government is cutting down woods and forests for stupid fast railways and roads.
Not in my name is the phrase isn’t it?
Looking out of the kitchen window and the hanging basket I have taken photos of over the months is still surviving. A lot of the flowers have gone. There are still five or six different plants with flowers on them. The other hanging baskets are wilting. But it’s almost the shortest day (tomorrow) how is it coping!? If we ever get a cold night or snow it might die back. In any case I will post again if it’s still going.
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For daffodils
For tulips
For helibores
And hyacynths
Start with snowdrops
And irises.
Crocuses
And primrose.
Pushing up through
Bare. Cold ground
Warmth arrived
Each. Flower head
Brings. Spring
Closer.
How is this possible. The hanging baskets are still alive and flowering despite a few frosts and cold winds. It’s not just one plant though. The flowers are still on four or five plants. Maybe they are so tightly packed that they are sheltering each other. I also think the flowers were not pollenated because of a lack of insects? I will keep posting about this till they wilt and die off.
A handful of tomatoes from our hanging basket. I wasn’t expecting to find anything. It’s almost the end of November. I guess the expected frosts haven’t really arrived yet so they have survived through the darkening days. I don’t know if they will ripen, I will have to wait and see.
Yes they are still surviving. Plants and flowers that would normally have shrivelled away by now, a series of frosts due this week might do that, but the plucky baskets (OK they are not thinking or animated) have hung on together with the plants around the yard. I guess there must be a microclimate. I will let them stay where they are until its time to get them refilled again in spring next year…
There are various plants in the photos, including nasturtium, fushua, begonia, aster, pelargonium and many more.
I was reviewing my photos from the summer and saw this in my hanging basket flower. Not a bee but a snail! How did it get up there.. Must have crawled up the wall, then the fence and finally across the hanging basket to get to this flower. I hope it enjoyed its meal.
Mallaband-Brown