New paintings and regular art updates.
Back from May, and guess what, this is still flowering. Of the other two I have, one is leafy and green, and the other one has withered up and died I think. I keep giving it water, but it’s probably rotting in the pot? Any advice? I gave it new orchid medium but I think I packed the roots in too tight.
I love orchids, so why are they so difficult to look after?
Blossom on the trees turned into leaves and a wonderful crop of cherries.
We also have a lot of pears growing and a few apples. The elderberry Bush is starting to fill with fruit and the blackberries are ripening on their bushes. The only thing I miss is gooseberries. My hubby has eaten them all fresh off the plant!
Yes spring was good this year. Good to think of something other than a virus!
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The yard is now so full of flowers you have to walk sideways down it to see all the plants and water them. There is a great variation in leaf size. I noticed my hubby has snuck in a couple of oOak trees and an Ash tree. I keep telling him we don’t need anymore. I have a friend with a large field. She has offered to take our walnut saplings and I think she will take these as well.
As the season continues more mad things appear! Hubby has put irises in hanging baskets and sunflowers to bring more colour into the yard. Morning glory seedlings will go out this week if the weather picks up a bit. Some of them have started to throw out tendrils that are clinging to the ferns in the bathroom.
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Morning glory seedlings growing up in our bathroom. I’m amazed at how many germinated. Usually I only get a handful of seedlings. But this year it was warm for days when I put them in. It was warm for about a week. The packets directions said that they can take a few weeks to grow. Now I’m waiting for it to be properly warm again so I can get them outside. It’s been cool for a couple of weeks with rain and cold winds. But I want them out in the sun, growing gorgeous flowers.
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Today’s Urban sketchers challenge Stoke-on-Trent was ’round the corner’ so I drew the yard looking out of the back door.
The yard is full of hanging baskets and pots as you will have seen on a previous post. I guess I could have gone out and drawn the main road round the corner from my street. But this is a more pleasant view. Hard to draw all the leaves and flowers. You find yourself losing the detail as you draw more of them. I have to bring my mind back and fight against going into autopilot mode. Controlling where the pen moves instead of just scribbling.
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Hubby went up the step ladder this afternoon and got some more delicious ripe cherries off the lower branches of the tree. The really bright red and dark red ones are too high up. A lot of the ones he got had peck marks in them and splits where they had started to burst their skins. I put about twenty or so on the bird table and then more bad ones in the bin when we came in. But it’s still a good haul. I’m thinking of doing another trifle…. Yum.
Now they are safe and washed and in the fridge, but they won’t last long…
Doing what we always do this time of year. Cram the back yard full of flowers. We have a big patch of land next to the house, but it’s full of trees and shrubs and fruit trees and a couple of small plastic greenhouses with tomatoes. But the back yard is visible from the kitchen and living room and I love a riot of colour. The baskets are mainly from a nursery, but some managed to survive the winter. My hubby even planted an iris in one of the baskets. We’ve put a couple of lilies in the far end so the cat can’t get near them (poisonous to cats).
They will grow and get blousier. It’s amazing that the brackets can hold three baskets in one go. Water the top one and the lower ones get watered too.
I will post more images as they grow.
A few weeks ago, we had so many plants in the boot of the car we had to fit a hanging basket on the back seat. They are all doing well but it’s rained so much since that I haven’t been able to set them up as I would like. I also pulled a shoulder muscle picking them up so I can’t lift my left arm up above my head. It’s frustrating me. It meant my hubby had to reach up to pick the cherry crop while I pulled the branches down. I’m hoping we get some breaks in the weather. Then I can get the stepladders out. Even if I don’t climb them, I can direct where they should go.
The baskets are beautiful, I was told about a farm a few years ago that do baskets for half the price of garden centres. You order in advance and they make up whatever size you want. I chose colourful plants. Sometimes they last into the winter. I even have fushia plants that have over wintered in the yard and are growing again now. And are in full flower! I think our small back yard must have its own microclimate. I have courgette flowers growing there at the moment.
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My drawing challenge today is to sketch some repetitions. I’m not sure what it’s going to be. Might be roof tiles, bricks or leaves.
It’s pouring down with rain outside so I might wait a while for the rain to pass over. The picture above is a house leek that I’ve duplicated to bring out the pattern more. That brings in the idea of repetition, the leaf shapes twist and turn. I shall ponder on what to draw….
Used a hoe to pull the branches down and caught all these cherries in a brolly today. It was sunny for a couple of hours and the wind had dropped so we took the chance and dodged the rain showers. Picked loads, but there are loads left on the tree.
Now I’ve got to decide what to do with them. I might add them to some gin. Or I could make cherry pancakes.
This is a glut of cherries. If we were not in lockdown I would be sharing them with friends. It’s the biggest crop we have ever had from the cherry tree. If I could freeze them I would but I think they would spoil.
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Mallaband-Brown