What first?

Posted on March 16, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beauty, Flower, Gardening, Green, Life, Photo, Purple, scrambling, Shady, spiralling, Spring, Vinca9 Comments

Do you post a picture or the title first? I generally choose a picture to write about then decide on the title. Sometimes there is an ambiguity because my image may have nothing to do with the title or the actual wording of the post.

So why Vinca? It’s a cheery little flower, nice colour, it scrambles over the ground in a green mass and then in spring these lovely, twirly flowers pop up. I just wish I could get it to grow better, but I think our garden is too shady. Also if you look closely the five petals of the flower spiral inwards in a whorl.

As to the question ‘what first?’ it all depends on how I’m feeling, how inspired (or uninspired) I feel.

A sprinkling of snow

Posted on March 10, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Black and white, Cold, Dusting, Freezing, Landscape, Snow, Spring, sprinkling, then layer, Trees, View, WhiteLeave a comment

View out of the upstairs window. I woke up to a sprinkling of snow. Its only a thin dusting, but the clouds are grey. Hubby’s talking about going for a walk in it. I’ve come back to bed to snuggle rather than putting the heaters on. Had a nice hot cup of decaff coffee. The weather forecast is for it to blow over. Heading east. Other places have had it far worse. But last night we had freezing rain so I think it’s going to be slippy underfoot and I’ve seen posts on Facebook about it being hazardous to drive in. The trouble with the UK is we have all sorts of weather all the time, tomorrow might be warmer and dry, or thundery, or we might get saharan dust! We don’t get used to driving in snow, it’s like iceskating once a year. You can’t be an expert in such a short time.

Buds required

Posted on March 6, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Air, Buds, Bushes, dry, February, Garden, Gardening, Life, Nature, Snow, snowfall, Spring, Trees, Water1 Comment

Come on rain, its been the driest February for years. The trees and bushes need a good sprinkling of rain. I can see tiny buds on our willow tree but they aren’t opening. The branches and twigs are bare. We may get some snow this week. But I didn’t know that ten centimetres of snow is equivalent to one centimetre of rain? That’s because fallen snow is mainly made up of air (think of how snow flakes are crystals that branch and leave gaps and air pockets). Let it rain, for a while, water the trees, please!

New ideas?

Posted on March 5, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Daffodils, Environment, Flowers, Helibore, Ideas, Life, Mecanopsis, Nature, Painting, Spring, VincaLeave a comment

I’ve just been to the gallery where II have some of my paintings today. I thought they would be asking me to take some of my paintings away because they have been up too long, but they only wanted me to take one of a poppy field. But I do need to do some new paintings, to swap out with the ones I currently have there. I’m trying to think of spring images, maybe flowers? This is a Vinca. I was also thinking of doing a painting of a Blue himalayan poppy (mecanopsis) or other similar ones like Helibores. Also maybe snowdrops or daffodils. We will see.

Spring Helibores

Posted on March 4, 2023March 5, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beauty, Colours, Gardening, Helibores, Leaves, Life, Nature, Overlooked, Plants, seasonal, Spring, subtleLeave a comment

I think of daffodils and crocuses at this time of year, or snowdrops and later tulips. But an often overlooked plant is the Helibore. The flowers tend to droop their faces towards the ground and they have larder five lobed leaves. There colours can be a mottled grey green, white with green splotches or a greyish pink. This is a manipulated image to show how interesting they can be. Lift up a flower and be captivated by its hidden subtle beauty.

Hedgehog seen!

Posted on March 4, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Animal, Cat Food, Food, Garden, Hedgehog, hibernation, Life, Night, returned, Spring4 Comments

Last night my hubby went out in the garden to put some bird food out and almost tripped over a hedgehog! He said it seemed to be asleep at the base of the cherry tree. He went out again and took a bowl of cat food. This morning the bowl had been tipped over and the food was gone.

When we see hedgehogs I think of spring. It’s still pretty cold and we may get some snow, but they are coming out of hibernation.

DON’T FEED…. milk and bread, hedgehogs are lactose intolerant. They also don’t get enough calories from so called ‘hedgehog’ food. Apparently it’s just meal worms and pet food manufacturers are just trying to make money. You can feed them cat food. Ours seem to like fresh wet or dry cat food. Also nake gaps in wooden fences at their bases to allow hedgehogs through into your garden. .

Fushias

Posted on March 1, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bushes, Flowers, Fushias, Life, Nature, Petals, Portmeirion pottery, skirts, Spring, SummerLeave a comment

Six months ago these were still flowering. The bushes are outside Portmeirion pottery and always cheer me up when I see them. Now we have reached meteorological spring they should start to transform again from dry looking sticks to flowering stars.

Fushias are beautiful hanging flowers. They can be simple like these or delicate like ballerinas with swirling pink or red skirts or double flowers like flamenco dancers. You can get all sorts of varieties of them. I think they are called F1 hybrids?

Little pool

Posted on February 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged dam, Landscape, Pond, Pool, Rode hall, Snowdrops, Spring, View, Water, Weather, WinterLeave a comment

Snowdrops surround the dam at the end of the pond at Rode Hall on the snowdrop walk at the weekend. Some of the daffodils are already up and we saw cyclamen and Helibores too. Spring is just round the corner and unseasonably warm weather has reached us from the south. Tomorrow we are expecting colder, more normal temperatures with possible snow showers. It’s no wonder the birds and insects get confused at this time of year.

Autumn and Spring painting

Posted on February 11, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Autumn, Description, Fine Art, Life, Painting, Spring, Thinking, World8 Comments

Sometimes I just have to create something different. I don’t do many paintings of abstracts, I find them difficult to do. I don’t want to have to write a long explanation of what the painting means. I love all sorts of art, but it’s hard to pin down what would be my favorite. This autumn /spring painting is acrylic on canvas. With colours that represent the seasons. The shapes are meant to represent middle age, complexity, confusion, a city scape, and the spring is simple nature. See I said I hate describing what I’m doing, and yet that’s exactly what I’ve just done! Maybe I should do a Winter/summer one?

Summer has gone

Posted on November 22, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Back yard, Flowers, Gardening, latitudes, northern and southern latitudes, Plants, Spring, SummerLeave a comment

The back yard in summer, there are still a few flowers out there now at the end of November, but nowhere near how these looked. Summer is a wonderful season if you live in the northern or southern latitudes you have that wait when the sun gets lower in autumn and only returns in the spring. I’m sure equatorial countries have some variations, but I don’t think there is such a change in temperature and light. I think plants bloom all year round. I wonder how climate change might effect plants. Will we have continuous blooms even through the winter? What have we done to the world?

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Spring