New paintings and regular art updates.
The top left tulip and bottom right are both the same type, but the top left one has developed and the colour is coming out. The other still has a green tinge. The top left is a different, more rounded type, but there is a yellow throat to it. Finally the bottom left was a larger pale pink flower. I’m loving the way they are developing.
The joy of tulips. Now a normal spring flower, but a couple of centuries ago they were wildly expensive in the Netherlands. Tulip mania or fever took over and single bulbs went for sale for thousands of guilders. Tulips were getting a virus that made their flowers ‘break’ or go from plain colours to striped ones. Probably a bit like the red and white striped ones above.
I’m loving the wrinkled flower buds that are slightly green but have slight red markings. As they grow and open the colours can change and develop.
These are outside our house, on the pavement. I’m so pleased no one has touched them, some years we have had all of our daffodil flower heads broken off so I feel luck the display has been left alone. Now I’ve got to find new plants to create a succession of blooms later in the year.
Little devil’s appear to be looking out of this reflected image of spring tulips. The orange, yellow, purple and green are really cheerful. It’s just fun to play with images and see what comes out from my imagination….. Even if they are a little devilish!
It’s almost the end of tulips and daffodils season. Soon it will be bluebells and other spring flowers… Leaves are opening on the trees. Buds swelling with the water that is falling from the April showers. We decided to go out for the day and headed south for a few miles. You could see more leaves on trees the further south we went. I remember hearing on a TV programme once that you could see the spring slowly creeping up the country as the days lengthened and the daffodils flowered. It might have said it takes two weeks to go from the far south to the far north? Not absolutely certain though.
Not this years ones, they haven’t opened up yet. But they are starting to grow up. I just can’t wait. I’m used to waiting for spring but sometimes it seems to take an awful long time to get here. A couple of weeks ago the temperatures were in the high teens Celsius, last week they dropped to freezing or below, and there was a snow in a few places across the UK. We didn’t get more than a bit of hail and snow here. Meanwhile the daffodils and snowdrops are up. We haven’t had much rain though, so the buds on the trees are not fully open yet…
Get me some daffs to go with the tulips I said… So he did..
I also asked for some cheese for sandwiches, so he bought really hard cheese like parmizan which you would grate on to pasta. And the quiche I asked for turned into a pizza….
I don’t know if its a tactic to get over being asked to go shopping, I do wonder? I know supermarkets do substitute things, but to say that there was only one sort of cheese in the chiller cabinet? I guess he walked past the cheese and went to the Italian counter instead. And he told me there were lots of daffodil flowers for sale, he’d seen them earlier? But he came back with sprouting bulbs. Clearly he can’t hear or doesn’t understand.
Tulips in the kitchen. Now I need some daffodils for tomorrow which is the 1st of March and St David’s day.
Wales has many symbols, the daffodil, the leek and last but not least, the Welsh dragon that appears on their flag.
It is always good to get to March, it is the start of the Metereological Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. I expect we will be blasted by March winds. But tulips and daffodils cheer me up.
Tulips bloomed
Scent filled the air
Warm breezes
Touched my hair.
purple flowers
Proud and bright
Give enjoyment
To my sight.
May was gentle
Soft and true
Forget-me-nots
Bloomed in blue.
Fine flowers
Grown up tall.
Magic bower
Soft waters fall.
Memory of
a lovely day.
Gives my heart
Delight today.
Such nice spring flowers. Bright, colourful, petals like satin. Soft and shapely. It’s no wonder that there was a tulip frenzy a few centuries ago. Tulips with colours that look like flames due to a virus. A single tulip bulb could cost more than a house. I think this was in Holland. My favourites are the dark coloured ones, deep magenta or purple, almost black.
Yes tulips are one of my favourites. You have to remember to plant them deep enough about double the depth of the bulb I think? They tend to fade a bit in their second year but they give a good show if planted in drifts.
Ivy leaf pelagoniums and a gazenia (not sure of spelling). We saw them for sale at a florists in Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme today. I decided to get them as the weather is changing and I want to extend the flowering season in the garden. We also got some cyclamen including normal ones, and some called petticoat cyclamen which are more splayed out than the original type. I picked up a red sedum too.
It’s heading towards autumn now. I noted a tinge of broken or red on some of the trees as we were driving over to Wolstanton. It will be here soon. The nights are drawing in too.
When we got home I popped to the shops. While I was there I was tempted and grabbed a box of mixed tulip bulbs, and another one of various small flower bulbs. Gardening is a wonderful occupation. Try it if you can.
Mallaband-Brown