New paintings and regular art updates.
Walking through the middle of Stoke today, there is a small patch of land next to a car wash that was seeded with wildflowers a few years ago. Every year I walk past and I’m amazed with what springs up. I think the local bees must be happy. Just down the road from there another patch of land in front of a large billboard has become overgrown with buddlea and grass and amazing clover flowers. I hope they don’t get cut down!
One of the things to do at the British Ceramic biennial was to have fun making clay tiles that will grow in a wildflower meadow next spring. We made unfired tiles made to look a bit like Minton floor tiles. The clays were chosen to be different acidities so that they suited wild flower seeds. The clay was mixed with hay and pushed into moulds, then we had to make holes and push the seeds into them. Finally we pressed a shape into the top of the tile and fill the resultant spaces with different coloured slips.
Wild flowers sewn at a local car wash a few years ago are a riot of colours and shapes now. They haven’t been cut back and each year the crop gets more varied and colourful. I hadn’t seen the yellow spikes of flowers until this year. Unusually we have had a lot of rain recently and I think that has encouraged a spurt of growth.
One of my paintings has been turned into a little jigsaw by the gallery I have it in. I need to decide whether to order a few off them. I’d like to get some flat boxes to put them in so I can have a picture on the front of the box. Probably unrealistically expensive but I think it would look nicer in a box than just a plastic bag? I need to find out about sourcing something. Maybe a strong envelope?
Finished for now. My painting of Westport. I may do a bit more work on the sky. It needs to settle on me. I mean I need to look at it and decide if it needs tweaking. My closest explanation of this style is that it’s like painting through a pane of swirled glass….
Two wild poppies
On a short walk
Waved to me in the wind
Jolly red and bright.
On rough ground
Seeds had fallen
Nurtured with rain
Baked in the sun
Bright poppies
Like happy smiling children
Waved to me
In the wind
On a short walk
We had a few yellow flowers last year. Now they are mounds! I think it’s lesser celandine. Apparently they are grown from little bulbules? They can get on your shoes and get transferred around the garden. I used to be on a natural history website where you recorded the date when the flowers come out. It’s clear that spring is getting earlier each year even though it is only changing slowly. Anyway I like these plants. Our garden is quite wild and it’s good to add different wild flowers.
Flowers from a bush in our garden, tentatively matched in the Spring 2021 issue of the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust Magazine, page 13 in the Nature Spy section.
It says ‘Blackthorn is one of the first native shrubs to burst into flower around mid-Marsh.’ (I think it means March) ‘Its fluffy white flowers, tinged with pink, provide vital nectar for the first of the years butterflies, bees and flies. See how many different insects you can spot feeding on the blooms.’
Took a few photos of wild flowers (or weeds) this morning. Things for bees to feed on. But I didn’t see any bees.
The city seems to be full of plants pushing themselves up through cracks in the pavement and along the kerbs of roads. I also saw that green areas which were once lawns now covered in wild grasses and flowers with just a meter round the edge cut back. I did notice that the local main road that was covered in wild flowers a couple of weeks ago have now been weedkiller. The worry is that any bees that sipped from them when they were sprayed will have been poisoned. Madness. I’d rather have weeds than dead bees.
X
I just read a really sad post on Facebook. A woman had friends round in her garden and someone said her garden was ugly. It was full of flower borders and a neatly cut lawn. There were pots on the lawn and it looked like a proper cottage garden with ox eye daisies.
Unbelievable how unkind people can be. I replied to her post:
“Looks amazing, if you have birds and small mammals you are doing the right thing. I’d rather your garden that something covered in decking! Ours is full of trees, squirrels, hedgehogs, the occasional fox. Loads of birds. Don’t let them get to you.”
I thought about it. We need to make more space for wildlife not less. Somehow patios and outdoor rooms have become the norm. How much money is spent on concrete? Lease think about making a small place in your garden for wildlife.
Mallaband-Brown