Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
Narcissus ‘Altun Ha’ is a yellow reverse bi-colour daffodil. In contrast to the cream petals / yellow cup combination we more often see in daffodils, the outer petals of N. ‘Altun Ha’ are yellow and the cup, creamy white, paling as the flower ages. Continue reading “Narcissus ‘Altun Ha’”
As news broke that this year’s flower shows have been cancelled, I found myself gazing at a pile of dry, leafy debris, cleaned from my hens and chicks, wondering whether making a mandala would sooth my mind. It wasn’t the best of ingredients, being a uniformly dull beige.
My thoughts turned to last year’s RHS Chatsworth Flower Show. The Mandala Mindfulness Garden had been designed as a quiet space to allow an urban school to provide wellbeing sessions for small groups and in one to ones. A sense of rest (from the seating areas) and calm contemplation (the mandalas), was balanced by flow (the airy planting and the oval path). Continue reading “RHS Chatsworth’s Mandala Mindfulness Garden”
My picture today is another one for dreaming over for those who have the power to sit down here in their minds and spend a moment enjoying the spring flowers, the view and the fresh air.
Today, I’m offering you a picture to dream over: Clematis ‘Perle d’Azur, Rosa ‘Rêve d’Or’ (the pale apricot climber) and Stachys byzantina with a pink moss rose and papaver at RHS Rosemoor.
Clematis and roses have been planted together in cottage gardens for centuries.
The art of combination planting is to mix plants that will extend the flowering season (just how many buds are there on the moss rose?); be harmonious in colour and contrasting in height and texture (the soft lamb’s ear, the prickly roses) and in flower shape. The lamb’s ear brings its spires; the poppy, cups; the roses are rosettes, and the clematis are single, open flowers. The clematis provides height and a mass of purple-blue, which goes so well with the pastel pinks and apricots. There’s a climbing rose too. For good measure, the roses throw scent into the mix. Continue reading “Classic Combination Planting: Clematis With Roses”
The International Day of Happiness is on Friday 20th March in 2020 – happiness has never seemed so important or elusive.
I’m sharing sixteen more of my favourite happiness quotes as a gesture of solidarity. Every little helps as we try to reach out as cheerfully as we can to others, in a world where society is hunkering down.
Please join in and commemorate the day if you can. Continue reading “Sixteen Snippets Of Happiness In Trying Times”
The word ‘verdant’ seems designed for this herbaceous perennial woodlander. Not quite all green, it has yellow flowers that emerge in winter and persist for some time amongst a mound of leaves. Beth Chatto’s website calls Sanicula epipactis ‘an endearing little plant’; I’ll add that the flowers form a cheerful congregation.
They are tiny, clustered ankle high in button-sized domes, surrounded by a collar of lime green bracts. Later, leaves push up between them, gradually unfurling as their stems lengthen. Continue reading “Green Flowers: Sanicula epipactis”
Susan Rushton 