Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
I discovered this serene sculpted head, titled ‘Ariel’, near the steps at the end of the famous red border at Hidcote Gardens. But for the Weekly Photo Challenge, I’m sure it would never have seen the light of day. The succulent looks a little like a flower. Continue reading “Weekly photo challenge: serenity”
Online friends may have noticed I’m taking part in Blogging 101. One task has been perplexing me, as I seemed to have so many constraints to overcome. Today I’ve been thinking of William Shakespeare and his sonnets – my benchmark comparison when creative constraints appear particularly challenging. It can’t be as hard as a sonnet, right?
Perhaps, in some peculiar way, constraints can help us to get something more right creatively, provided we actively embrace them. Continue reading “Poetry and design: how constraints can help us”
We went to a meeting of the cactus society recently. My sweetheart wanted to find out more about succulents that survive outside in cold, wet climates, such as here in the North of England. Though we met some lovely, welcoming people, I couldn’t help observing that the presentation featured a lot of remarkably similar small, green spiky things.
So why am I posting this picture, taken earlier this year at a cactus nursery – Cactus King – in Texas? It’s to celebrate differences between gardeners, and our wild enthusiasms for particular genres of plants that others frankly find just okay. I might not be in any danger of going wild over cacti myself, but it wouldn’t do for us to be all the same, would it? Continue reading “A celebration of our gardening differences”
I don’t post many macro photographs – these two were taken hand-held, in fading winter light in a greenhouse at Ashwood Nurseries, one of my favourite places in the gardening world.
It’s become fashionable to talk about the pet PR hates of journalists, yet the articles I’ve seen appear to miss the trick. My partner is an award-winning garden journalist and I’ve also had the chance professionally to work with many talented journalists from around the world. Here’s my common-sense guide to working with these elusive, heavily-stalked creatures: Continue reading “PR: 18 tips for working with journalists that are proven to work”
I immediately thought of English roses when I saw the subject for the Weekly Photo Challenge was ‘shadowed’, and set off to browse through my photo library to find some I could share. Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: shadowed”
For today’s Blogging101 task we needed to think about changing our name and tagline, but I’m writing under my own name for pretty much the first time ever and am happy with that decision. And my tagline: ‘gardening, roses, photos, creative’ could be much better, but at least it gives people some kind of handle on the type of subjects I write about.
Continue reading “Blogging101: ideas, fun and a few minor frustrations”
Susan Rushton 