Category: Gardening

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Weekly Photo Challenge: A Phoenix From The Ashes

Gnome waiting to be rehomed

This week’s photo challenge is Repurpose. It’s difficult to know where to start with that one. My sweetheart has trashed out his house and garden – I could say ‘enhanced’, if wearing my marketing hat – in countless ways, egged on by architect friend Rick Griffin and Jim Kapernick. Jim is proprietor of Old House Depot, a 20,000 sq ft cornucopia of architectural salvage in Jackson, MS.

Together, they are the most purposeful repurposers you could imagine.

Broken concrete? That would be perfect for a path. Old wood? Old wood has more uses than I care to list. Tyres? My sweetheart’s garden boasts colourful tyre planters, tyre chairs, and even some tyre-planter-spare-bits arranged to form wall decor and a small tree. Well, you have to do something with the spare bits.  Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: A Phoenix From The Ashes”

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Roses at Greenwood Cemetery, Jackson, MS

White cemetery rose

I often visit cemeteries on my travels. My sweetheart is drawn to them, looking for curiosities such as green men, weeping angels and tough plants. At first I thought it was all a bit ghoulish, but several years on, I’ve come to appreciate their different characters. Some are neglected now; overgrown, but romantic for all that. Others are still neatly tended, formal, official.

One that I particularly love to visit is Greenwood Cemetery, a block or so away from the centre of Jackson, MS, where an extensive collection of roses grow ‘wild’. The site dates back to 1821. More than 100 unknown soldiers lie here, as well as Southern author, Eudora Welty, herself a rose lover.  Continue reading “Roses at Greenwood Cemetery, Jackson, MS”

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The Bruntwood Field Office at the Tatton Park Flower Show

Bruntwood Field Office: Reception

I’m happy that my own path so often takes me past flowers and into gardens. These well trodden paths were part of Bruntwood’s witty, eco-friendly installation at the Tatton Park Flower Show. This thoughtful, quirky space made great use of recycled material. I loved the kissing gate, bike park and the unstuffy board room.  Continue reading “The Bruntwood Field Office at the Tatton Park Flower Show”

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Pink Rose Gallery

Rosa 'Anne Boleyn'

Everyone was so reassuring about my unseasonal blue poppy / TARDIS post that I’m sharing a few more pictures from earlier this summer – this time of roses. Portraits of roses are still one of my favourite subjects for photography, so I’m a little spoilt for choice (I’m not sure how widely that idiom is known outside the UK – basically it means I had quite a few pictures to choose from). I couldn’t say why I’ve decided on pink(ish) ones: perhaps because if you’re being unseasonal, you might as well be really unseasonable. Red would be much more Christmassy.

Long-time readers may remember I have a theory that some varieties of roses are more photogenic than others. I like the way that each bloom has a different pattern or arrangement of petals. Fresh roses have a purity that I love and a particular type of luminosity. I even find the slightly more battered ones appealing these days, like this little cluster.  Continue reading “Pink Rose Gallery”

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Himalayan Blue Poppies

Blue Poppy Stamens and Style

I was recently asked what my plans were for the blog in 2017. One wish sprang to mind. I’d like a TARDIS (for people who are not sci-fi fans, that would be a working version of Doctor Who’s time travelling machine). Pretty please!

I’d find it handy for no end of reasons. It would mean I can travel, take pictures, select and edit them, write posts AND publish them seasonally while the plants are still in bloom. I could visit any garden at its absolute peak at the golden hour and be back in time for tea with my sweetheart… (sigh).

Meconopsis in variable colours

Continue reading “Himalayan Blue Poppies”