Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
This ethereal, drift-forming woodland plant opens from puckered, lilac-pink buds to pure blue flowers shaped like bells, cowslips or petticoats, depending on your perspective. Continue reading “Mertensia virginica (Virginia Cowslip; Virginia Bluebells)”
Regular readers may remember that I’ve mentioned a fairy path that tracks a leat draining the meadow above the southern edge of Sunnyhurst Wood in Darwen. Oak, chestnut, birch, beech, sycamore, ash, holly and elder are scattered among tall evergreens. Somewhere between a park and a wood, it is laced with main paths that run down to Sunnyhurst stream at the bottom of the valley. This isn’t one of them. Continue reading “On The Fairy Path”
I remember my first post and the mix of trepidation and embarrassment that attended the press of the ‘Publish’ button. I suspect my main concern was that somebody might see it!
That to-press-or-not-to-press moment floated back to me when a notification came from WordPress featuring a tiny silver cup surrounded by even tinier sparkles as my blog has had over 500,000 views: news that prompted a woo hoo! even from this Lancastrian.
I’m celebrating with bluebells, one of my favourite spring flowers, sent out with a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has taken the time to visit me here, especially regular readers. Blogging would be much less fun without you. Continue reading “A Celebration With Bluebells”
Some plants are so companionable, it’s rare to find one growing wild without the other. Daisies, clover, dandelions and buttercups would be one example from Lancashire; nettles and blackberries, another.
While azaleas and bluebells can flower together, it’s not considered a classic pairing. They remind me of a friend who, on learning that my sweetheart and I were a couple, observed that was “a cosmic joke on the universe.” Continue reading “Spanish Bluebells with Japanese Azalea”
Bluebells woods have a mysterious air. To get the full effect, you have to imagine everything moving in the lightest breeze, bees humming in the bells, birds singing as they attend their nests, and the odd grey squirrel bouncing around.
Light dapples through the tender young beech and chestnut leaves, moving across one patch then another; brightening or fading as clouds float between the woodland and the sun. Continue reading “A Peek into an English Bluebell Wood”
I often walk by this sweet cottage garden and pause to take a picture. I don’t think it is ever prettier than in spring when the bluebells are out in force, mixed with daisy type flowers I’d say were osteospermums were they not so early, and classic wildflowers such as forget-me-nots. Continue reading “Bluebells of Different Colours in a Cottage Garden”
Photographing bluebells presents several problems: they dance on their stems in a gentle breeze; they often grow in dappled shade which is magical on the eye but blinding to the camera; their blue appears a bit insignificant from further away; and they are usually a very different colour to how they appear. The first two shots are fairly accurate for colour. Continue reading “Taking Pictures of Bluebells”
Susan Rushton 