Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
A Mandevilla vine in full flower, draped around an American-style mailbox seemed to be the essence of Florida. I was captivated by the sight. We have neither the mailboxes nor the climate for growing the vines outdoors in Lancashire.
My first picture gives a little context, including a glimpse of three birdhouses on pillars at the foot of the trees. Continue reading “Plants to Grow on a Mailbox: Mandevilla (Rocktrumpet)”
In its few days of glory each year, when heavy with fresh, fragrant, pea-type flowers, few climbing plants are more spectacular.
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
This week’s Lens-Artist’s challenge – to share scenes captured in more than one way – is very welcome. I routinely take several shots of anything that piques my interest and just as regularly am not sure which I prefer. It’s nice not to have to choose.
Take this clematis clad stone wall and doorway at Rousham Gardens. Â Is the scene more romantic when your eye isn’t being led away down the path (which would probably have been my choice) or do you prefer to wander? Continue reading “One Photo Two Ways”
Clematis ‘Darius’ may not be easy to find, but is certainly a beauty. With flowers as big as my outstretched hand, this is classed as an early, large-flowered clematis.
The flowers seem to have been painted with a star shape formed by a purple-pink stripe down the centre of each petal. Spidery dark purple anthers on creamy-white filaments add their patterns too. Continue reading “Star Shaped Flowers: Clematis ‘Darius’”
One of the things about walking close to home is you see new things – this beautiful, white clematis, for example, growing almost in a heart shape around the entrance to a stone-built terraced house. Many a wedding venue would love to have a photo op like this! Continue reading “White Clematis Growing Around A Doorway”
My sweetheart uses the term ‘mannerly climber’ to describe a rose that will climb rather than swamp any structure provided for it by human carers: if the rose produces a succession of elegant, petal-packed rosettes, that’s so much more courteous of it. Rosa ‘Bathsheba’ is a fine example of a mannerly climbing rose.
Pictures rarely tell the full tale of any plant, particularly not a rose. We miss out on the fragrance (strong, flowery myrrh, since you ask) and find it hard to judge the size of the flowers. These are large ones, with a hint of a button eye that becomes Bathsheba very well.
Continue reading “Rosa ‘Bathsheba’, An English Climbing Rose”
Susan Rushton 