Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
When people are indoors, nature seems more in the spotlight and its imperturbability strikes me as a superpower.
Have daffodils always been this yellow and crocuses so purple? I pay attention, but it feels like I barely noticed before. Now it’s the turn of the deciduous trees. Continue reading “Spring Tree Canopies, Sunnyhurst Wood”
February is snowdrop month for much of the UK. I’ve gathered a list of places you can see snowdrops this month in my home county, Lancashire, with details of their snowdrop open days. If you’re planning to take close up pictures, go sooner rather than later to catch them at their freshest.
This post was originally published in 2019 and has been updated for 2020. For those who live elsewhere in Britain, I’ve added a link at the bottom for you to research local gardens with good collections of snowdrops. Continue reading “Where to See Snowdrops In Lancashire in 2020”
When my sweetheart described the woods near the Entwistle reservoir as temperate rainforest, I was taken aback. Rainforest sounds like something you’d have to travel thousands of miles to see rather than walk less than four miles up the road.
Our moist, cool, steamy climate encourages mosses and liverworts, lichens, fungi and ferns to creep over trees and boulders. The Irish sea keeps conditions mild enough for these ancient plants to thrive through summer and winter.
Having grown up scrambling through the wooded valleys of the moors, the Tolkienesque character of this type of landscape is as familiar as the open moorland over the hill. Wild orchids grow further along the path that heads from this spot towards an outcrop of rock called Fairy Battery; follow Cadshaw Brook and you may surprise a fallow deer grazing near Entwistle reservoir. Continue reading “Comparing Lancashire Rainforest With Mississippi Backwater”
This classic example of Tudor-style black and white timber and plaster designs seemed a good choice for Becky’s October Squares as this month’s theme is Lines&Squares. Continue reading “Turton Tower, Lancashire”
My home town, Darwen, has several Victorian parks, including Bold Venture Park. At the entrance, an angel, now nearly 100 years old, holds up a wreath and an olive branch to remind us of the consequences of war and to commemorate those who fell in WW1. The angel’s wings are the first things you see when approaching from the town.
Bold Venture is a hillside park with an interesting topography, built around quarries and steep ravines. A small lake, home to ducks, is another visual magnet. The lake rarely freezes right over, but was cold enough to support a band of ice, covered in snow in places.
An old, unflattering rhyme I’ve never liked calls my home town’s moors bleak and barren. Perhaps if you don’t like moorland or have never taken the time to walk on it, you might think so. I suppose some people might care little for what walkers can find on a winter day up there by venturing a few steps off the path.
If you follow my blog you can expect to see brighter, bolder pictures of plant combinations taken in gardens or at flower shows, where skilled, creative hands have put together their best for public consumption.
I’m not sure you’ll see any plant combination I could look at with much more pleasure than this.
In the textures of the frozen vegetation, I seem to see fabric: the fern becomes lace; the moss, wool or velvet. The colours are alluring too: sage, mint and chocolate, the latter frosted to mink. Nothing is jazzy, all is harmonious. I’d love something to wear in a design inspired by this.
It may appear haphazard – there are a few wayward stems, but the fern and strands of grass have surrendered to the frost gracefully and a natural order is appearing – of sorts. Towards the top left, a thaw has started. Continue reading “Fern Frozen Against A Mossy Moor”
Margaret has set an interesting RagTag challenge, asking us to convey energy through a still picture. Here are my offerings:
Elvis, faded into a wall in Clarksdale, MS, in a pose that delights in the energy he had in his prime: energy the established order saw as a threat. Layers of lines and textures interested me almost as much as the subject.
Curves rule in this hood ornament that has the energy of a skater, seemingly in motion, even when fixed to a parked car. Flowing lines and an energetic posture reflect the smooth power of the machine, although on a yazoo clay road in Jackson, MS, perhaps not! Continue reading “Tuesday Ragtag Prompt: Energy”
