Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
If you’ve got a pile of spare plant pots, why not follow RHS Garden Rosemoor’s example and turn them into flowerpot men? I’m not convinced they’re lifelike enough to scare the birds away from the crops in their kitchen garden, but they made me smile.
If the idea of gardening merely prompts memories of garden chores such as leaf-blowing, mowing, edging, dead-heading, thank your lucky stars you don’t have to engage in large scale owl-shifting.
Hearing Sherra Owen (whose garden these owls inhabit) on MPB radio reminded me that I had not yet shared my picture of her stone owl log. It is unfair of me not to say once again what a wonderful woodland garden she has, but she’s such a lovely person, I feel sure she won’t mind. Even her wooden fence thrills me, to say nothing of her trilliums, hellebores and other woodland ephemerals.
Apparently one of the things about encouraging owls to roost on fallen timber is that the wood decays and the owls fall… or rather they would, if the lady in question did not move them to a freshly fallen log. Continue reading “Parliament Of Owls In A Woodland Garden”
My first was taken at one of Nature’s Halloween parties. The sweetgum leaves are dressed in fancy costumes and are waving their lobes in a scary fashion, pretending to be ghosts. An oak leaf is wearing a fake moustache. Skeleton seed balls are part of the mix. Continue reading “Happy Halloween – Garden Style”
Kettlewell villagers organised their first scarecrow festival in 1994 and it has continued as an annual fundraising event ever since, becoming more expansive as each year passes. You don’t have to be particularly perceptive to see how it has helped today’s community make links, attract newcomers and prosper.
The Scarecrow Festival is all the nicer for being in a scenic village of traditional stone-built homes. The church still has the font from the original Norman church, dating back to around 1120, and the tower of the Georgian one that followed it. There’s an Arts and Crafts layer too: I was intrigued to see William Morris’s name in one of the beautiful stained glass windows and later discovered I missed finding a Thompson mouse, and the beaver of one of his protégés, Colin Almack. One for next time! Continue reading “Gallery Of Images From The Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival”
Jenny Pickford’s allium sculpture is perfectly placed at the Sir Harold Hillier Garden in Romsey, Hampshire. The echinops flowers reflect the shape of the artwork, creating a visual echo.
I mentioned in an earlier post how much I enjoyed seeing the children’s gardens at Tatton Park. This is why! I’ll let the gardens speak for themselves, pretty much – there were too many lovely touches to point them all out.
Continue reading “The School Gardens at RHS Tatton Park Flower Show”
Susan Rushton 