'To mosey in foreign lands, with no particular itinerary, is my idea of artist's heaven.'

                                                                                                                                      Robert Genn

                                             I'm off for a little bit of artist's heaven (the plant is a clue to the foreign land..)


                                                                                   Have a lovely Jubilee weekend, and thank you for reading.


PS I look at the new header photo above, and walk round the garden where all the summer flowers are just popping open and think 'Why would I want to go anywhere else?' But friends and new places are calling me.....and I love my friends and love new places....and am lucky to have such opportunities.

 
Here come the vivid colours of the summer garden! The blue perennial cornflower centaura montana, hardy geranium Max Frei and orange geum Borisii - all very easy and very long lived in this garden.

You're always learning in a garden.

I've often said that I feel most alive when I'm learning something new and I've been vaguely looking for something new to learn.

I've got a piano in the studio now (with the help of four strong men - thank you chaps!) and am really excited about learning to play it. I'm swapping a painting for it - two happy people..

I plan to learn a little about wine with the help of Jane Brocket at winestorm. Not in a big way; I really just would like to find say 7 or 8 wines I really enjoy and can keep to hand.

I plan to learn Pilates if I can find a class near enough.

I've just learned how to create links on the blog in a more sophisticated way (I'm always learning using a computer - it's a steep learning curve for me sometimes!)

What are you learning?  Does it make you feel alive?   Do share....

A new to me bedding plant is calibrachoa which looks like a mini petunia and comes in a delicious range of colours. This is 'scarlet' peeping throught the fence.

Artists among you may enjoy reading Robert Genn's twice-weekly letter. Today he writes about the appealing idea of trying an odyssey - a mini odyssey of a few hours or a year long odyssey across a continent! You choose....see it here  

I also enjoy reading Jane Brocket's blog when she writes about gallery visits and places to go in London (see Capital Cakes). Today she describes a hectic sounding chase around the Tate Galleries. She is also a Master of Wine and has a new blog devoted to the subject here Very readable. I plan to try some of her recommendations as I really like wine but know very little about it. I recently chose a bottle on the strength of its amusing label (not advised by Jane Brocket I suspect). It was called 'Le Froglet' and on the simple label was a tiny frog - I thought it would make the recipient smile, which it did, but I have not yet heard whether it was good to drink! Must try it myself....it was from M&S. Many of the wines Jane Brocket recommends are from supermarkets and are inexpensive.

I shall do some serious wine tasting this summer and report back....Join me?

I was sitting on the porch in the 25 degrees heat when the postman brought me this lovely card from Jill, who sends me art cards from wherever she happens to be - in this case Madrid. (Our post is not delivered until noon or later I should explain.) I picked a posy to suit the card...

It is Degas' Bailarina Verde, Green Ballerina, in pastel and gouache, 1877- 1879. It looks so very modern, with its amazing composition. Jill says it felt like you could touch the embroidery and feel the texture of the skirts.
 
Beautiful.
 
Thank you Jill.

Between the two posts to the left of the shore path is the way in to a little wood....

It was planted by children from the (long gone) village school.

Nature has created a sculpture for you to admire and a myriad of creatures to inhabit.

Stellaria and pignut sparkle in the dappled sunlight

Delicate aspen were planted in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee - soft grass and bluebells have carpeted the floor - nature has made it her own

With pink campion in patches here and there the atmosphere is peaceful and almost magical

What better time than this, the Diamond Jubilee, for the Hall Association to put into action a long thought of plan to add to the diversity of the wood with some new trees, clear up some winter damage and restore the little path which used to run throught the wood - just the kind of low key, naturalistic, minimum intervention kind of community project I love to be involved with..

This is one of the crab apples planted all those years ago by a child who will now be about 65 years old.

A plan is being prepared - the aim to maintain the magic and keep it healthy and thriving for future generations to enjoy, and for insects, birds and small mammals to inhabit.

I didn't feel so kindly disposed towards the deer this morning (see yesterday's post) when I found that they had Chelsea chomped the lower leaves from all ten newly planted birch trees!
 
And had a munch at a few hardy geraniums as they passed.

Simply live....and let live..?
 
I took some photographs to show you the damage but decided you'd probably much rather look at this:

don't ask what the world needs
ask what makes you come alive
and go do it
because what the world needs most is people
who have come alive

Howard Thurman


So here is a nice question: what makes you come alive? For me it is visiting new places, learning something new, and hearing a deer rustle its way through the ferns in the forest when I went out at twilight last night to pick some scented flowers - lilac to put in the bathroom before I had my bath, and azalea lutea to put on the bedside table. Listening to great music makes me come alive. I've just been offered a piano! Something new to learn....

So, what makes you come alive?
And can you go do it?

Contemplate this 4 minute video..and be inspired to start taking some exercise! I was.

http://vimeo.com/31733784

I began this post yesterday, but when I came across the photo of the Olympic meadow I just wanted to sit staring at it (if you've not looked I'll pause here while you go to yesterday's post and take a peek, OK?)

Now wasn't that the most mindblowingly beautiful annual flowering meadow you have ever seen?

A gold medal please for Professor Nigel Dunnett!

It's not only the athletes who are concerned with their times. An area the size of ten football pitches has just been sown with annuals. The gardeners and designers who are creating the Olympic meadows have been trialling the flowers used for two years to be sure of getting them to come into flower at exactly the right time. As much of a challenge as the mens' 100 metres I'm sure. Sleepless nights if the weather isn't right! Stress!


The Chelsea Chop is the name given to the  practice of cutting plants back (around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show, hence the name) to get later flowers, to get more flowers, and/or to get a plant that is shorter and sturdier and less vulnerable to weather damage.

I've read that it began when wealthy people  were in the habit of going to their contry estates for the month of August and the gardeners tried to get everything in the pleasure gardens to flower during that month.

There was also a fashion in the 19C and early 20C for banking flowers like Michaelmas daisies with taller ones to the back andshorter ones to the front - it seems that if the front ones were cut back early enough they could all be in flower at the same time, creating spectacular effects. head gardeners must have kept careful notes as to what worked and when.

Timing was everything - as it is today for the Chelsea Show and the Olympics, and to a much lesser degree for those who open their gardens for charity. I'm chopping a few things and watering a few things which seem slow (the seeded patches on the lawn) but I won't be losing sleep over them!

click here for the most spectacular meadow you have ever seen!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67722108@N08/6736823309/in/set-72157628968506085

This little bunch of linaria is the result of a mini 'Chelsea Chop'.

Bedding plants are sometimes in full flower when you buy them now. The advantage is that you know exactly what the flowers look like, you don't have to depend on the picture on the label. The disadvantage is that the flowers will soon be over. I compromised here by cutting back every second stem or so on the linaria to encourage side shoots and many more flowers - when these current flowers fade I shall cut those stems hard back. This way I won't get as many flowers all at once, but I will get flowers over a much longer period which is what I want here.

I've put one plant of linaria with three of erigeron karvinskianus (Mexican daisy) in each of the five pots on the steps (this is them after their chop!)

I also bought a few small plants of heliotrope Cherry Pie - even this tiny plant (the jug in this picture is about three inches high) scents the warm air all around.
 
I have some in the greenhouse.

It's delicious in there today.


Anything smelling nice in your garden today?

I know all this is very serious (see yesterday's post) and I think it is reflected in the packaging - all very high minded, earnest and worthy, but wouldn't it be possible to make them look a bit more glamorous and fun? Trivial minded I know, but we humans like novelty and change and I'm as much a sucker for a bit of pretty and sparkle as the next person....

I think more people might buy them (we are influenced by attractive packaging - look at the advertising world for evidence of that), and they would certainly be more attractive to give as gifts which I'd like to do, but found myself hesitating to do, and think this is why. They don't need to look glitzy, but they don't need to look so prosaic either surely?

What do you think?

Could we have substance and style?
 
Whyever not? 

I'm being more careful about what I put in my body, as well as food, aware as I now am that everything I put on my skin is absorbed into my bloodstream!

I'm gradually changing the things I use to avoid parabens, pthalates and aluminium.

In Wholefoods Markets (see last post) when I said I was looking for shampoo and deodorants without these, the young woman waved her arm towards all the shelves and said 'You won't find them in any of our products'. Choosing then became a pleasure, instead of a minefield!

So far I've changed my toothpaste, bodywash, moisturiser, deodorant and shampoo.

When you start reading up on these things it would be easy to get panicked - pthalates are also known as 'gender benders', parabens are of concern in connection with early puberty in girls and breast cancers - and they are in everything (including the fat of polar bears in the Arctic I'm told!) so what chance have we got? Well, I remind myself that on average in the western world we are living longer and healthier than ever before in our history, and I avoid these things where I know I can....that is I don't deliberately put them into my body.

I use as my guide Dr David Servan Schreiber's book Anti Cancer - A New Way of Life. The latest edition comes with a pocket guide which is a useful summary.


Sorry I missed posting yesterday - there was a glitch with weebly, but they've fixed it....

I never thought I'd say this but I love a supermarket!!  (See my thoughts on supermarket stress at 1st April 2010 - archives column on right)

Wholefoods Market have opened a store in Glasgow:

Instead of my usual in and grab what I want and get out again as quickly as possible, I actually wanted to stay longer, chatting to the friendly, cheerful and knowledgeable staff, tasting the samples, admiring the displays, having another coffee, reading the brochures about sustainable fishing, farm animal welfare, 'Ask the butcher', 'Meet the producers', supporting local and third world charities....

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/giffnock

Brilliant! Can't wait to go again!

This little photograph reminds me that simplest is often best.

The white flower is geranium robertianum Celtic White - a variety of our native herb robert which I always have in my gardens in memory of a friend Robert. I grew it from seed - www.plant-world-seeds.com - and planted it out in the garden and it has spread, daintily and prettily, to all gravelly and stony corners. Here and there they have crossed with the native dark pink one to produce a delightful pale pink, as here. The flowers are so pure and simple.

They are totally hardy, grow in sun or shade, seed themselves around but are not difficult to remove from places where you do not want them. I remove most of the red ones which are easily identifiable by their red stems. They withstand a certain amount of being tread upon round our table and chairs, and flower from May till November. What more could one ask? They require no attention whatsoever - perfect plants.

I can't help but compare with the showy and demanding delphiniums....(see yesterday's post)

There's a lesson here:

Keep it simple.

you lose some.....

While we were away strong winds decimated the delectable looking delphiniums.

Fortunately there is time to implement plan B! And I've cut back the delphiniums to the base - I think they will come back and still flower but much later. They will probably also be shorter and stouter and not so vulnerable to the wind.

Am taking a short break from my blog. Back soon, meanwhile some photographs from the May garden....

I do love May! Have a good week, and thank you for reading.

No philosophising today - all muck and magic. The muck was the heap of manure which has been sitting on our drive all winter (!) Mixed with the home made compost it made a great top dressing for beds which have had nothing added to them for years. The magic was provided by the weather - still sunny - and these camassias.

Camassia leichtlinii coerulea (what a mouthful) does well here, coming up every year with no attention whatever - a star with it's starry flowers.

I'm interested in the idea of the underlying geometry of the garden (see Liz's comment on Cubist gardening on 3rd May). In garden design I find that if it works on plan on paper then it usually works in three dimensions in reality.

Proportion really matters, and harmony with the buildings in and surroundings of the garden. In a well designed garden you are aware of this harmony though you may know nothing about how it was achieved.

If you'd like to know more about how it can be achieved I'd recommend John Brookes' Garden Design Book. In the chapter Learning To Design, Choosing and Using a Grid, Brookes shows an excellent way to create this harmony, which is always the starting point for me in any design.

I'm interested always in the underlying design or philosophy behind ideas of all kinds, not just gardening ideas, and in looking at things from different perspectives.


For a completely different perspective on your life do try to see Around The World in 60 Minutes on BBC 4 - it is on BBC i player for another four days. Brilliant.

This is looking towards the same corner of the front garden. It's interesting to look back on how we got from 'before' to 'after'....I do remember sitting on the front porch and drawing out the basic shapes literally on the back of an envelope! And planting little birch trees about 4 foot high....the grass improved just with regular cutting, the soil proved to be quite fertile and I began growing lots of things from seed as soon as we got an 8 x 6 greenhouse (2002/3 I think).
 
A lot of thinking, imagining, and sheer hard work.
 
And pleasure, joy and relaxation.

I do love my garden.

Do you have any before and after shots of your house or your garden?
 
Why not go and dig them out?

Without the vision of the flowers and the colour combination in my mind, I wouldn't perhaps be prepared to do all the sowing, watering, hardening off, planting out, thinning, feeding and tying in that it takes to get from one to the other! From many years of practice and trial and error I have a lot of confidence in my skills I guess, and I find this kind of work very therapeutic - I love it, and it doesn't feel like 'work' most of the time....and come summer the pleasure of walking out of the door early on a quiet sunny morning and walking in among the flowers, smelling the scents, delighting in the colours of the day's new poppies and picking a few of the colours that excite me most to put on the breakfast table - well it's heaven.

I must do more before and after photos.

It occurs to me that with the addition of some white gypsophila my patch could go all patriotic this year! (See yesterday's post.)

Hmmm. Too gaudy.

 
In this quarter of the cutting patch I've put sweet pea 'Gwendoline'- pale pink with a very good scent, and a pot of mixed Spencer type sweet peas I bought when I thought I didn't have enough from seed. (I did.) In the centre are Shirley poppies as last year. Around them I will put Nigella damascene - pale blue with attractive seedheads, and euphorbia oblongata - lime green the same as the canes. All the way around the edge I've sown night scented stock - I adore the smell of this.

In the third quarter will be cosmos, gypsophila and poppy Cedric Morris with all its subtle un-nameable colours. I think I'll mix these all together like a meadow effect.

The fourth quarter will have everything that's left over! It already has alpine strawberries around the edges.

The planning is a big part of the fun....

                                           Tea and toast on my favourite perch - yes, we're still having warm sunshine!

The Cutting Patch is beginning to look like business.

Envisage in this quarter, if you will, red sweet peas - Winston Churchill, and sweet pea Matucana - deep purple, fabulous scent, surrounded by cornflowers Blue Diadem and Black Ball, surrounded by Clary Sage (blue) and deep blue larkspur. In the middle of the wigwam I've sown red Flanders poppies - hopefully they will pop through the sweet peas.

I can see it so clearly in my mind's eye - I always can, and sometimes it works (and sometimes it doesn't!).

To be a gardener you have to be an optimist., don't you think?


Am still deciding what goes where in the other three quarters....