Jennie's garden has some rich dark flower combinations. Here verbena bonariensis creates a backdrop for thalictrum delavayi.

The stems of the dainty thalictrum are the same colour as the flowers on the verbena.

It was hard to photograph but these purples are set against the almost black foliage of Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace' - to the right at the back....

Heuchera, astrantia, Cosmos atrosanguineus and a jewel like ruby knautia; black hollyhocks in waiting, the darkness alleviated by the dangling flowers of the pale dierama.

My own favourite - geranium 'Dragonheart' with scabious 'Chile Black' - sumptuous!

Do you have any dark stars in your garden?

The cerinthe is drooping..

the hop is getting lacy.

                                           The slugs got the lupin stems..

the dear alchemilla is flopping everywhere,

and I can't keep up with watering the pots.

But do you know what?

Some of it is still gorgeous,

                                                                                                                 and I'm still loving it!

How is your garden doing this strange summer?

We had a great weekend at the Scottish Sculpture Park.

Lots of visitors and some sales too....and my show is extended for another week.

Tighnabruaich Gallery are using the space in The Boathouse....

which is currently being restored,

            though it's rather attractive in its rough state too I think...

The latest and largest painting 'Dreams of Flying' (paint still wet!)

More about the Sculpture Park here
More about Tighnabruaich Gallery here
and more on my arty blog when  I update it tomorrow....

Am taking a mini blog break to prepare for an exhibition this weekend in the Boathouse at the excellent Scottish Sculpture Park at Caol Ruadh. (See posts for 8 and 9 July 2012.)

They are opening for Afternoon Tea for the charity Scotland's Gardens on Sat 28 and Sun 29 July from 2 - 5 each day. For more details click here. I may see you there (if you live near enough to come....)

I'm showing lots of paintings inspired by my garden.

Colour is what it's all about!

Optimists or what?
We had solar panels fitted today, in the pouring rain..but, they are generating electricity as I write, in the pouring rain!

Encouraging....

Checking out Charleston Manor Festival site for yesterday's post, I noticed that you can watch films of the festival now. I really enjoyed this interview with cellist and director of the festival Robert Cohen and pianist Heine Karkkainen. They are being interviewed innediately after a performance, and are clearly on an emotional high - at one point Cohen says 'I know we're really gushing away here!'. But for me it captured what it felt like to be there - I thought it really special and he explains why. See it here It's the second video on the list.

www.hibrow.tv is quite a find! Art, music, literature, theatre, dance, cinema....

I've written before about requirements for a simple holiday. (See under Simply Holiday 21 Sept 2010 and 26 Jun 2011.)

After a perfect break last summer at the Charleston Manor Music Festival in East Sussex (see here) we decided that music holidays were for us.

This year we are going to Suffolk for the Snape Maltings Proms and the complete works of Beethoven for piano and cello, with the wonderful Steven Isserlis. (click here)

I have to say I'm really fussy when it comes to finding somewhere to stay. I want simple, clean, stylish and reasonably cheap - not too much to ask? It has to be at least as nice as home, if not nicer, or why bother? After hours online I've found what I was looking for at Alistair Sawday's Special Places to Stay   http://www.sawdays.co.uk

Getting excited now!

What kind of holiday gets you excited?

I listened to the Norman Lebrecht Interview on Radio 3. Being interviewed was conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and a man more in love with life I have rarely heard.

Of El Sistema fame, and a product himself of that wonderful music project which transforms the lives of disadvantaged children through playing an instrument, he is joyous, passionate and totally committed. Even the way he says the word mussic, is music! I've had to create a new category on the blog....

To lift your spirits listen on i player. The Lebrecht Interview 9.45pm BBC Radio 3 Monday 16 July, and to sample something of the Dudamel effect  in Scotland recently click here

One day, somewhere, I will combine these subtly coloured plants in one border - putting colours together is probably my favourite part of gardening....

Probably with a bit of something lemony lime to spice it up?

Colour By Design by Nori and Sandra Pope is an erudite, wordy (in a good way) and inspirational book.

In discussing colour in the garden they refer to music, architecture, interior design, physics and psychology....but there are also some very practical tips like planting a young lupin beside a clump of mature ones to prolong the flowering season.

I had the pleasure of visiting Hadspen when they were gardeners there. It was really special. They have returned to their native Canada, and the Hadspen Estate is up for sale, so I feel lucky to have seen it when I did, and am glad to have the book to remind me of it and inspire me.

There's a new post today about Coronation Wood - click on tab at top right....

Not Waving but Drowning....

Click here to see a slideshow by an artist who took advantage of the rain to take some beautiful shots of her garden.

Guess what came in the post today? A Christmas catalogue and an invitation to a Christmas Fair! Noooooo.....
You have to laugh!

I keep having to bring flowers into the house to dry! And light candles and log fires for a bit of cheer....

This is campanula lactiflora which I've not picked for the house before, but it's lovely - light and summery (even if the weather isn't) and lasting well. The blue is Pritchard's Variety and the pink Anna Lodden.




(No show with the Northern Lights - though maybe there was when I was sleeping!)

Another posting in Coronation Wood....

Have you ever seen the Northern Lights?

I've not seen them yet, but live in hope!
 
I'm registered with a site run by the physics department of the University of Lancaster which sends me e mail alerts when it is likely that the aurora borealis will be visible - find out more here - we're on amber alert tonight and there is no cloud so tonight may be the night! If I can stay awake that is....

We did however have a most beautiful sky on Friday 13th:

I found this quote on the lovely website recommended by Liz - http://iansidawaydrawing.blogspot.co.uk/

With wine in hand, one reaches the happy state where men are wise, women are beautiful, and even one's children look promising.

Yes!

Though I am going to substitute paintings for children !

The weather has driven me indoors to the studio where I am sorting work for a gallery owner's visit. But inspired by Ian Sideaway's drawings I must also search out that old rapidograph...thank you Liz.

Another useable day, is spite of the rain!

See the new posting in Coronation Wood photoblog....

I laughed out loud when I heard the weatherman say  'Tomorrow looks like being a useable day.'

Useable?!

What would we do if he predicted an unuseable day? Not bother getting out of bed?

                                                     Well it proved to be a very useable botanising day.

                                                                  Hope you had a useable day too!

I've added a new page to the blog - click on Coronation Wood, top right, under the new banner photograph to read about a new project....I'd love to hear about any similar project you might be involved with.. 

Reaching for the sun this morning - me too!

Yay!



On a day like this I don't want to be anywhere else.

So many exciting things happening in the garden..I've been waiting a long time to see if these would come true from seed. I loved the colour of this poppy, papaver somniferum, bought in Kent last year....

the pollen is exactly the colour of the lichen on the fence.

Is anything in the garden as amazing as the colour of cerinthe purpurescens?

It's an easily grown annual which produces lots of seed.

The bees love it.

So do I.

I hope you are getting sunshine today too....

A blog post I recently found chimed with my living simply ethos. Project: unsubscribe from www.lucentimagery.com is about mind de-cluttering and inspired me to clean up my inbox! An intruiging title and some lovely photgraphy. I enjoyed browsing this elegant site. See the blog post here.

Annie's post on www.knitsofacto.blogspot.co.uk led me to an interesting Sketchbook Project. See Annie's post here and the project here.

I have mentioned www.cornflowerbooks.co.uk before. It's really two sites, one bookish, one covering lots of things - if you are going to Edinburgh check out cornflower's places to see. There is always something of interest here for me, and I am buying A Year in the Village of Eternity and The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century..on Karen's recommendation.


Have you any favourite blogs to recommend?

I don't have any sculpture per se in my garden, but I do have a lot of sculptural elements - found objects, old fence posts called 'memorial to the old fence', topiary, cane wigwams, pots and bowls, and the Lutyens bench is very sculptural, as is the way the hedge is cut....

(click on a picture to enlarge)

Do you have any sculpture in your garden? Or as you look around it can you identify a space where a piece of sculpture could sit?

The sculptors at Caol Ruadh (see yesterday's post) are often inspired by the natural landscape and the Sculpture Park is the kind of place which heightens your awareness of form and texture to such a degree that when walking back to my car I was more aware of the beauty, the colours, the patina and quality of light on the land than I was when I arrived - it is all art, and life enhancing, whether shaped by human hand or natural processes. Surely this is one of the purposes of Art....

Well done, Caol Ruadh.

These are my favourite images and sculptures by Illona Morrice:

I missed the opening of Caol Ruadh (pronounced 'Col Ru') as it clashed with the opening of our garden, but I drove there today.

With more than 40 pieces of sculpture from artists working in Scotland, it's been created by landscape designers Karen Scotland and Anne Edmonds in 20 acres of varied and beautiful garden in Colintraive, Argyll.

The two works here  are by Tom Allan.

I thought this sculpture by Angela Hunter was beautifully placed..

                                       As was this disturbing piece by Kevin Dagg....
                                       (the rest is already submerged!)

 







The figure on the shore by Rob Mulholland is about life size and gives you a sense of the scale of the place (though for me it's too Anthony Gormley- like).
 
Intruiging nonetheless.

There is a surprise inside the door of what was a fruit store, and the boat house to the right is in the process of becoming a gallery in conjunction with Tighnabruaich Gallery - I'm delighted to have been asked to show there on July 28th when the garden opens under Scotland's Gardens scheme. Click here for details.

See Caol Ruadh's informative and attractive website here, and Tighnabruaich' s equally good site here

Neither should be missed if you are in this part of the world!

                     My own favourites were by Danish born Illona Morrice.


                                              ..more images tomorrow....

We love the mini meadow (we simply allowed the grass to grow). It gives us pleasure quite out of proportion to its size and reminds me of the award winning French film Microcosmos which was a great success on general release in cinemas about 1996. Watch a trailer for it here

A bowl of freshly picked mixed salad leaves and flowers. Add a diced avocado, a handful of crushed walnuts and a walnut oil and lemon juice dressing....

Eat out of doors in hot sunshine with a glass of something chilled.

My optician told me that brightly coloured fruits and vegetables are good for the health of my eyes - they are good for my eyes to look at too.




Have the ingredients to hand in case the sun shines again soon!

I take this shot every year - looking out of the front door as the evening light slants across the garden. Every year it's a little different. This year the pots on the steps are overflowing with Mexican daisy and linaria.

For the first time in what feels like weeks I had a couple of hours in the garden in the evening. Warm, dry, no midges, pleasant tasks to do - planting the last of the poppies grown in plugs, picking gypsophila Covent Garden, deadheading; the smell of the honeysuckle wafting over and the rumble of thunder never far away. Now the rain has come and the sky is dark and threatening, but I've had my fix and am feeling content..


I enjoyed the piece called Care For The Spark by Tara Sophia Mhor on July 3rd -  click here and scroll down.....and tell me what you think of it.

Actually, in this garden, just one.

Alstroemeria.

Elegant and a good cut flower for a few years, then it spread, and spread, and ran through everything in the bed, and stopped flowering.

The devil of a job to get out!


What do you regret having planted?