In May, the Kentish country lanes are full of froth and fizz. They are overflowing with hawthorn blossom and the cow parsley. It reminds me of filling a champagne flute and seeing if it overflows.
Category: Bulbs
Planting bulbs in your garden or in pots will guarantee surprises through the seasons. There is nothing quite so therapeutic as we go into winter as planting spring bulbs. Here are some of my favourites…
The Tulips’ Final Fling
The tulips have delighted me for three, nearly four weeks. This is their final fling!
Painting with Tulips
I can’t paint or draw. Gardening is my way of splashing around with colour, creating new combinations and having a few happy accidents. My media, right now, is tulips.
The Birth of the Tulips
The birth of the tulips has been laboured and slow this year, but their emergence is a triumph.
The Shy Tulips
Nature has a way of correcting herself. If she overreaches, she seems to reflect, and modify her trajectory to get back on track. And so, in the second week of April, as always, I am beside myself with anticipation for the arrival of the tulips.
Tight-knit
Tight-knit: adjective: closely integrated and bound in love or friendship
Spring at Sissinghurst
When I am photographing plants, I often favour my macro lens in order to capture the details of flowers. Today I made a conscious decision to use a different lens in order to capture the bigger picture. I enjoyed playing around with angles so that I could capture detail in the foreground, but give a sense of space and perspective in the background.
Early Risers
Hyacinths are the easiest of bulbs to grow in the garden. They are reliably hardy and perennial, and bulk up each year. Just remember to wear gloves when planting, and don’t touch your face!
A Certain Flair
There are some rather wonderful words for describing the shape of a flower’s stigma. ‘Plumoso’ describes a feathered shape. ‘Lobado’ describes a lobed shape. There is conicoid (conical), discoide (disc-shaped) and con pelos (with hair). I would describe a crocus stigma as plumoso. Lucky crocus.
Bumbling
I love watching any type of bee, but bumblebees are especially endearing. Especially when they dive nose-first into a flower and tip up their furry bums.
Ice Queen
You can see the intricacy of the markings. They remind me of a school chromatography experiment when we made an ink spot on blotting paper and then dipped it in water. The pigments in the ink slowly separated and spread out over the blotting paper.
Leeds Castle’s Secret Gardens
I don’t know about you, but when I visit a garden over and over again, I tend to go in exactly the same direction in the same order as every other time I have visited. Somehow, in the nine years I have been visiting Leeds Castle, I have managed never to have noticed Lady Baillie’s Mediterranean Garden.
