Category: Texture

The garden is a place to indulge your senses, and texture is a huge part of this. Come and stroke some velvety and silken textures with me.

Witch Hunt

I find February an excruciating month. We are so close to spring, but it is often getting colder rather than warmer. Bulbs have broken the surface of the soil, but their growth is glacial. I feel like each time I visit the garden I am willing it on, but it is like a painfully shy child. The more pressure it feels to perform, the more it hides its head and keeps schtum.

Sand Dunes

If you are in company and you face-plant, everyone can enjoy it. If you are on your own and you face-plant, you have to spring up quickly, as if you meant to do that, as if it was just part of your normal skipping pattern.

A Rimy Morning

Mist simultaneously closes in, and creates distance. It disorientates, and makes the landscape appear what it is not. Islands appear in a sea of mist, and birds start out of nowhere.

The Gift of Frost

It is at the interface between living thing and the outside world where the magic happens.

Sleeping Beauty

We are in the inbetween-time, waiting for signs of life…

Pops and Neutrals

I am a ‘colour pop’ kind of a girl. But occasionally, with a light frost, I am forced to focus on the neutrals. With the aid of my new book all about colour, I can now distinguish my buff from my fawn!

Baubles

As we pass into winter, we have to appreciate the little things. The bright and shiny baubles, the trinkets, the gewgaws. All that glisters. All that twinkles, and reflects the light.

Appliqué

Autumn is frippery and frills. Autumn is gewgaws and jewels, catching the light. It is burnished bronze and polished mahogany. All these riches, if we are minded to see them.

Twinkle Twinkle

We tend to focus on colour in autumn, but it is also a change in form that I notice. Leaves thin out, filtering sunlight. Each leaf is holding on by a thread. They spin on their stalks, catching the light. It is like the garden is strung with fairy lights.

Clarity

Being outdoors, pottering in the garden, listening to the birds, noticing colours and textures and patterns, enjoying a cup of tea… These are all forms of self-care. They are nurturing for my soul. Self-care brings clarity. I am refreshed, and can see things more clearly.

Will this post calm me down?

Understanding the basics of Sensory Integration can help us plan a garden that can have calming areas, to balance the alerting areas. There are also some tips for calming yourself in a stressful situation, using the principles of Sensory Integration.