A funny thing...
Garden photography is a funny thing. In the depths of winter, last summer's pictures are impossibly colourful. And sometimes there's unexpected disappointment - for example, when in pictures taken five years ago the garden actually looks better than now. Aargh! What improvements?
Glass-House Garden Lupins
A different type of disappointment with my last batch of shots - they weren't quite right. The real garden scenes were so much more inspiring than my pictures. I decided that's a good thing. The real garden is far too beautiful and elusive to be 'captured' and turned into digital data, hee hee.
Flower Close-Up Time...
It's flower close-up time. Propping a drooping Aquilegia up by the scruff of its neck and rudely poking the camera lens at it seems rather aggressive. It's much gentler to bend creakily down and say a shy hello, but then the light isn't right - oh dear.
And I would never, ever break off a flower just to better position it for a photograph. That's appallingly selfish. Those darling Aquilegias are growing everywhere, and are giving me an amazing collection of colours this year. Thanks, you lovely bees!
Tuesday 5th November
This morning the hoses are already on - I'm finishing my watering of the Hen House Gardens. It's now time to pull out the forget-me-nots from the house gardens and pop in some flowering annuals. I have lots of white cosmos which should do the trick. But no matter how many annuals I produce from seed in the glass-house, I never end up with enough. Funny? It's that rule for spending money on an overseas trip - work out how much you need, and then double it. Or triple it?
Pink Flowering Eucalyptus Tree
I've already plodded over to the side driveway with four huge barrowfuls of forget-me-nots and two of assorted annoying weeds. Four plus two equals six. On every dumping journey I saw little treasures : aquilegias of extraordinary delicacy and colour design, a gum tree with pink flowers covered by bees.
But There's More...
But there's more! A flame red deciduous Azalea is flowering for the first time. Her name is Dorothy Corston. Ha! Finally, a label shamelessly (and sensibly) left on a shrub. So Dorothy is duly recorded. Isn't she a stunner?
Deciduous Azalea Dorothy Corston
My garden is a wonderful place to spend a day, even if it covers me in sticky biddi-bids and my fingers get 'thorned'. I've now picked up seven more bags of the stinkiest horse manure, which is now spread and covered up by three more barrowfuls of forget-me-nots.
White Cosmos :- Cosmos is a pretty annual daisy which self-seeds - if you want it to.
I've planted white Cosmos and violas in the patio garden, and dug out the yellow tulips. Next spring I'll definitely keep the tulips in pots - so much easier when they die down. The soil around the patio gardens is awfully dry, so I reckon the forget-me-nots smother the soil surface so much that the rain can't penetrate. I've got one of the hoses on, working its way slowly along the border.
Aha! My photographs have inspired me, oddly, to work harder in the garden to get a 'good look' to each border. I hope you enjoy peeping at them as much as I do. And thanks to the Aquilegias (or Columbines, or Granny's Bonnets) for being so generous.
Cool Pink Aquilegias