Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Wordless Wednesday - Tree


Thursday, January 15, 2015

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - January 2015

It's been quite some time since I've written a GBBD post. Strolling (struggling in the bitterly cold wind) around the garden, there are a fair few flowers in bloom at the moment. A couple of the snowdrops I planted after Thomas was born are in flower, though the snails love to chew their delicate petals off. The violas in containers continue to point their eager faces to the fickle sun. Sarcococca and Viburnum in the front garden greet you with a double whammy of perfume. Because of the mild winter to date, there are even very pregnant buds on the Scabious.

The one winter performer which consistently flowers this early for me, however, is the one which heralds in the rush of the spring flowers - my fresh, speckled green hellebore. It's the first of the hellebores to flower, and its sturdy petals will keep looking good right through to the end of March.

We may not yet have had a proper winter, but spring is most definitely on its way.


Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting GBBD.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Sunday, January 04, 2015

All about the space

It's cold. The days are short. But when the sun shines in winter, it can turn a well-structured garden into a shifting theatre of light and space.

When there's little else to distract the eye (those pesky pretty flowers), you can more easily absorb the importance of space in a garden.

Sadly, this doesn't hold true for most areas of our garden - I have a tendency to poke too many plants in, and there are large herbaceous/shrub borders which aren't very structured. However, on a trip to Erdigg today, I had the chance to admire good use of space and structure. In the low winter light, highlighted by frost, space provides a range of uses: it gives the eye a chance to rest; draws the eye to a view, and allows shadows to play their own dramatic role within the garden.

The low hedge below uses spaces to create a chequerboard effect, further accentuated by the frost.
 

 The pleached trees look more dramatic with their tortured skeletons exposed.

Ordered spacing of the cones draws the eyes onwards, through the gap in the hedge, to more shaped repetitions.

Spaces between the evergreens allow the low sun to cast shadows which separate each fruit tree by a frosted grassy finger.

More mundanely, spaces between branches and fruiting spurs on this 'Pitmaston Pine Apple' apple tree allow fruit to mature and air to circulate.

Not many of us have this much space, but the visit today has made me think about how I can make better use of space to allow the eye to rest within my own garden. A sunny winter's day is also a great opportunity to see how I can better use shadows as ephemeral art.