A study in light

It has been blowing a gale, but I set myself the challenge today of looking at the effects of light. Stupidly, I did this with flowers on long wavy stems with big heads that easily catch the slightest breeze, at the end of a wind tunnel of a passageway between the front and back garden. I have deleted loads of photos where the frame is almost empty apart from a smear of purple in one corner, where the allium head has blown out of shot. Lessons learnt? That photos with the sun behind you are flat, that interesting effects can be made by shooting into the light (but the white balance or something isn’t right – I’ll have to experiment with that) and that flower photography would be much easier if I did it when wasn’t blowing a hoolie.

  Front lit

Side lit

Back lit

Rhapsody in Blue

To continue my Meconopsis obsession – yesterday it looked divine, the blue of the flower fading into the stem. Today a declining Hollywood beauty casting off petals, like Jayne Mansfield casting off a mink coat.

    

Wordless Wednesday - Intimacy

Eyes wide shut

I must have been going around with my eyes shut to have never noticed this tree in flower before. SomeBeans and I saw it at Ness gardens last week, and I was sure I’d not seen one before. Since then, however, I’ve seen them all over the place.

 

It’s Prunus padus ‘Watereri’. A chorus of “Of course it is – can’t believe you’ve not noticed it before – can’t move for falling over them” rises from the blogosphere. I shall have to be more observant – perhaps an I Spy book of trees would help. I’m sure if I was trying to impress Big Chief I-Spy with my spotting abilities I would take a bit more notice of my surroundings.

What a difference a day makes…

 

From this…

…to the petals unfurling as creased as a butterfly’s wings as it emerges from its cocoon.

You might be seeing more photos of this beautiful Meconopsis. A wonderful advantage of living in the cool, damp North West of England.

Happy now

Our garden pleases me at the moment.

It has some weeds, it has some gaps. It has some beautiful bits. It has some ugly bits.

It has flowers, it has foliage. It has birds, it has slugs. It has had sweat, an occasional bit of blood and the odd few tears.

It has memories.It has anticipation.

It has love.

I am enjoying the daily changes at this time of year, and am happy to spend some time just sitting, looking.

“We want a shrubbery”

It seems like Roger the Shrubber (“I arrange, design and sell shrubberies”) might be becoming a little more popular in the near future. Shrubs are making a comeback.

I have to admit that until very recently I  have had a bit of a blind spot when it comes to shrubs. I have some in the garden but I just let them get on with it.

When we first moved in to this house, the front garden was packed full of a range of shrubs. Some were in theory rather nice plants (I love the wafting smell of Mahonia as I walk past one), but the previous inhabitants of the house insisted on pruning them all into round blobs. I’m sure it was just to tidy the garden up a bit before it went on sale, but it was like walking into a child’s drawing of a garden. Big, blobby green masses on sticks. No flowers – they had all been cut off by indiscriminate use of electric shears. We won’t even mention the crazy paving path. Nor the blousy pink hydrangea which was first up against the wall when the garden revolution came.

And come it did – all the shrubs were mercilessly hoiked out.

 

 But shrubs are important. They provide structure to the garden. In the case of evergreens, winter interest and structure is maintained. Dogwoods give colour in a monochrome season. In spring, shrubs can be clothed in blossom; in autumn their leaves can burn as brightly as any Fall forests. Yet, why is it that I’m only just beginning to realise the importance, and the usefulness and the beauty of shrubs? Stick me in front of a herbaceous border and I can name many of the plants; place me besides a well-stocked shrubbery and until very recently I could have given a few names, had a guess at a couple more, and that would be it. Laurel was laurel – green, ugly, and usually a hedge which had been cut with hedge trimmers, leaving dismembered parts of leaves slowly browning at the edges. Perhaps that’s why I’ve spurned shrubs – people treat them badly; abused shrubs never look good.

A little bit of knowledge has gone a long way to combat my feeling of ‘meh’ when I hear the word shrub. I’ve learnt to identify some and go around naming shrubs in car parks and in peoples’ front gardens. And now I rather like them, and recognise their usefulness. Whilst a I might never want a shrubbery, at least I no longer want to grub them out.

Wordless Wednesday - Liverwort

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day April 2011

A few warm days last week really brought on a panoply of spring flowers. You can see many of these flowers on other people’s GBBD posts, so I thought I’d include a couple that might not feature elsewhere*. The following two weren’t planted by me, but are welcome. Our lawn is not a monoculture! No stripes of perfection here.

  *Although having gone to Carol’s post to put my own up and add a comment, I note that she, too, has included the fiery petalled flower of number 2.

Wordless Wednesday – fly away home