Looking around the gardens in our neighbourhood, it is easy to see that time and experience are the keys to a verdant winter garden. To create a pleasing backdrop to the bareness of a cool climate garden, with so many deciduous trees, the surrounding gardens feature a range of conifers, evergreen shrubs, and other winter…
Tag: highlight
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
When we are viewing gardens, an open garden or our own, we sometimes fail to truly see and what we see is never all there is. Yes, we notice the lush foliage, the trees, or the colours, but do we truly ‘see’ the connections, the angles, the interplay of colours, and the play of light…
“Don’t think the garden loses it’s ectasy in Winter. Its quiet but the roots are down there riotous.”
With only a few days left before winter is officially here, we have tasted days to come. On cloudy days when the sun’s warmth is missed retreating indoors to winter comforts, the fireside, cosy rugs and delicious hot soups are welcome diversions. “There ought to be Gardens for all Months in the year, in which,…
“Who has learned to garden who did not at the same time learn to be patient?”
I spoke too soon last time, and now that drop of rain has continued for days. Not a deluge, thankfully, but enough drizzle, fog and dampness to prevent working outside. The timing of recent rains was perfect because I’d almost finished applying compost and mulch, so the extra water would well and truly have soaked…
“You must fail at gardening to master it.”
Nature wins this week in the garden. If ever there was a time one needed some inspiration to garden, this is it. Forget the heat and typical summer weather; the number of mosquitoes since our floods and storms are extreme and make being in the garden almost impossible. I usually head out in summer with…
Le Pigonnet -A garden where Cezanne wandered…
Le Pigonnet is a beautiful Hotel in Aix en Provence, France, tucked away from the town centre, albeit not far away. Le Pigonnet is from the French word Pigeonniere ( Pigeon House). As you enter along a magnificent tree-lined avenue to view the hotel, you would be surprised by the humble entrance. Le Pigonnet was…
Carla Fineschi Rose Garden, Tuscany
It is time to re-post my story about the Carla Fineschi Rose garden in Arezzo Tuscany because it has been renamed “Gianfranco and Carla Fineschi Botanical Rose Garden Association” according to their website. “The ROSETO BOTANICO GIANFRANCO AND CARLA FINESCHI ASSOCIATION, commonly known as “Roseto Fineschi” since 2015, has replaced the “Roseto Botanico Carla Fineschi…
“Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.”
I have few words left to describe 2021 so instead, I have a collection of my favourite shots of the roses in the garden this Spring and early Summer. The garden has had a fantastic year and the roses are wonderful due to the unseasonal weather. Like the rose and the thorn, life has two…
The Perfumed Garden
Today is about the perfume and scent of roses…. It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves. Robert Louis Stevenson Did you know that rose perfume is at its most intense very early in the morning and the scent will gradually become less…
“One who plants a garden plants happiness.”
Today brings a sense of déjà vu, I’m inside again due to more rain. We’ve only had a few days of fine weather that lasted long enough to be out gardening recently. Surprisingly, at the end of the day last time I was out in the garden, despite the aches and pains after heavy work,…
“I am following Nature without being able to grasp her… I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ”
Nurture; nur·ture a verb (used with object), nur·tured, nur·tur·ing. “To help develop, help grow, nourish, sustain, to promote growth” Nurture is the best word to describe my growing of Claude Monet and Nahema roses in my garden because these two roses, more than any others, have been taken care of quite diligently, with daily encouragement, care, and…
“Patience is a flower that does not grow in everybody’s garden”
Patience is a necessary life skill, especially worth developing for gardeners. As we work hand in hand with nature to create and maintain the garden of our dreams we know it will take time, persistence and backbone. Apart from providing all the right elements as best we can, there is a point where we have…
Then Spring Came
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. Pablo Neruda Spring, the gorgeous season of the year, has arrived in the garden. The garden suddenly a happy place full of activity and new beginnings. The lavender buzzing with thousands of bees, blossoms like fairy dust here one day and blown away…
“Each moment of the year has its own beauty, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.”
– Centre front in my mind and heart over the last few months are my roses. Living in isolation in a rural environment is quite usual, although not quite anti-social as we have experienced this year. Without the opportunity to see family and friends, my focus has been on the garden, and I have busily…
“Life is itself a school, and nature always a fresh study.”
It’s pretty tough in the garden sometimes even though Spring’s colour and fragrance have replaced the cold and frosty days of winter. We have experienced extreme weather this Spring with long days of high winds, heat and dust storms that have created havoc. Many plants are struggling from wind damage and the ground, despite my…
“To Plant a Garden is to Believe in Tomorrow”
In almost every garden, the land is made better and so is the gardener. Robert Rodale When I reflect on the past few years of growing a rose garden, I often wonder, after a day of being scratched by rose thorns, bitten by mosquitoes and exhausted by the heat, why it is I love it so…
It was roses, roses all the way.
The sentiment in the Robert Browning quote above could have been written about David Austin, the English rose Breeder who revolutionised garden roses with his team in Shropshire, United Kingdom. David Austin will always be remembered for bringing the charm and romance back into rose breeding. From a young teenager until the age of 92,…
Jardin à la française
“The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change: Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.” Paul Coelho Last…