A cool, crisp, bright day today – needed my fleece parka for walking the dog down the lane and he is beginning to spring and bounce through the grass as it gets longer. From the embarrassment of riches that spring is now offering, this morning I’ve chosen quince blossom. Any quince tree is a thing of beauty, with its big… Read more »
Cooler this morning, with pink and grey clouds in the sky. Sunny but I think we will need a fire tonight, and I am back in socks and a fleece gilet. The first rose to flower in the garden this year is Frülingsanfang, a tall and thorny shrub bred by German nursery Kordes. I highly recommend the Kordes roses if… Read more »
A beautiful day, with a pink and purple sunrise – due to be a little cooler today, which is no bad thing, and we are off for a bike ride in a moment. Today’s motif is a huge queen red-tailed bumblebee, bombyx lapidarius, as she flew in through our open bedroom window this morning. She may be the same one… Read more »
Another beautiful sunny day with a pinky peach sunrise, and we took a long, warm walk around the newly-mown orchard this morning. It smells glorious. I was going to stitch my first roses today, but when walking by the pond, I almost trod on a frog, which hopped out of my way and into the long grass, so a (very… Read more »
A peachy pink sunrise, and already warm as I walked down the lane, the heat bringing out the honeyed scent of millions of flowers. One area of our fruit walk is carpeted with heath speedwells, their lovely blue flowers turned upwards to the sun. Like many blue flowers, it is actually purple when you look at it closely and its… Read more »
Awoke to a peachy dawn this morning, and a beautiful, crisp spring day, the temperatures just short of frost but due to ramp up as the day goes on. Everywhere in the lane, the pignut is in flower. Not such a charming name, but once a useful spring survival plant due to its edible root, which must have been very… Read more »
A beautiful dawn today with streaks of pink and turquoise, and a lovely walk around the orchard with a very bouncy dog. In the bog garden section of our pond, the bogbean is in flower, a strange plant with hairy, white, pink-tinged flowers that rise from the water in a spire. I always welcome it as a sign that all… Read more »
A lovely morning – very fresh and cold, with frost lying in the ditches but warmth in the sun. All along the lane, red clover is coming into flower, wriggling its way upwards through the buttercups and Queen Anne’s Lace. Today’s threads are pale blue cotton perlé no 5, green Peri-Lusta six-strand embroidery cotton sewn in two strands, pale green… Read more »
A pale, grey day with a cold, blustery wind. Nevertheless there is an embarrassment of riches to choose from with our blossom trees and bushes. I’ve gone with lilac, as I could smell them in the courtyard. We have four lilacs, but only one is in flower, as I cut the other three hard back and they won’t flower again… Read more »
A cold, sunny morning, which is a relief after so much rain. Out in the orchard, the forget-me-nots have come into flower. Wild forget-me-nots – myosotis arvensis – have a very tiny flower, much smaller than the garden variety, and the flowers unfurl from a scorpion-shaped stalk, gradually changing colour from pink to lilac to blue. The flowers are edible,… Read more »