A Rainbow of Colours

It's raining here today, and the sky is very grey so I thought I'd cheer things up with a rainbow of colours from the garden (taken on a sunnier day!).

RED - forgotten variety of strawberry!

ORANGE - Runner Bean 'Enorma' flowers

YELLOW - Sisyrinchium

  

GREEN - Rudbeckia Occidentalis 'Green Wizard'

BLUE - Delphinium Magic Fountains 'Dark Blue Bee'

INDIGO - Aquilegia vulgaris 'Miss M.I. Huish'

VIOLET - Scabiosa 'Butterfly Blue'

There - now that's better than grey skies isn't it?

Spring Greens - 3rd Attempt

I've been playing with textiles again, trying to create something inspired by the greenness of spring.  I know we're nearly in summer but it's taken me a while to get something I'm vaguely pleased with!  My first attempt ended up being cut up although bits of it were embellished into number two (whose fate is still being decided).  But one evening last week I just started to fiddle with some scraps that I'd got left over from the previous attempts and produced this little piece:

Spring Greens

The background is left over silk and scrim that I'd dyed in the microwave, with a silk carrier rod stitched on using the flower stitcher.  I'd made the tyvek bead earlier in the week and stitched it on adding some beads.  It's only tiny (4" x 2.5"), and rather "random" but I prefer it to any of the previous (more planned) attempts!

Blowsy Blooms

This week my peony has opened.  Not many buds (actually only two have made it to the flowering stage, but that's double last year so I'm reasonably pleased!).  It's very blowsy, but also looks delicate and subtle in its shades of white with a hint of pale pink:

Peony Shirley Temple

Peony Shirley Temple

But it's not all tasteful and subtle here at the moment as this oriental poppy has also opened:

Oriental Poppy Garden Glory

I don't usually do orange in the garden, but this is more salmon than bright orange and it does bring a splash of colour onto the patio.   I love its frilly edges.

Oriental Poppy Garden Glory

 
You can't beat a bit of blowsiness occasionally can you?!

Roses are Red

Or maybe that should be "some roses are red".  This one is - Darcey Bussell (and she smells gorgeous too)

But others aren't.  These were all open at the weekend and none of them are red - more purple, pink, peach or white, but I guess that doesn't work in the rhyme!

Top row: Iceberg, The Wedgewood Rose, Charles De Mills

Middle Row: William Morris, Mutabilis, The Generous Gardener

Bottom Row: Rosa de Bologna, Abraham Darby, Rosa Glauca.

These are much earlier than in previous years (by about 3 weeks) but as there are many others still at the "about to open stage" I'm hoping the rose season will go on for longer than normal, because they are so beautiful aren't they.

What is this plant?

Can anyone help identify this plant?  It's appeared in a very shady spot in the garden, and I have no recollection at all of planting anything there.  It's about 9" tall (23cm)

The flower has 5 parts to the "trumpet" part and a yellow throat.

 The flower is trumpet shaped, and the petals unfurled from inside of the trumpet.  The buds are trumpet like too and have a sort of star shaped button at the end.

It has no noticeable scent and the leaves are quite fleshy and distorted (although the distortion might be from lack of water and being nibbled by something as it was emerging!).

Any ideas?  Anyone?

While I was contemplating the plant, and skimming duckweed off my pond earlier (for my neighbour's ducks to eat!) this lovely damselfly came to visit.  I'm pretty sure it's a male Common Blue, but common or not, it's very beautiful.

Winners (and a not winner)

Some plants are simply winners aren't they?  This magnificent Cedric Morris iris opened this week, for the first time ever.  I bought it a couple of years ago from Sarah Cook at the NCCPG plant sale at Helmingham Hall in August, it's Benton Caramel.  Cedric lived near here, just outside Hadleigh, so it's nice to have a little piece of local history growing in the garden.

Cedric Morris Iris - Caramel

Cedric Morris Iris - Caramel

It looks magnificent against the Abraham Darby rose, which is always a winner in itself - both in looks and scent:

Rosa Abraham Darby

But this plant is definitely not a winner as far as I'm concerned.  It was sold as Papaver Orientale 'Royal Chocolate Distinction', and is supposed to have "chocolate-maroon flowers above the grey-green leaves" and it looks promising at the bud stage:

Oriental Poppy

But when it opens it's like a faded version of Patty's Plum, far more maroon than chocolate:

Oriental Poppy

Of course it might have been labelled incorrectly and really is a different variety, but a chocolate coloured poppy it isn't!

Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly

Well not exactly lavender (yet), but many of the plants flowering in my garden today happen to be in various shades of blue.

(ajuga, camassia, forget-me-knots, geranium, viola "freckles", 

pulmonaria, bluebells, brunnera and veronica)

One bed in particular is predominantly blue, somehow it seems very calming.

But I haven't just been gardening, I've been some fiddling with textiles too.  I was inspired after reading Emma's blog "A Little Bit of Everything" to try incorporating some seed heads into textile work. I've used them as inspiration before but never actually tried using real ones within the piece.  I was limited in my choice as it's really the wrong time of year for seed head collection but I had some stipa gigantica and lavender hanging about in the conservatory.

Golden Light (18cm x 14cm)

For this one I used handmade paper as well as undyed scrim, gold organza, gold thread and beads stitched onto a background of natural osnaberg.

And for this one I dyed the some of the scrim and used some sheet music and lace aged with walnut ink, before stitching the lavender underneath some lilac organza and adding odd bits of thread and some beads.

Faded Memories (18cm x 14cm)

I'm pleased with how they've turned out, I like the "threadiness" of them and I like that they include plants that I grew.  Not sure what I'm going to do with them though, might have to cogitate that for a while, although I might hang them somewhere!  Thanks Emma for the inspiration.