Category: Gardens

Orange you glad…?

This month’s Life in Colour invites us to look at orange. Happy to help. I’ll grab your attention in the feature photo, with a rather orange sky.

When I got my new phone, my not-at-all top-of-the range, bargain-basement smartphone, I discovered that it had a feature called ‘spot colour’. I tried it out in the garden, and in the woods, making orange my spot colour of choice. Here are some results:

Now let’s abandon the gimmicks, and simply go for a walk along Ripon Canal on this early autumn day:

And let’s remember past moments in Valencia, and in Le Jardin Extraordinaire for Becky’s Past Squares:

Shall we end with a single perfect rose ….

… or with a bit of fun – the play food I made for William and Zoë’s kitchen?

Le Jardin Extraordinaire Revisited

When we lived in France, a must-visit in our diary every September was a flight-of-fancy wild garden, worked on for months by artists, gardeners and imaginative people of all kinds, but open only for a few days each year. Let’s revisit it today, for Fandango’s Flashback Friday.

FOR TWO DAYS ONLY: LE JARDIN EXTRAORDINAIRE AT LIEURAC

September 2010

2009 was a first for us at Le Jardin Extraordinaire. This weekend, we were back, and we’ll be back next year too, and every year.

The members of Artchoum enjoy growing flowers, vegetables, plants of every kind. They relish creating beauty, fun, intrigue, from anything – a discarded table becomes a woodland creature, an ancient trainer a Grumpy Old Man, a few stones in the river a symbolic gathering.  Professional artists work alongside interested members of the public for months and weeks beforehand just for this one weekend in September.

And we all turn up, in our hundreds, to explore this very special walk through woods, or along the shaded river bank, in this normally secluded spot.  Families, couples, groups of friends all come to share the atmosphere –  friendly, fun, joyful, peaceful, reflective.  Have a look at the photos, and enjoy the walk too.

For further visits to Le Jardin Extraordinaire, look here, and here.

Lilac and clematis, all at once

Last week, I showed you wisteria on the front of the house. Today, we’ll sneak into the walled garden and look at the clematis framing one of the windows in our neighbour’s house – there it is in the featured photo. And here’s the lilac, just coming out:

And here’s the view from the kitchen window – the lilac’s still budded, but soon it will be fully out – for one week only – before becoming once more a rather unremarkable shrub.

I may produce more lilac for Jude’s Life in Colour: two shades of purple to go at in just a few days. But I promised another window view for Ludwig’s Monday Window. So here we are.

Wisteria Windows

This is the time of year when the outside of our house, and the one to which we’re attached deck themselves in scented clouds of wisteria.

There’s lilac below the kitchen window: that’ll bloom very soon: already the tightly furled buds are loosening and hinting at the soft mauves and purples that will emerge. That’ll be for next week then.

Life in Colour #18

Monday Window

A Flower (x 5): a Challenge (x 2)

Here’s a challenge for stay-at-home lockdown days.  In fact here are two challenges in one:

Right.  Well, I should take this seriously – I’m new to macro photography.

The garden’s ready and waiting.  That’s one thing sorted.  Tripod?  Well, I have a three-legged stool, and a pile of books so I can adjust the camera height – same thing really .

But the ground proves to be disappointingly uneven, and the slight breeze moves those cranesbill petals around.  The bees to whom I’d be happy to offer either a leading role or at least a bit-part are disappointingly uncooperative.  Maybe pick a few flowers and move indoors?

Card to display flowers on – check.  Tripod-substitute: one packet of tea and another book – check.  Nice even light streaming in through the window – check.  What could possibly go wrong?

That’s part of William’s birthday present. Sssh – don’t tell him.

So here we are.  Macro photos in the time of Covid 19.  Make do and mend rules.

Oh, and I thought I’d put the flowers in a bit of context and show them in our landlords’ garden.  We spend as much time there as they do.  Aren’t we lucky?

 

 

Lilac through the Window

Today, I’m going no further than my kitchen window.  The lilac has been glorious this year.  Is it because it has been – well – especially spectacular, or have we simply had more time to enjoy its big blowsy blooms and seductive smell?  It’s June now, and lilac has no place in the summer garden, so here is the view that has greeted us every breakfast time for about three weeks.  Can’t complain about that.

 

 

 

Monday Window

Playing with Light

Playing with light.  That’s what we’re doing this week for Jude’s photo assignment. I took each of my shots three times: as a simple automatic shot, in high key and in low key mode.

It’s probably me and the shots I chose, but in each case, working in high key did these subjects no favours, and simply made them look bleached and lifeless.  Low key however did add some drama.

I looked at my neighbour’s roses in the morning, took a walk at noon, and enjoyed the first of the petunias to show its face in the evening.

Automatic
High key
Low key.

Automatic
High key
Low key

Automatic
High key
Low key

Here’s a little quiz.  Each of these shots is taken in high key, low key, automatic, or in toy – pinhole – mode.  But which one? Have a look at the gallery, before bringing up the shot full size to reveal the answer.

Low key
Automatic
Toy
Automatic
Toy
High key

2020 Photo Challenge #20