Garden Colour

“To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot’s seed,
And the square mustard field;

Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;

The smoke’s smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.

It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.”

— Edward Thomas

Whilst autumn has arrived around here, its not really at full stretch in the countryside yet. The native trees are still to reveal themselves in their full glory and its early to be crunching leaves underfoot. In the garden, however, things are a bit different.

There are browns and golds, seed heads and sedums

pots hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

The colours are glorious, there are rich reds

and pinks

and things that shine

Whether naturally or with the intervention of man. Almost certainly our last autumn here I will savour every moment.

Spring is Sprung

“De spring is sprung, de grass is riz.

I wonder where dem boidies is?

They say the boid is on the wing.

But that’s absoid. The wing is on the bird.”

— Anon

Spring has definitely sprung in my garden and yesterday I went for a walk round to see what I could capture - these are not the only flowers in the garden, but rather the one's whose pictures I liked best.

Pasque flowers are one of my favourite spring flowers. They represent such good value, looking great at every stage of their life cycle from the first feathery leaves that push through the bare earth, to the spectacular seed heads. They're even self seeding and I now have three plants instead of two.

Further on down the garden the first clematis is out, a macropelia of some kind I think; the label is long gone

Surprise flower of the day was this marigold. Self-seeded from two years ago I wouldn't expect to see it before June or possibly May at a push. It certainly makes a splash of bright colour now the daffs are over.

Next up its the japonica, a huge bush. I love the way it starts flowering on the bare stems before continuing to flower against the dark green leaves. Its in the transitional phase at present.

Finally I'm going to share with you my favourite photo from the shoot although its definitely not my favourite plant!

The humble dandelion, growing as usual somewhere it shouldn't, with those pesky long roots that are so hard to get out. Really worth clicking on this to enlarge the image and see the detail - I really hadn't expected it to look so pretty close up!

Thats all for today, hope your garden ( if you have one) has similar treasures, I'd love to know what they are!

Back to Berlin next time!

Festival of Imagination

“Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?”

— Sun Tzu

Yesterday I attended an event at the Selfridges 'Festival of Imagination' which is a programme of 'interactive lectures, debates and workshops' held in a specially designed space called the Imaginarium at Selfridges Oxford St store. Award-winning architect Rem Koolhaas created a space full of mirrors and possibilities with a central feature amphitheatre.

The event I attended was 'Eureka! Moments' with Cathy Haynes from the 'School of Life' and was about exploring ways of boosting your creative confidence. The time was short, only 90 minutes, but she managed to pack a lot in.

Haynes discribes a 'Eureka! moment' as being a moment when 'something we couldn't think comes thinkable' or when the 'impossible becomes possible'. She also talks about combination and connection and things not just coming out of the blue. We should use and expand what we have. As an example of this she cites the creative process of the poet WB Yeats in relation to his poem the 'Lake Isle of Innisfree'. You can hear him describe this in his own words and read his poem here. This is a poem I am extremely familiar with, because as well as being in our poetry book at school, we had to sing it!

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15529#sthash.Sc4xr08G.dpuf

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it) but ‘That’s funny ‘ ....”

— Isaac Asimov

The session was broken up by discussions and exercises to get us thinking. One of these was design your own muse, where you thought of real or fictional figures who have / represent qualities or attitudes you would like to develop and then put them together in a kind of 'mix and match' approach. I'm still working on mine but it's an intriguing concept!

Well done to Selfridges for putting on the Festival of Imagination! I was very impressed when I left, to notice all the shop windows had an imaginative theme like these maraca toothbrushes and punk taps, rather than being stuffed full of things for sale .

I especially loved this plant watering umbrella!

See you next time and happy imagining!

The Glory of the Garden

“And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away ! ”

— Rudyard Kiplling

When I arrived back from Yoga on Thursday the sun had just begun to surface after a shower and everything in the garden was sparkling - it looked quite magical!

It was as though this fennel plant was hung with diamonds

And the seeds looked almost as spectacular, as did a late sprig of lavender with this bee on board

I suddenly found the last to lines of Kipling's poem running through my head "and the Glory of the garden shall never pass away" and went to look up the whole thing, which though a tad on the jingoistic side I do rather like, and wonder if it was inspired by his own lovely garden at Batemans in Sussex which I have visited several times. I am going to quote it in full here.

OUR England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:-" Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away !

Rudyard Kipling

All of this then inspired me to do the first piece of art journaling I've done for ages

My sparking moments this week literally were sparkling - hope yours were too