Dharma in the Garden

This Week

So far I have been:

enjoying the sight of spring bulbs starting to push their way above ground; removing the moss which has covered most of the brick edging surrounding the lawn; discovering Cruickshank Botanical Gardens and I ♥ Art in the city of Aberdeen (both hidden gems); photographing trees (again!); thinking of taking up crochet (and I ♥ Art do classes!); choosing plants for pollinators (I so want the garden to contain only plants, shrubs and flowers which attract bees, butterflies and insects); reading The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo; wearing red (a colour which has been long absent from my wardrobe); receiving a parcel of skincare goodies from Liz Earle; waiting for the arrival of two new art books - Unfurling by Misty Mawn and Art at the Speed of Life by Pam Carriker; voting to retain the beautiful Union Terrace Garden in the heart of Aberdeen; finishing my evening class in acrylic painting (loved every minute, could do another four weeks).

Another beautiful spring day, cloudless blue sky, warm breeze... just perfect.

Been re-aquainting myself the art of portrait drawing, making a few pencil sketches of images in newspapers and magazines. It's been a long time since I did sketches of the face (quite obvious from the results thus far!) but it's still great fun trying to get a likeness. And a great feeling when, with one tiny mark, the person you are trying to capture stares back at you from the paper!  Somehow you've managed to get the exact tilt of their nose, the shape of their mouth or the turn of their head.

Much harder will be drawing from life. Who is going to sit still long enough I wonder...

Well they've had their best ever performance this spring, continuing to give a fabulous display week after week and well past their allotted time. But after many encores my tulips have now sadly taken their last bow.  I can't be too sad because ready to make an entrance is the rambling rose, accompanied by the lavender, the gentiana and the aguilegia.  A welcome return year after year but a new act waiting in the wings is the Gerbera 'Forever Daisies' Collection and I can't wait to see how Crista, Pam, Piroska, Rachel and Sunny will fare among the other stars of the garden.

 

 

A tranquil oasis with trees, waterfalls and bridges, where ducks swim, children play and dogs are walked. Located in a quiet residential area, the noises of everyday life won't disturb you here. There are plenty of quiet spots where you can sit and contemplate, water and birdsong the only soundtrack to your dreams.

The bridges and winding pathways guide you over and around a deep pool which is fed from above by a small waterfall which gurgles and gushes over rocks and stones.

This garden paradise is only a brief walk from our home - we are truly blessed!  Today it was sparkling in the sunshine, a kaleidescope of colours.  The water was like a mill pond creating the most beautiful reflections.

Sketchbook and pencils remained in my bag as the camera was definitely the favoured medium for capturing all this vibrancy. 

The name of this paradise is Johnston Gardens.  More images can be found in this album.

The warmest day of the year so far.  The garden is now so full of life and at its most perfect. I love this time of year.

This is Tulip 'Madonna' - isn't she beautiful? 

The apple blossom will never be more perfect than it is right now.  Expecting a bumper crop of delicious apples this year.

The pots of spring bulbs have been moved from their winter position at the side of the shed to the front of the shed so I can now see their glory from the kitchen window. Sharp sand has been scattered round the hostas to deter the slugs and snails. I've tried to keep the rambling rose from rambling too much or I won't get through the garden gate!  Plants in clay and terracotta pots have been given a large drink of water and books and magazines in the summer house have been re-arranged and weeded respectively. I'm off to put my feet up and read more Wilkie Collins.

One thing leads to another

Beautiful sunshine again today. Yesterday's brief spell of rain has only teased the plants with a few drops of the water they need.  Put seed in the bird feeder (tried to clean it as something strange seems to be growing in the bottom...) and did a bit of pottering round the flower beds. There are large gaps where I have lost quite a few plants due to the two severe winters we've had so a visit to the garden centre is on the cards. I've mail-ordered hardy gerberas and a dwarf buddleia 'buzz'.



This will replace the buddleia davidii which had grown so large we had to dig it up. I do miss it but it really was taking over.  

My pottering led me to the summer house where I flopped in the chair and started reading Frida Kahlo's Diary. Had bought this last year and stuck it, unread, on the shelf among all my other art books. I'm still not sure what to make of her work but I did feel inspired to put the book down and do something! Looked through my portfolio again and found a few more sketches from the past. Back in the day I really loved drawing the human figure - maybe I should pick this up again. Also came across my paintings from an experimental art class I did in 2003. All very strange. I remember we had to paint while listening to various pieces of music, just playing with colour and shapes and seeing what came up.  So sorted everything into (roughly) date order and debated what to do next.  Acrylics were right there in my line of vision, along with texture paste, structure gel and a glazing medium.  With no definite outcome in mind I mixed reds and yellows with the structure gel and created random shapes on paper using a palette knive. Also played around with the texture paste and different colours - just having fun and making a mess. I did eventually have to put on the CSI gloves though!

Perfect Things - 20 of them!

Could have thought of a lot more but here are 20 perfect things in no particular order:

An Agatha Christie novel (any of them, it doesn't matter) and a comfy chair
The scent and taste of vanilla. Vanilla perfume is the best!
Newly cut grass - summer's here!
Laundry blowing in the breeze and the fresh air smell when you bring it indoors
Viennese Truffles - makes the first item in the list even more perfect
Life because it is perfect, in every way. I just need to remind myself and get in the flow
Gardening - it's the best therapy ever and you never stop learning
Art - my saviour, my passion, my dream
The White Sands of Morar  May they always remain so blissfully unspoiled  
Spending time with Mum, lunching, shopping and chatting - so rare but bliss! I love you Mum
Girl talk - giggling, gossiping, gassing, great fun
All the amazing people I have met through blogging - bless you all
Katharine Hepburn movies
My Alegria PG Lite Red Scribble Clogs - funky and comfy!
The Inside Out e-course because it's OK to not be perfect!
Granola with cranberries, blueberries and organic yoghurt. Yum!
My summer house and it's view of the garden
Bird song - it never fails to lift my spirits
The sound of waves breaking on the shore
The man who shares my life. Nothing would be perfect without you.

This Week

So far this week I have been:

trying out texture paste and masking fluid in the studio (this wasn't a success and it wasn't just the masking fluid that was blue...); removing weeds, flower heads and a tangled mess of growth from my (non-flowering) clematis; taking photographs of the garden (see Photographic Memory); reading Soul & Spirit Magazine (great inspiration!) and loving Victoria Laurie's latest book in the Psychic Eye Mystery series; determined to keep my blog up to date; meditating when I can but not often enough; watching yoga, pilates and energetic workouts on TV mainly with my feet up (as a woman of a certain age I don't need to do too much to work up a sweat!); waiting for the arrival of The Urban Warrior's Guide to Health, Wealth, Happiness & Good Looks by the Barefoot Doctor (one of the world's leading authorities on Tao healing and meditation)

Healing Plants

I have started giving myself daily treatments of Reiki again.  You need to practice regularly to keep the energy strong and unfortunately I have been very bad at doing this.  I have even been treating a couple of my plants to a healing session. Well, you never know.  If it can do wonders for me who's to say my plants won't benefit.

I've added an Osteospermum, a Geum, a Gentian and a Poppy Orientale to one of my borders.  Oh and a Stachys Byzantina (lamb's lugs). It's the poppy that needs some TLC at the moment.  I planted it when the weather was warm but since then it has turned really cold so it obviously didn't like that (I wasn't too happy either!). Sadly it also looks like my Apple Scrumptious won't be producing fruit again this year. It might have apple scab. Then again it could be blossom wilt. I really don't know. And my clematis has still not produced any flowers (this is it's third year).  So I turned my garden into an outdoor treatment area and went round giving Reiki to various plants.  If anyone had witnessed the scene I'm not sure what they would have thought.  Anyway, the experiment is in its early stages and I think more sessions are required.  But I could be onto something here...

The root of the problem

I have one border in the garden that I would like to become a 'hot' bed. Not one of sin, but one of colour! I want strong oranges and reds, with some blue for contrast, and lots of green.  At the weekend I bought a few packets of seeds (hybrid sunflowers, marigolds and a meadow mixture) to sow in this bed. The different heights will give it some structure and the colours will be wonderful!  The bed already has a large Buddleja and an Escallonia, also a fern which I thought I had lost over the winter but it has recovered again.  On Monday I also decided to put the Cordyline in the ground as it hasn't been a success in the pot.  Besides, it has such a tropical look and feel to it I think it will work really well in the 'hot' bed. 

I eventually got the Cordyline in the ground (it looks good next to the fern) but getting the spade into the ground was hard work.  This was due to a large network of roots lying just under the surface of the soil which are growing horizontally along the ground, as I discovered when I tried to pull one root out.  As the bed is against a perimeter fence, I suspect these roots are coming from the garden next door.  The house has been empty for nearly a year and the last owner never really was much of a gardener so the garden had become a bit overgrown.   I moved further along the bed and stuck the spade in the ground - it would hardly go in at all!  Just under the surface there was a fine mesh-like tangle of roots growing all through the soil.  I took me ages to clear just one small area. I'm not sure if these roots will cause any problems.  Certainly my Buddleja and Escallonia aren't affected by them.  In the end I decided to give the seeds a go and see what happens.  I've planted some of the marigold seeds in a pot filled with compost to see if there is a difference in how they grow compared to the ones in the soil.   We've had a little rain overnight, more rain this morning, so all of the garden looks so much fresher.  The whole month has been so dry that the ground is looking very parched.  I've been watering some of the plants in the other beds and also my Apple Scrumptious.  Sadly there has been no blossom this year despite the tree looking very healthy.  The Apple Discovery blossomed earlier this month so at least we will have one tree providing us with fruit this year.   

 

Floating down the stream of time...

I am so pleased to hear that Yvonne Innes and Olivia Harrison have been awared a Silver Gilt at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for their garden 'From Life to Life'.  This specially designed garden was inspired by the life of George Harrison - I particularly love the Indian pavilion which represents the spiritual aspect of his life.

"With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy." Lope de Vega

There have been a few new additions to the garden this week.  In between the showers I managed to get in the ground the Astilbe, Aquilegia, Japanese Anenomes and Phlox that Mum had given me from her own garden.  Given the eventual spread of these plants, I split them and spaced them out round the borders.  I also have a Cordyline which needs re-potting and the rest of the borders to weed (jobs for this afternoon if the weather holds).

This picture of our summer house was taken before the roof shingles were finally replaced yesterday.  It just needs one more coat of clear varnish outside and in and it will be ready to use!

The new bird feeder in our garden is really becoming a star attraction for birds.  We had a pair of robins at the weekend, which is quite unusual as they are normally solitary birds.  Lots of sparrows of course and our little blue tits who have taken up residence again in tree at the bottom of the garden.  However, there was one bird that we can't identify.  It had a red, black and white striped head, a black and white spotted body and a yellow tail.  So far a search of the internet has failed to provide the answer. I do hope it comes back so I can get another look   Although it is proving quite difficult to get pictures of our feathered friends.  Either I can't get close enough or they are never around when I have the camera in my hand.  But we are awaiting a new camera which has a very powerful zoom lens so I will be able to happily snap away without them knowing from the bedroom window.

Feeding the birds

"All gardeners need to know when to accept something wonderful and unexpected, taking no credit except for letting it be." Allen Lacey.

Since installing a hanging bird feeder in our garden last weekend we have been visited by lots of feathered friends.  The blue tits like the bird seed while the sparrows like the suet balls. Our blackbird family can't manage to hang from the feeders (although Dad has made valient attempts!) so they sit underneath to catch any crumbs. One day we had two pigeons and a little robin pay us a visit.  The pigeons were very curious and surveyed every part of the garden in great detail, finally deciding to sit under the feeder for a while before departing.  The pigeons haven't returned but yesterday I spotted a little robin sitting on the apple tree.  I like to think of our garden as a little pit stop for birds on their travels where they take time out to rest and snack before going on their way.  I'll attempt some photographs if I can get close enough.

... but is it Art?

"There is no "The End" to be written, neither can you, like an architect, engrave in stone the day the garden was finished; a painter can frame his picture, a composer notate his coda, but a garden is always on the move." Mirabel Osler.

Art can take many different forms and can mean many things to many people.  A recent online discussion about how art can be both healing and transformative prompted me to view my own garden space as an artistic work in progress, one which has no end as it will always develop and change.  The whole process of creating and watching my garden grow and develop has been hugely transformative for me and is a source of much healing.

"All things that pass are wisdom's looking glass." Christine Rossetti

After a lengthy absence it is good to be back and to be feeling more optimistic again. There have been several delays with the summer house although it now has electricity. Unfortunately after a lot of stormy weather, one side of the roof has lost most of its shingles. Thankfully no water has come through to the inside so fingers crossed it stays that way until the roof is fixed. The main difficulty has been finding someone to paint it. We applied a base coat outside ourselves as soon the summer house was built in October but didn't manage to get the inside done. I have found a painter but as he can't come for another six weeks, we are now thinking of putting the inside base coat on by ourselves and leaving him to do the top two coats inside and out. Hopefully by the end of March it will be ready as my studio when it will be all systems go! Watch this space.

September

"By all these lovely tokens, September days are here, with summer's best of weather, and autumn's best of cheer." September by Helen Hunt Jackson.

A definite chill in the air this morning but the sun has shone all weekend and I notice that the leaves on the trees are starting to change colour.  I do love September.

Here is a picture of the summer house we ordered on Saturday.  Finally!  We have had our garden nearly a year now and it has looked incomplete with just a concrete base in the corner where the summer house should be.  That should all change in about six weeks.  Then we need to get the electrics put in and have it painted.  I'm thinking inside it will have white walls and floor with maybe a pale blue ceiling. The exterior will be a wood stain - not too dark. It would be nice to paint the exterior like it is in this picture but I think that might be a litte too bright for our little garden!

Then it's off to the art supplies store to get myself an easel.  I've always wanted one and now I will have the space!

Rosy Red Apples

This is the first apple from one of the fruit trees in the garden. Well actually it's the second apple because we ate the first straight off the tree!  It tastes really delicious - crisp and sweet. On Monday we had to take all the fruit off because the tree was bending over with the weight.  We got about twelve apples in all which is a pretty good crop for the first year. Only two were damaged.  The second fruit tree will be ready to pick in a couple of weeks.

Give or Take

I am loving Give or Take which is such a great idea I'm surprised someone hasn't thought about it sooner.  Via this website you can click on the links to over 500 well-known stores and earn cash rewards when you shop.  If you feel saintly you can choose to have the money donated to selected charities or you can keep the money for yourself.  There's a category for Organic & Fair Trade stores as well so you can really feel doubly virtuous. Each time you make a purchase through Give or Take, they are paid a referral fee by the store.  Give or Take give 100% of this referral fee back to the member who made the sale. It's free to join, although if you choose to keep your cash rewards there is an annual admin fee of £5.00.  But that seems fair.  It's certainly a great way to give money to charity and you can gift aid your donation as well.

A Summer Place

Pots by the Shed

The Scent of Vanilla

Apples on the Tree

Newly Planted

"If the whole world followed you, would you be pleased with where you took it?” Neale Donald Walsch

My 'character strengths' journal was delayed over the weekend as I needed all my reserves to fight off the beginning of a cold. I'm glad to say that the bugs lost out, although I know there are many who weren't so lucky.

Anyway, on Friday I took the camera into the garden and snapped a few shots of our new dwarf apple trees. Something I've been meaning to do for a while so one point scored for the 'creativity' character strength.  I think both these trees will grow to about 3 metres high, producing fruit in August and September.  However, I wasn't able to find them in my plant & flower encyclopedia as I didn't have the latin names so further research is required. They look very small and bare just now but hopefully come Spring they will be covered in blossom. 

Then I grappled with the clever little gizmo I was given for Christmas which transfers pictures from the camera by connecting the XD card with the computer. Encouraged by my success, I set about putting a new XD card into the camera.  Relatively simple for all those techies out there I'm sure but for me it took a few failed attempts before I succeeded with both these exercises so I think I can safely say one point each for 'love of learning' and 'persistence'.

Dharma Creation

In the beginning...

Dharma in the Garden is being created.  Watch this space!