Tangled Brush

It's spring at long last! Snowdrops sprang up first, submerged in six inches of snow. I spotted them on a dreary day in early April. What a delight! These are the snowdrops two weeks later - they last a long time! I did not plant them - they are a gift left by one of the previous owners! Note the yellow winter aconite beside it - this came in a packet of "early bloomers" that I planted in autumn 2017. I had never seen them before and am not sure I love them, but they do give a welcome glimmer of yellow in the early spring. In the packet of early bloomers there were also some "iris reticulata" - tiny purple irises that grow from a bulb, not a rhizome. I was so pleased with those that I ordered more last year. Now I have many of them! They come in yellow as well, but I have decided to concentrate on this deep purple colour. There are 23 in the picture, below, sprinkled along the border of the side garden. They are hard to see, though. Next ye...

Pretty pictures for which I have not yet found a theme... I love flowers, I love Indonesian textiles...look at the gorgeous combination! I bought the dahlia tubers at the grocery store - two pink ones and one purple one. Only one sprouted..and it was white. Of course. But it was huge! So they made me very happy. I bought the Indonesian ikat textile from an Indonesian festival that took place at Lansdowne Park, here in Ottawa. I traveled around Indonesia when I was younger, so the festival gave me a little taste of that time.  I rarely talk about vegetables, because, well - flowers! But I do also grow vegetables. Last year I bought green pepper and eggplant seedlings. They did pretty well! I grew the cherry tomatoes from seed - just threw them into the front of the rose garden, then was chagrined when they grew very well and blocked my view of the flowers...ahem. Next year they are going back to the vegetable garden! They grew very well in the rose garden, though. I al...

Inspiration abounds. I was reading about the life of Vita Sackville-West (and what a life!) when I read about her "White Garden" at Sissinghurst. Apparently it's famous! She wrote, in 1950: "All the same, I cannot help hoping that the great ghostly barn-owl will sweep silently across a pale garden, next summer in the twilight- the pale garden that I am now planting, under the first flakes of snow." The U.K National Trust, which manages the garden, states "Only the colours of white, green, grey and silver were to be allowed to grow in this new pale garden thus creating what we now call the White Garden, one of the most famous areas of Sissinghurst." Photo source:  https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden/features/a-moonlit-masterpiece-at-sissinghurst-castle-garden Simultaneously, in July I noticed a curious lot of white perennials on sale at the Canadian Tire near me: white bleeding heart, white liatris, white scabiosa...