The other passion

I LOVE my fibre art! I Love to sew and draw and paint and design- BUT- I also love the garden! As a result of having done so MUCH art, the garden has suffered this year. First the winter took its toll, then the neglect by the "Chief Gardeness". However, Nature is very forgiving. Looking out the window the other day, I felt like there was really nothing in the garden yet. Not so!

The first thing I found was just by following my nose. DROP DEAD GORGEOUS FRAGRANCE!!!

A spinosissima rose, Kakwa. It positively drips bloom and perfumes the whole neighbourhood.

Not a spectacular bloom

.. but very pretty in a vase in the house for a short time. The entire house is fragrant while the petals remain intact.

Continuing in the white department, I found the pretty , crisp white Bleeding Hearts growing in semi oblivion at the side of the house, almost inundated by a deep morass of dead English Ivy- winter killed! Many stiff, aching muscles and six containers full later, the ivy is GONE and the dicentra shimmers in its glory!

Still in white, dicentra alba, White Bleeding Heart!

.. no fragrance, but such a clean freshness to the whole plant!




There IS colour in the garden too. There are lots of pink and purple tints in spring. Peonies are JUST breaking buds with the help? of the ants.( the jury is out on the ant story!)

Great promise of pink peony Sarah Bernhardt here .

Early pink peony Catherine Fonteyn

Deep in the heart of Ms Fonteyn! I may have plans for her later!

Allium in full explosion 

Allium Christophii

Dame's Rocket

The rest of the current pinks are in the back garden. I guess there ARE a few things in bloom! There is a scattering of purples-

Columbines- pink, purple and white

And a few early Iris Siberica

White columbine

At the front of the house, I have used Sunshine Impatiens in with Hosta Albo Marginata and I splurged on a big mixed basket of calibrachoa, Million Bells, for the big urn. As an avowed perennial gardener, it grieves me to plant annuals but I have always used shade Impatiens to fill in the blanks. The gardeners among us though will know that shade Impatiens is still on the disabled list with a fungal problem. VERY few places are selling it this year, NONE were last year. So, Million Bells and Sunshine Impatiens it is! Looks cheery and bright.

Calibrachoa and an unnamed little yellow daisy- very primary colours in an otherwise pastel garden! And last, but not least is my favourite little corner of the back garden. There is not much going on there just yet but it will soon be awash in Sarah Bernhardt Peony!

An old Amelanchier on the left, Hakonechloa  Aurea with an urn and a basket behind it and Sarah B, about to burst in the background!

I DO love gardening and MUST make more time for it. After all, half of my subjects for art quilts come from the garden!

Even though this is not needlework, it inspires my needlework so I will post this on the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com but I am also adding another post that IS the start of a new piece, so check that out too. It is based on my little Poppies Aglow but is version 2 - bigger.