Remembrance

Today was the second anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake, and we marked it with flowers. Road cones and fences were decorated with blooms, and people created a river of flowers by casting blossoms into the Avon river at various points around the city. I walked to the river in the evening with my posy and looked around at the slowly decaying neighbourhood. A few houses are still inhabited, but far more are empty and sunken as they wait for the diggers and excavators to come. It is sad, but still beautiful, as the Avon river always has been and always will be. The land may be deemed unliveable, but people will still come and enjoy the peace and beauty.

The Medway St footbridge once crossed here, but it was rendered a twisted mass of steel after the quake. It has only recently been removed and I hear it is being stored at Ferrymead park until a suitable site can be found for it to be placed as a memorial. In the meantime a strip of red and black flags spans the river.

I cast my flowers into the river as a mark of respect and a symbol of how this city will bloom again.

A tiny posy and a little bunny brooch

 Two posies actually, one small and one certifiably tiny. I was browsing through home decorating magazines on the weekend and noted how vases of flowers were often echoed with a smaller bouquet containing just a few of the blooms, which is then placed on a side table next to a chair, or a bedside table, or some place that needs accenting. It's a bit too stylish to work in my house, where side tables are receptacles for all kinds of debris and a little vase would just get buried or knocked to the ground, but a tiny vase of flowers? Yes please! So I made up the two posies and just put them next to each other on the windowsill.

 Cecile Brunner has the sweetest little buds, I just love picking them even though they only last a few days.

And here's a little bunny brooch I made. I saw a picture of one somewhere online and even though I didn't save the picture, the idea hatched itself in my mind: I must make and embroider a bunny brooch! I sketched out the cutest bunny pose and gave him a ribbon bow and some flowers to sit in. After I finished I realised it looked kind of springlike, and wouldn't it be fun to make a bunny for every season? The winter bunny can have a scarf and a grey wool background. I haven't planned summer or autumn bunny, but since I gave this brooch away I will need to make another for myself! Something else to add to my project list...

February flowers

The summer garden of abundance continues! It was hard finding flowers to photograph this month that weren't more of the same as January. That's a good complaint to have though as I love my summer beauties. I wouldn't mind if the peonies were still in bloom, but at least the delphiniums are having another go. I also have some carnations that I sowed from seed, they were meant to be a picotee mix but I think they could more correctly be called ripple (second picture down, left and right sides). Anyway they are pretty no matter what you call them, and it will be exciting to see what other colours open up. Elsewhere in the garden it's dahlias, gaura, cosmos and echinacea. The Peace rose is also getting another round of flowering underway... it's a good little performer that one.

How is your garden this February? As usual I'm linking up to Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

On a cloudy summer's day

 It's cloudy, and for once I'm actually glad of the cooler weather. The summer weather has been almost perfect, certainly the best we've had in recent memory, but it's been too hot for working outside and I have some weeds to pull.

 Before I get to work I walk around and look at the details. The lavender hedge along my curved path is finally filling out, and I love the texture of the grey foliage in front of the soft green carrot foliage, with slender cornstalks in the background.

 I'm really loving the runner bean arch and the soft billowing clouds of cosmos. This is a nice shady corner to hide in on a hot summer's afternoon.

 I found this pretty green fly snoozing on the cornstalks. I think he is disappointed I ripped out the flowering carrots...

 Echinacea Pink Poodle provides a splash of colour and a solid area for the eye to rest on amongst all the paler, floaty blooms.

 I do love my floaty blooms though. Gaura is one of my favourites.

 On the few cloudy days we've had, or at dusk, I've noticed how the white flowers next to the fence glow and shine. This tree is Cercis Forest Pansy, and it looked just gorgeous with the frothy white bishop's flower twining through the burgundy leaves. The bishop's flower has now gone to seed, and I'll make sure I always have seedlings beneath this tree I think. Silver leaved plants also look nice here, so now I have a theme for this garden.

Here is the Nursery, with all the baby plants I've nurtured from seed or cutting.

I'm most excited by this rose cutting. I took it from a friend's garden at the start of January and it already has leaf growth and even roots! I wasn't expecting to see these so soon, so I hope it can maintain its growth.

The forecast for this weekend is hot again, so now that I've got things tidied up I can get out my lounge chairs and enjoy it.