November flowers

Here we are again, another Bloom Day, the last one for spring. I nearly forgot what day it was - luckily I had lots of flower photos on my camera and so there was plenty of choice for this month's mosaic. In my garden this month are lots of pastel colours, from the soft frilly carnations to the linaria in fondant shades. I have flowers planted everywhere from the front doorstep to the vegetable garden!

Clockwise from top left: linaria like candy floss, pink frilly aquilegia, blue and white aquilegia, erigeron, pink rippled carnations, jacob's ladder, verbascum, blue and cream pansies, pink mini carnations, delphinium, more linaria, ixia. Middle picture: chive flowers sparkling in the evening sun.

A quick pic of the garden in its tangled glory! How is your garden this late spring/autumn?

Scented flowers

 I love having beautiful vases of flowers around my home (all picked from my garden), and it's even better when the flowers are scented. My all-time favourite is wintersweet which has been out of bloom for several months. In early spring I had plenty of bulbs like hyacinths, earlycheer and freesias, but when they finished up I had to do without scent for a while. Now I'm happy to have a couple of different lovely smelling varieties to choose from! First is jasmine which is adorning this arrangement of roses, carnations and lambs ears. Jasmine is good value scent-wise as a tiny sprig like this will still perfume a whole room. And if you pick a sprig of the carmine pink buds, they keep opening and emitting their fragrance in the vase.

 Carnations have their spicy clove fragrance too if you bury your nose in the petals. The only disappointment is that the roses aren't scented too.

Here's another arrangement with my other scented star - sweet peas. They are arranged here with red carnations and pink-white heuchera stems. I was delighted walking in the garden today to discover the sweet peas are in bloom! They have self seeded from last year and all are the deep purple colour with a lovely classic fragrance. They only last a few days in the vase but they are worth it, and there are so many buds coming on that I'll be able to keep refreshing it!

It's funny how arrangements always look much better in the flesh. Whenever I photograph them they become quite static and angular. I'm thinking that this one up above could benefit from a little sprig of some kind of delicate foliage in that space in the front left... note to self for next time!

What are your favourite scented blooms for summer?

Wood painting

Time is flashing by so fast at the moment! I've had this post saved as a draft for a couple of weeks waiting for a minute to sit down and add the words to it. Other things just seem to be demanding my attention, mostly the call of the outdoors! The weather is mild and the evenings are bright and if I'm on the computer at all I'm mostly browsing Pinterest for new ideas. Spring is such a creative time for me.

A few weeks ago I felt the urge to paint something. I bought a few test pots from Dulux of pretty pastel colours and rounded up all the wooden things I could find in my kitchen. For the wooden spoons I just put a strip of masking tape around the handle, and painted the end. Quick, easy and cute!

I didn't stop there... I painted the handle of the lemon juicer, the rolling pin and the edge of the bread board! Then I gave everything a wax and polish.

This was a quick, easy and most satisfying way to add some colour to the kitchen! Using those wooden spoons has made cooking much more fun. 

Have you been creative this spring/autumn?