4 Mar 2014

growing flowers


She has been twisting flowers into crowns since the rainbow festival. Usually dandelions but sometimes wisps of frothy clover. But as I watched her potter about the backyard in search of new blooms to transform,  I noticed the lack of flowers in our garden. There are vegetables and herbs, robust green leaves and wispy ferns, even lanky trees and succulents in odd shaped containers. Flowers however, are sadly missing from this humble space (bar a few sad looking marigolds).

A gentle meander around the neighbourhood with baskets in hand addressed the short term bloom shortage. We foraged small amounts of yellows, dusky pinks and orange from footpath trees and obliging neighbours and marvelled at all the different types and colours we stumbled upon. Hidden treasures we'd overlooked on our to-ing and fro-ing past these very spots time and again. She then spent the afternoon threading satiny blossoms with a needle and cotton and wore them like a bejewelled sprite.

While she hummed and threaded I scrutinised the blandness of our yard and set to addressing the problem. When had my gardening become stuffy, regimented and all about productivity and worse still, manageability? When did it deviate so sharply from the willowy, lush and untamed surrounds that pepper my daydreams? With paper and pencil in hand a list was made; snapdragons to remind me of Pa's house, lilac bluebells to lure pollinators, nostalgic phlox and bell flower to cut and put in old jam jars on window sills, brushy callistemon to feed nectar loving birds and smiling faced pansies, just because.  So it's off to the nursery this weekend...

Although my thumb is ever so surely turning a greenish tinge, I could definitely use some help. Do you have any tips on flower growing? What are your favourites to grow?

Steph x


11 comments:

  1. sweet!
    Good luck with the flowering of your garden!

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  2. I dream of having frangipani trees in my garden xo

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  3. this is so lovely, a nice reason and inspiration for me to garden..I'm not much of a gardener, I only have to mention the word and my MIL launches in, perhaps I'll keep this on the quiet and get do some myself! x

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  4. I'm not much of a gardener, but I find that my flowering herbs (lavender, rosemary, sage) always do well. That wooden bowl is really beautiful.

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  5. Is it shameful that I want to rush home from work and make a crown of my own?

    I look forward to seeing how you paint your garden with flowers.

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  6. Is there anything sweeter than a little girl in a flower crown? Perhaps even more so when she has made it herself. Darling, Steph. x

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  7. So pretty! Practical gardens are all well and good but I think a cottage garden is just as essential for emotional health :) As you know my garden was a failure this year, but my roses thrived and I even had a sunflower pop up by itself from the compost (I feed the cow sunflowers seeds). At such times it is the flowers that give you more satisfaction than anything else.

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  8. hello! i just found your blog and i love it, were are you from?? i want to show you my work because i think you are going to like it, sorry my english it´s not very good... www.facebook.com/papaninis . Kisses from argentina!

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  9. Lavender - frangipani - hibiscus - grow things suited to the subtropics. If you want beauty but without the work of trying to maintain English specimens in our hot summer, go with natives. There is nothing more beautiful than melaleuca or eucalyptus blooms. Of course, these are trees, but they grow beautifully in pots and require little to no maintenance other than a water :)

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  10. I think my comment just deleted itself :( I love growing natives - their blooms are unique, beautiful, and require little maintenance in the QLD sun. They grow in pots and just require a little water! Much love xox

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  11. I must admit - my garden does not grow alot of flowers either. I love the hydrangeas when they are in bloom, the daffodils in spring and a few of my natives have lovely bee attracting flowers.
    I always thought I should go to the nursery once a month and buy something in bloom at that time. Then I figure I would have something to pick every month of the year. A good theory...but I wonder how it would go in practice :)

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Your words brighten my day! Thank-you so much for joining me on my adventure. x