Colour collections . . .

. . . always interest me, so here are a couple from the garden, the ever intriguing red and green first - clockwise from top left: a 4 or 5 year old oak tree; a ragged tulip; peony buds; red onions and celery in the frying pan (oops, sorry, from the co-op, not our garden, but the colours interested me); strawberries, ok, from last year, but I needed a 9th pic to make the collage grid; a pelargonium; roses (last year too0; chives; frilly lettuce (that IS this year's!)

And pretty pink - apple blossom 1 and 2; a perennial plant, the grandaughters call it bleeding hearts, but I'm not sure it's right; another pelargonium; clematis; an azalea; a peachy pelargonium; a rhododendron; an anonymous flower.

. . . and a few more . . .

. . .of the photos from our Upton Heath walk - pussy willow . . .

.. . nice and furry . . .

Why do dandelions count as weeds?  In colour, shape and construction they are just as spectacular as many recognised cultivated flowers.

Celandines need to be in big clumps really but this is the best I could do for now.

And on the way home I snapped this.  We have no idea what was going on here, there's been nothing in the news, but I liked the row of police  cars with the repetition of the patterns and colours!

Flowers and butterflies . . .

. . . on the book some of whose pix got lost while uploading yesterday.  What a contrived link!  Sorry.  Here's the stitching on the spine, using a fine perlé thread.

And now the flowers, that have grown a bit since the last Spring pix.  I've arranged them in a sort of sequence of colour.  It is quite amazing how many gradations there are in colours.  I suppose really it just goes in a continuous shading, not in separatable steps!

I like the shadows on the wall

and the shape of these pointy tulips

contrasted with the blunt curves of these primroses

and the small round bell-shaped blobs of the grape hyacinths.

This horse chestnut has been growing for 4 years, I think.  It needs a proper home somewhere, out of its pot.

It was well worth . . .

. . . digging up the front garden. It is a riot of green at the moment . . .

. . . outdoors. . .

. . . and indoors . . . yummy yummyBut where these (below) came from we have no idea! Funny, times when I think out carefully what to grow where, go and buy it, get it planted in just the right place etc etc, the stuff doesn't always grow. Other times things just appear, don't know where from, in places you would never choose, and flourish amazingly. Is there a life message there somewhere??? If you think you know what it is, please tell me! Meanwhile they brighten up the bed with the brussel sprout plants in.I'd like really to have these poppies in the back garden alongside these . . . a pink geranium that survived from last year, an unusual geranium-type plant from the local garden centre and fuchsias bought at a sales table at church.
If your local allotment waiting list is too long, an alternative is to find an elderly person who is willing for you tidy a bit of their garden by digging a veg patch in return for some of the produce. Derek has been able to do this and as well as strawberries, peas and broad beans we have had these . . .
. . . and these come from our own greenhouse, doing a bit better than last year. Red and green again, but perhaps a bit more attention to the background when taking pix might be a good idea!

Nice printed batik though, from Togo in West Africa, bought at a craft village when we visited friends doing linguistic, literacy and Bible translation work there, in 1994.

Colour sequence in the garden . . .

A great place for a picnic . . .

. . . and a soothing stroll. Stapehill Abbey, an ex-Cistercian convent, between Wimborne and Ferndown, a few miles from where we live. One of the local P&Q groups held an exhibition here a week ago. The quilts etc looked really nice hung around in various spaces in the buildings. Today Derek and I took a picnic lunch there by the lake, and wandered round the gardens soaking up the variety of colour, shape and texture in the trees, shrubs and flowers.


It's a bit warm today and we need some rain. Best we can do is a water feature or two.

. . . and a bit of Zen?

White silver birch peeling to cream . . .. . .black bamboo, and yellow, and green.And this plant has fantastic colouring.Can't finish without some flowers . . .

Time for a bit of gardening . . .

. . . and a bit of colour appreciation. Orange to . . .
. . . red to . . .
. . . yellow. OK a bit of blue, musn't leave it out.
Then on to purply shades . .

. . and for those of us who don't do pink . . .
. . . how can we resist these?

Not our garden, but one in our locality that we visited as part of the National Garden Scheme, where interesting gardens of private houses are open to the public for an afternoon in aid of charitable causes.