Lemon a day

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday  size 12inx4.5in 30cmx12cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper

Or a message in a bottle, someone has to make a wise decision from a difficult set of options. I am very glad I am not Nick Clegg trying to decide who to risk upsetting; should it be the party, the voters who came from Labour or the voters who came from the Conservatives, the voters who cursed both as corrupt? Who does he need to encourage, the voters who are yet to take a risk and vote Liberal or those who always have done? The wisdom to get this right is something that has to be found. Look to Solomon who thought things out, looking behind what people say to what they are really about.

The garden is damp and strangely cold, after we had that warm weather this seems wrong. Outside this window the original planting that came with the house is doing its worst, the clashes are stupendous.

It was mostly planted with shrubs; around the edge of the grass are dwarf azaleas in everything from brick red through scarlet to shocking pink. In and among them are some surviving red and yellow tulips. I should have remembered to pick all the tulips but I forgot this manoeuvre. In case one begins to feel sleepy there are also some bright bright yellow and green euonymus bushes and crowning the whole firework display Berberis davidii with its rusty orange sprays loaded with flowers, not forgetting a small Pieris which has faded to peach. There used to be a purple Magnolia in an island bed but we moved that. The difficulty is to work out what gets the chop.

It’s all very well having a cheerful display but the side garden at this time of year is a headache. I think the problem is that the azaleas and the Berberis are so thick with flower there is no relief to be found from the green of the leaves. The leaves that there are are dark and the contrast adds yet more drama to the crisis.

Round in the front garden I have tried to add colour to a bed of mixed shrubs by underplanting with hardly geraniums and lacing the evergreen clematis Early Sensation through the juniper. Its not been very pleased with this arrangement and has only really flowered this year after four years of sulking. It does look sweet now but it’s not been very early and is not yet a sensation. It will be in full sun the higher it scrambles so I have hopes for it still.

Something took the baby birds from the low down nest , it was a robin not a chaffinch, but the blackbirds and bluetit nests seem fine.

Alison

#43 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog