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Iris graminea 2–a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 4 in x 6 in 12cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
There will come a gap in the strawberry harvest to correspond to the three nights of frost that we had a few weeks back. Still it’s really good to have strawberries before Wimbledon and I have some late cropping ones to provide backup later. They are not going to be loads later as they have already set fruit.
The vines which were nipped by the frost are growing on and have flower buds, who knows we might get some fruit this year. I don’t mind there being no fruit as I value the leaves to make stuffed vine leaves at least as much as the grapes. When I visited a local vineyard Ridgeview I wondered at the rows of what looked like plain sided paint cans between the rows, it turns out they had been so worried by the frost that they had been making a smoke barrier overnight; whatever the substance they burn it is in the tins.
I am going to list the geraniums as whenever I try and do it mentally I get to a number and realise I’ve forgotten something or counted twice:
1)Purple probably Geranium magnificum, flowers once dense clump
2)Pink Geranium × oxonianum a veined pink quite leafy does well in the shade a bit rough and ready for the border.
3)Paler pink neat mound probably Geranium endressii, flowers most of the summer.
4) Geranium procurrens purple with black eye trailing to climbing roots at nodes.
5) Geranium pyrenaicum alba white, self sows, pretty leaf needs firm management.
6) Geranium reynardii white ,lovely grey detailed leaves this is newly brought from my trip to Shropshire where my mother’s friend grows it.
7)Geranium Purple haze Dark purpled leaves and a light mauve flower one flowering in June. Self sows.
8) Geranium asphodeloides not flowered this yet it is newly propagated from borrowed seed. It has a mass of pale mauve starry flowers. Very delicate
9) Geraniumx Patricia Big leaves and showy magenta flowers over a long period.
10)Geranium sanguineum standard bloody cranesbill. Needs the old seed heads removed to keep it in flower.
11) Geranium kashmir white
12) Geranium kashmir purple both from my father in law
13)Geranium pratense tall pale blue flowers once a summer may repeat a bit, this is another “probably”, as again it came from seed that was picked in someone’s garden.
14) Geranium pratense tall white
15) Geranium x Russel Pritchard
16) Geranium orientalitibeticum, low growing, pink, pretty marbled leaves and creeps underground,(badly in light soils sorry Angela!)its well behaved here on heavy clay.
17) Geranium cinereum subcaulescens is a survivor on the parched roof garden.
Only the first was in the garden when we moved here five years ago and the others we either brought with us ,begged off others (my father in law is an enthusiast) or have grown from seed.
Two were bought from nurserymen and two from plant sales.One came in a box from Woolworths! tomorrow I will post a photograph of some of them.
I could not resist another quick sketch of the Iris as it does not last long.
Alison
#68 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Iris graminea–a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 4 in x 6 in 12cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
Yes there were more strawberries today, they are really very good, there is almost no mould in the patch and as I am removing even the damaged ones,( slugs and or woodlice) there should be no problems with mould until we get some rain. I am still waiting for that nocturnal deluge.
Today I went back to the health centre to explore the ‘aqua exercises’. This was less embarrassing than the gym as, in a swim suit with an atmosphere of chlorine, I think that I’m 13, thin, and fit… as long as there are no surprise mirrors. The exercises could have been devised by John Cleese as they were principally a series of silly walks done on the bottom of the pool standing chest deep. I swam a bit as well which is always my preferred form of exercise. Now I am tired and my knee hurts.
The picture today is of one of the few flowers there are this year on the Iris graminae which I spoke about yesterday. It looks almost Japanese in style, the flowers are below the level of the top leaves. The best place I ever had it planted was in a bed that some steps climbed up beside, the flowers showed up better there and there were lots of them. It was south facing and hot in the summer and the Iris loved it. It also copes however with damp shade (I expect it got a lot of that in Yorkshire). The general design is the same as the big Iris or flag but the petals are all narrower so that the curved petals which point outwards are much more visible (I have just looked them up and they are called style arms and they are not really petals but part of the stigma or female bit of the flower).
Alison
#67 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Scarlet honeysuckle–a painting a day
Sold size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
There is a shocking dryness to the ground and there are things looking sick all over the garden. Watering becomes a bit of an obsession at a time like this. An overnight deluge would suit me just fine.
Today I have done a very quick sketch of the beautiful Dropmore Scarlet Honeysuckle. I wanted this for years having seen a beautiful example in a friends garden in Reading, the first one or two I bought died or never grew well. Now however I have a really good healthy plant which is getting bigger every year. Its not in the perfect position though as it was moved from the last garden and put in the ground hurriedly the first autumn.
All the geraniums just about are in flower now and they are a gentle delight.
I know I should list them but some are unknown.
There is Geranium procurrens which is in need of control in one place but doing a good job elsewhere trailing through shrubs. It is said to be one of the parents of G. Anne Folkard and we got it from the garden at Stourton House from Mrs Bullivant .
There is a small reliable geranium which is probably G. endressii but a cooler pink than Wargrave Pink. It came from the remains of a compost heap at the back of the garden of a flat I rented in Reading. I must have given some to a friend with a garden at some point as I know the next place I lived had no outside space at all.
I love the way good perennials interlace friends and families as they get split up and passed on. I have an Iris which I begged from my mother as I had loved it as a child. She had it from her mother who had it from either her mother or her great aunt direct. I have given a piece of it to a distant cousin who comes from the same family in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Both our mothers had visited the old house where it grew. I never saw it anywhere else until I spotted it in the Botanic Garden at Reading; it’s Iris graminae.
Today I got a punnet of strawberries and there will be at least the same again tomorrow.
Alison
#66 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Iris and bud –a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
This is me being a tag tart.
I was so surprised to find that my rapidly put down on paper picture of an Iris got more hits on e-bay than anything else I have offered for sale on its first night that I am inclined to experiment and discover which is the most popular flower image wise. My guess is it will be either a poppy or a sunflower but it could be a lily of some sort.
There is a sort of freedom attached to the daily blog thing as you do a picture and move on to the next thing. It seems worth not getting too repetitive in order to reflect the seasons and to entertain the readers /viewers. Ordinarily I might not choose to do sunflowers for example as they can look just a bit clichéd. Having said that, I did put them in the background of my picture of pumpkins that won the prize at the Summer Exhibition in Botswana, and it was a picture I was happy with. Irises I could paint until the cows come home as they are so interesting . There are three triangular arrangements of three petals, three standing up, three falling downwards and three reaching out. Then to make it even more complicated there is the beard which could be a tiny upturned scrubbing brush if it weren’t for its clean gold colour. There are also the spiralling buds in a colour so dark I always think I’ve got a black one until they unfurl.
I include here photo of one of the best garden Alliums for floral display…the star of the backdoor bed …I give you the humble and very useful Chive!
Also a picture taken, on a sunny day, of the half moon border; the pansies are a proper purple yet they look an inky blue in this shot (and all the others I took) Today’s painting, an Iris given longer to develop on paper, is actually rather bluer than it has photographed. That is most likely a problem with the artificial lighting but the pansies were taken in daylight so should come out closer to true hue.
The other thing I did today was to go to the gym to get some help with my knee problems. Not really my natural environment, I said I’d never been before which the instructor found hard to believe.” What not even when you were younger …at school?” she said, I looked at the rows of grey and black torture apparatus and had to say “I don’t think any of this had been invented when I was at school”. I mean we had a dusty old leather horse that you could be asked to jump over, but it was definitely not cool to do so with any sort of skill. If the Gym Mistress did not roll her eyes in despair, you had failed dismally. I tried not to be too gloomy and did my practice five minutes on everything but I really can’t imagine how people manage to go to the gym for pleasure. Afterwards my knee hurt and I don’t think it is supposed to.
Alison
#65 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Iris –a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 4.5 in x 7.5 in 11cm x 18cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
Well apart from the fact that my blog provider appears to have forgotten who I am… or a child has done something to the computer that means that I am not cookie friendly with the blog provider anymore it’s been a very mixed day with some good parts.
The shed is in the main intact and resurrected in a new position behind the garage. This is a good thing for the garden for the shed, being very cheap for the size, is not a thing of beauty. The only sheds that are things of beauty seem to be either very old and about to fall down, or very very expensive.
The forget-me-nots are all going over and need pulling I have started on this job and can see that once I have done the forget-me-nots I will be going back for the Geranium pyrenaicum which is getting too frequent in a number of beds. I tackle the forget-me-nots on a need to cull basis…the tattiest ones go first and then I will clear a patch where something else needs planting, By the next day another lot will need taking out.
Alison
#64 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
One early peach – a painting a day
Sold. size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
This was another day of shed mania, the shed needed putting back up and because it was taken down in lumps rather than all its components it needed carrying across flower beds and under the apple tree in ungainly, liable to break, bits. It needed all four of us and not all of us enjoyed the experience so attentions wandered and bits started wobbling off in the wrong direction.
It has been so busy I did not even attempt a Sunday joint.
Anyway the painting is a very wet picture of one of the little peaches, by tomorrow they will all be gone, the smell is just too tempting. In fact its still wet and may well have altered as it dries by tomorrow!!I actually did two painting but the one of the chive flowers went pear shaped so here instead is a photo.
I went to the allotment briefly today and discovered that there was good news and bad news: the first strawberry had ripened but a slug had eaten right through it in the night. I really hate slugs with a slow evil abiding passion.
On the topic of slugs and snails, it was damp last night so they were out in force (crunch crunch), however on the allotment it was as though the rain had never been, the surface was dry and cracked. The rain gauge showed only 0.2 inches of rain, not enough to make the water butt overflow. I want more, a lot more
Alison
#63 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Three early peaches –a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 4.5 in x 7.5 in 11cm x 18cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
It has actually rained I forgot to check how much rain but it looked like a good bit over several hours. Dock seedlings now lift out of the wet soil with just a tug.
I was being a complete degenerate and was slumped over the kitchen table doing the Suduko before I had read the news…..then a tall Swede turned up on the doorstep with a large bamboo in a pot. He says it is very invasive but what it is is now unknown. We will put it behind the rhizome barrier and let it romp with the golden bamboo and the Geneva( unknown species) bamboo and the Clerodendron bungii which I bought from Fergus Garrett when he visited the Horticultural Society to give a talk about Great Dixter. It even stopped raining long enough to go round the garden with a cup of coffee with him. Lovely unexpected visit and present, husband was very keen to show off his rhizome barrier and associated bee colony.
Incidentally none of the bamboo seed bought from Germany germinated despite a heated propagator and plenty of humidity. This means that we will need to find some other things to fill the back of the rhizome barrier area. We do still have a voucher for Architectural Plants so perhaps a trip over there is the way to go. It’s one of my favourite nurseries as they grow the plants and know what will work…for instance when I asked for a Strawberry tree(Arbutus) they said” Where do you live?” When I told them they replied “It will die in your clay! Let’s find something that will survive.” We bought a large specimen of Osmanthus yunnanensis instead, which is making a neat lollypop shaped tree at the far end of the side garden. Eventually it will give a little evergreen screening from the houses on the main road. This tree was probably the single biggest investment in the garden apart from fences and hedges but it has a quiet classic charm all of its own and scented flowers in February.
There are three little peaches in today’s painting, just a simple still life.
Alison
#62 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Rhododendron purple –a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
This is probably yet another self sown weed rhododendron plant, there seem to be quite a few which are rearing up into proper plants now the thick pall of Leylandii Cypress have been removed. Did I say we have removed about 60 of the suburbia eating monsters? It has taken four years but we have done it bit by bit and after seeing how high the pile of loped branches could go (fifteen foot by ten foot by seven foot high) we have tried to deal with each small group of trees fully before cutting down more. We have shredded and burnt almost everything. The wood makes adequate fuel if it is well dried. The mulch from the shredded pile mixed with the wood ash from the fire will help the flower beds. The change in terms of light levels and a sense of space and freedom has been incredible. It also seems incredible that that many extra trees were squeezed into the garden. They were planted so close that some were standing dead and could be pushed over by hand onto the neighbouring tree.
The thing about rhododendrons is, you either love them or you hate them. I was entranced by them as a child; they have such a definite bold presence. The colours are straight out of a paint box too; well you think they are until you try and paint them. I am not so fond of them now, but I prefer the slightly scrawny flowers of these purple ones to the blobby Barbie pink ones that were clearly prize purchases of the previous gardener here.
I deliberately painted this fast as I did not want to get bogged down with the spotty detail and the pretty stamens. It would need a carefully planned slow painting to get those right, they need to be kept in their place if they are to be shown exactly otherwise all you see is the detail-losing the overall shape and shading.
Of course some of the rhododendrons will have to go the same way as the Leylandii as they too can overpower a garden pretty fast.
There is other news; the robin learnt from his last mistake and built his new nest six feet off the ground in a conifer…but a young squirrel found it and sent all the songbirds into full alarm. The eggs had not even hatched this time, one day he will find the RSPB spec. bird box (robin design) and actually use it.
Alison
#61 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Rugosa rose, open for business –a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
My MP’s secretary e-mailed back wanting to know where I lived….will the Big Man be sending round the boys?
Perhaps she thought I was writing to the wrong MP, she can hope.
It occurred to me today in mid-rant that if our new ministers were in a new job (aka normal employment) they’d be on probation for the next six months and it would be a foolish employer who let them loose on Big Ideas which could go horribly wrong; horribly wrong Big Time. It’s not as if they were all headhunted for their specialist skills is it? So there’s no reason for them to get Big Headed and think they can run before they’ve learnt to toddle….there’s a theme here, I’m trying to remember what inspired it.
Thank goodness for that little bit of rain, it has meant that instead of watering I have moved a number of plants into their permanent position. I am doing this on the basis that the weather forecasters are right and we will get further rain on Saturday to keep them alive. In the shady area two of my Tiarella seedlings are in flower they are lime green not white but that’s fine. In one corner I found that the Epimedium had just sprung up from nowhere…I was sure I had lost it. I am now on the hunt for a golden hop to plant where the sun will shine through the leaves.
In the mean time we continue to consider the risks of ionising radiation on the Marshall Islands and the relative merits of sand and crushed coral when trying to persuade the disposed to move back to their radioactive tropical paradise …GCSE Science is so complicated.
I decided to have another crack at this opening rose its just possible to see the stamens in the centre, I love that ,it reminds one of the form of wild roses while being infinitely more luxurious.The variety is Roserie de l’Hay. I love all those rambler roses bred in the 1920’s they are often semi-double..e.g. Cornelia and Penelope. I am very fond too of Buff Beauty but I have not been able to buy or establish a really strong growing specimen. I tried in two gardens to make an apricot and lavender blue bed using this rose but only partially succeeded.
Alison
#60 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Rugosa rose –a painting a day
Sold size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
Yesterday I forgot to mention that I got really close to a strange fat dragonfly in the garden, I wanted to know what it was and discovered a really good dragonfly site which made it possible to work out that I had seen a Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa) female the site is:
www.dragonflysoc.org.uk/index.html they have a really easy way to report sightings, you can say whether you are sure about the ID or not.
Today I had a go with the electric strimmer and tidied up yet more edges and rough bits. Just cutting down rank weed growth doesn’t cure the problem but it does make it look a whole lot more doable and neater in the meantime.
I also wrote to my MP and asked him to find out why Michael Gove is in such a tearing hurry to get as many schools as possible to convert to academies by this autumn. Does he know how this will work? He’s had recent similar experience? If you rush things they do not work well …and when it’s my children’s education being dismantled I worry. If the schools rush to become acadamies then the local authority will lose funding and all the central shared services will be cut out or at least I imagine that will be the effect.
Things are moving on very fast, next doors peonies are out and mine have fat buds, the first large clematis has opened and the climbing roses although behind their normal slot are opening. The rose hedge has about thirty flowers fully opened out. They smell delicious. The other rose with a fabulous but different smell is Etoile d’Hollande which normally opens earlier in the month for my brothers birthday ( we used to call it his birthday rose when we were children) it has three flowers open and more to come.
Alison
#59 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Lemon a day 