First flush, last knockings

Before I started this project, I would think of the gardening season as something with a beginning, a middle and an end. But reporting from my garden in sketches, I’ve realised that there are many stories and cycles, all happening at once – and sometimes on the same plant.

I can’t resist drawing the tulips’ last knockings, throwing curlicues as they get ready to shed their petals. Just a couple of feet along, the nigella, the enthusiastically self-seeding socialites of the garden, are in their first flush, all feathery leaves and glossy, jewel-blue flower buds. And the holly tree, in bud and in berry, two courses for the wildlife.

Sketching, I get to spend time with the plants and trees that I tend; to notice moments of form and colour that I might otherwise miss. I draw the flowers as sculpture, understand the texture of a petal, think about the relationship in shape between flower and berry. Every time I report from the garden, I learn something new.

So cheers, me'dears – a Garden Day toast to my little urban plot, for everything that it shows me.

Biro, watercolour, fineliner, household candle on waste paper.