My cottage garden in the city is a haven for wild creatures. I’ve spotted my first holly blue butterflies and damselfly of the season, yet to pause for long enough to be drawn. But meanwhile, a beautiful little day-flying moth has sat obligingly on the lemon balm in the early … Read More
After April’s rain in May, sudden sunshine – and everywhere, purple… There’s a lot more to the irises’ purple than a first glance suggests. Glossy buds like tightly-rolled satin are almost-black in the shade. Big, blowsy petals need layers, some blue and pink, to build up their brilliance on waste coated … Read More
Cucamelons. No, I have no idea why I sowed these either, though goodness knows, come seed catalogue time I was ready for some frivolity. And glamorous they are, mini vines, already throwing out their first fronds. The black hollyhocks will, if they do well, be ink. Growing in wavy formation, they’re … Read More
This is the launch month for Dispatches from a Small World so I give you… the whole garden! I’ve been drawing all of it periodically, when I spot something new. I notice what dusk does to the greens, how snow highlights the kind of garden it is – and at … Read More
You’ll find me drawing a lot of tulips at this time of year and these, which I’m growing for the first time, do that wonderful thing in nature of no two flowers, or leaves, being of the same stripe, which, I always think, tells us something about beauty. But that’s … Read More
Snowdrops and salad… a present, snowdrop bulbs (Thank you, Heather!), in my Columbia carrier grow bag – a flower market carrier in its former life. The little pops of leaf between are corn salad. I improvised this planter in the 2020 season, for courgettes. It gave them a fine home, sheltered … Read More