“So how do holly trees have babies?” I had been telling a group of friends about a new generation that I was off to draw. Presents from the birds, we used to call them in my family – plants that arrive, neither sown, nor planted by us. It’s the wood pigeons … Read More
Fog. It’s the sort of bone cold grey day that never quite clears… But as I clip and shape the hebes, determined to have some time outdoors on a working Saturday, I get my eye in. Out from the murk shine shoots of iris, their surface-sitting roots like ginger. Undisturbed … Read More
On dark days, this, near the Winter Solstice and dark of news to match, I’m happy to see any glimmer of brightness that the garden will offer. Here, bobbing in the chilly breeze, the first snowdrop of Winter. It’s a few weeks early, brought, perhaps, by mild weather but it … Read More
I’m terrible at pruning roses. My late mum taught me to sculpt them, looking for the directions of the buds. But I let stems ramble until they’re finished with flowering, reach to trim them and accidentally, take off a stem still in flower. These opening buds, stopped in their tracks … Read More
This time of year, much of the garden is a palette of browns. Twigs. Bark. Seeds left out for the wildlife. But there’s more going on… The eucalyptus tree in the garden behind mine sheds its bark, wind blowing in curls of it, like chocolate shavings. I pick one up … Read More
In my urban garden, faded has its own grandeur. Once vivid, the roses are blooming in soft pastels edged with cherry pink, some round like little peonies, others presenting their petals to the garden. The jasmine’s sharp green leaves have only now taken on tones of russet, their rolls and … Read More
I’ve been trying to draw it all week – a tiny toadstool in the improvised grow-bag that was home to the courgettes and now, with no intervention from me, hollyhocks. Studio work has come first but today, its neighbour nibbled, I’ve grabbed the last of the daylight and crouched down to … Read More
It’s nature day at COP26 so I take a look at what nature is doing in the small world of my urban garden. Fashionably late, the cosmos is in flower. I associate it with Summer but looking it up, some varieties are happy in cooler weather. Getting closer to draw, … Read More
As trees fruit, winds blow and Summer veg go over, there’s an air of gathering-in about the garden, and not just for me… The rainbow chard, spindly this year, keeps going so I harvest little sprouting tops to add to a stir-fry. And it’s only in drawing it that I … Read More
The temptation to tidy is sometimes overwhelming – but aside from sprawling limbs of ivy and roses to dead-head, this is the season when I let things lie for a bit. This week, the garden has rewarded me with a hidden harvest…. hiding among leaves that looked done-for, I’ve found gorgeous … Read More