Art for Heart's Sake

A Truly Wonderful Group of People

Hi, it's a gorgeous Wednesday morning here - blue sky, sunshine and a slight seabreeze blowing, just delicious.

Yesterday the group of people that came to my garden were a complete joy.  I thought it was just a group of women but their husbands were there too.  They meet for lunch and an outing every couple of weeks I think.  I was absolutely stunned when I realised some of them were in their early to mid 80's!  Crikey they all looked around 70 or so.  Some of them had sight problems but that didn't stop them from thoroughly enjoying the garden.  I sold a few plants, one of my magnets and a couple of my small stand-alone art pieces so I was thrilled. 

I have to say one thing that I love is to see other people really enjoying our garden.  I can't tell you how happy it makes me feel to know that the garden I adore working in and creating is bringing joy to others.  It's a VERY special feeling.  I phoned Maureen (the woman who phoned to ask if they could come) last night and thanked her so much for bringing such a gorgeous group of people to see the garden.  I feel very inspired by them.

I wasn't feeling wonderful yesterday - a very dull achy pain in my lower back through to my lower abdomen.  I went to the medical clinic just in case it was a veyr common type of infection and will get the results tomorrow.  I have a funny feeling I may have strained something majorly playing with the rockery on Saturday.  I did have to push a wheelbarrow full of soil up a slope a couple of times... hmmm BAD GIRL!  Also I was on some very funny angles, crouching while I shifted these rocks a bit here and there - tipping them up etc. I felt quite a lot better this morning but when Chester pulled me around a little to say hi to another dog when I was walking him, I started to feel slightly uncomfortable again.  I will try to take it easy today.. ermmmmm giggle - not possible I fear!  Here is the rockery in its final state before I start madly planting!   The stump you can see to the left is the end of a huge 200year old (approx) totara log from a local river (so we are told).  You can just see my studio to the right - unfortunately the wine barrel holds rainwater, not wine!! Smiles..

Couldn't Resist!

Posting this..

What can I say - I'm in LOVE with Pierre, giggle!  I know I posted a similar photo about this time last year but I just love the contrast between the dark green leaves and the voluptuous yet delicate flower.  I took this photo the day before yesterday too and am so happy with it.

The other piece of great news is that my christmas card mojo is back!! Yippeeeee...  I'm loving my cards and they are almost finished.  Yes, you guessed it, they are all identical in style - maybe that's the key!

This morning I have a group of ladies coming round to look at the garden.  The weather is a bit murky with a tiny bit of drizzle (oh how I wish it would RAIN).  They also want to look at my art and as my studio really isn't fit for viewing (oh crikey what a mess right now) I will put my art on the verandah.  I'm hoping they might buy a plant or two at least.

I'd better rush off as have to get the dog walked then sort out my art etc because they will be here in  about two hours.  Have a great day/night wherever you are!  Smiles...

I Love Flowers!

Hi, it's Monday morning and I was out early with our camera, capturing a couple of stunning beauties that are in flower at the moment.  I spotted this poppy yesterday and just had to capture it!

I love the way it looks as though it has been spray painted and the edges of the petals look like tissue paper.  Just gorgeous!

My pillar rose ''Pierre de Ronsard'' has been in flower for a couple of weeks now and he never fails to steal my heart.  I think this rose is stunning and I also love the fact that it is very healthy and repeat flowering.  What more could a girl ask!

This photo makes him look as though he's in a terracotta pot but that is sitting behind the rose on our verandah.

Ooh we finished putting the soil in the rockery yesterday and dang I forgot to take a photo of it so I must do that today too.  We are getting random spits of rain at the moment and I am just praying we get a fairly decent downpour - we need it so badly.  A group of women are supposed to be coming to see the garden tomorrow morning and I keep seeing all of the dead-heading I need to do.  Most of my spring-flowering hardy geraniums have had their first flush of flowers and need cutting back hard so they produce another lot.  Ah well, they will just have to take the garden as they find it.  I can't rush around doing everything today.

I restarted my Christmas cards last night and so far so good!  Keep your fingers crossed!  Smiles..

Neudorf plus a Dog and His Bone!

Hi there, well it's Sunday afternoon and we had a lovely time at the Neudorf Country Affaire that is held every two years.  Neudorf winery is in the most spectacular setting and it is just perfect for this sort of thing.  There are established oak, elm and oodles of other trees and everywhere you look there are grapevines.  Just stunning!

We got there at 10am and left just after midday which is just the way to do it in my eyes.  It wasn't too crowded when we got there and we managed to see all of the stalls without having to find elbow room.  I got some beautiful old linen table napkins for $2 (what a bargain!), and also a couple of smallish pieces of linen that I want to use to cover a lolly (candy or sweet) dish in my studio too.  I think I will need to sew a few beads around the edges (never thought I'd see the day I'd be doing that) to weigh it down a little.  I got a gorgeous very pale pink dish on a stem last week that is just crying out for a few lollies.  I have always loved lollies though I try not to eat only one or two a day these days.  As a child I used to chase my Dad's huge! lolly jar around their bedroom.  He really loved lollies too and I think I was about 20 when I told him I always found the jar no matter where he hid it!  Giggle.  I have some old fashioned ''real'' English humbugs in my little dish at the moment.  Yum!

At the moment we are trying to give Chester the message to keep his bone down in his dog area rather than on our verandah.  So far we have had to put his bone back down in his area around 25 times!  Shoot me!  We tried shutting him in his area (which by the way is huge and grassy with trees that he keeps attacking) but he just stood at the gate and barked - bone, what bone??!!  Phoop, this having a toddler dog is flaming hard work and I must admit I'm craving the day when we don't have any hassles with him.  He is SUCH a good dog generally - he sits and lies down the instant we say it for instance - and we must remember that, he just had toddler moments! 

Thankfully the SW wind has died down for now and today there is just a very light NW breeze blowing now and again.  The cloud has started to gather and we are forecast to get a few showers tomorrow with a bit of rain on Tuesday.  A group of women are meant to be coming to the garden on Tuesday morning but to be honest I really don't mind if they can't come.  I need to concentrate on the stall I am having at our local country fair this week.

Oh re my Christmas cards, yikes... I am in a quandry... I'm not sure I LIKE them!  OH NO!  Worse still, I'm not sure how I can make them look any better.  I am SO tempted to go out and buy some this year.  Pookies...   I think not sticking to one theme might have been a mistake.  Ah well, time will tell.   Big hugs with smiles for the rest of your weekend....  Oooh p.s. breaking news... Coco and Chanel (khaki campbell ducklings we released last week) eat out of my hand.. woohoo!

 

Mulberry Flower Photo

Hi, it's another blustery SW day here today and I am watering like crazy (not right this second obviously because I'm sitting here!).  I'm not really sure where to water first but thankfully when I checked the main perennial garden the soil seems to still be retaining moisture just below the surface so that's a big relief.  I'll definitely be watering the Oak garden later because that soil tends to dry out really fast.  At the moment I have the sprinkler going on the raised beds by the studio but I will have to stop that soon as the sun is getting too high.  Sigh! 

John went off this morning to walk Chester via Bay Landscapes.  He is getting some fish compost and 1/2 a scoop of topsoil too so that we can use some of the compost in the kitchen garden and a mix of topsoil/compost in the rockery.  Guess what I'll be doing this pm!!  I really enjoy shovelling soil and compost around even though it's hard work.

Here's a photo of the mulberry ''flower'' I promised you.  What a weird looking creature.  It looked more weird a few days ago because it was coverd in those tiny creamy white hairy sort of bits but I didn't get round to photographing it early enough.  Now if I can just keep the birds away from the fruits as they ripen we may just get to taste a mulberry for the first time!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend.  Keep your fingers crossed the wind dies down in time for the Neudorf Country Affair we are going to tomorrow.  Lyn is setting up her stand today which includes a 3m x 3m gazebo!  I hope it stays on the ground!  Smiles..

Zumba Friday & Some Pics for You

Hi, I'm off to zumba early this morning after walking Chester, pant pant, so this won't be a very long post.  Yesterday the wind really got to me.  I took my hayfever nasal spray in the morning but by lunchtime my eyes were itchy and my nose was RUNNING thanks to the blasted wind.  I think we are in for a couple of days of this gusty SW or W which is such a pain.  Not only is it destructive for the garden, it's destructive for my psyche, giggle.  I tend to turn into a really irritable creature when it's windy for too long - something to do with living in horrible windy Wellington (NZ's capital city) for 17 exceptionally LOOOONNNNGGGG years!  Nothing like having to cling to lamposts to stop yourself from being blown into the road, almost on a weekly basis - blech!

Here are three photos I took the other day - gorgeous poppies (now sort of horizontal due to the wind, aaagghhh), the rockery in progress (I've never done one before so am not sure if the rocks look right yet or not.  Soil and plants to be added) and Chester doing something he definitely is not allowed to do - paws up on the gate!  Gggrrrrrr!  He's been having a ''bad hair'' week - his behaviour has been a little ''in our faces'' and it's making me grouchy!  Hmmm I didn't take this photo, so who did??!! giggle...).  Enjoy!  Smiles..p.s. if anyone has any bright ideas how to stop Chester ripping any tree within his reach (sideways or upwards!!) could you let me know.  He loves sticks so of course every tree is a giant stick just waiting to be torn to shreds - hence he is not in his dog area by himself much! POOKIES!!!

I've Started my Christmas Cards!!!

Hi there, yes it's true, I've FINALLY started to make our christmas cards.  Yikes - some of them need to be in the mail around the first week of December so I need to get a big wriggle on.  I usually decide on a design and make them all the same but this year I've decided to be a bit more random.  I have a lovely selection of papers to use and will add little embellishments here and there too.  I only need to make around 20 so it won't take me too long.

Yesterday I had a lovely time with Lyn.  I left home at 9.40am and got home again at 4.45pm, crikey how the time flew by.  It was such fun handling all of the beautiful products, sorting them, displaying them and in some cases pricing them.  I'm so looking forward to seeing how the final display looks in the grounds of a local vineyard on Sunday.  We are planning to get there around the time it starts, 10am, as I like to get in and get out before the afternoon crowds hit.

I feel as though I've been spinning on the spot and getting nowhere again this week and I think it's mainly because I haven't had time to do any gardening yet and it's Thursday already - pookies!  I am planning to do something in the garden this pm - now which of the 5000 tasks will I tackle???  Aaagghhhhhh.  I did some watering earlier in the week and we did get a tiny bit of rain yesterday but the wind is back today so there goes that moisture.    I've started seeing a few things that need cutting back so they can flower again and also some weeds are peeping above some of my perennials too.  I have another small group of women coming to see the garden next Tuesday so I need to tweak those weeds out if I can.  If not, I'm sure all the flowers will distract them!

Okay I'd better go and hang the washing out.  Oooh mass excitement, I planted a black mulberry tree around 4 years ago and this year it has the first flowers on it.  When I say flowers they are the weirdest things I've ever seen.  I took a photo this morning and will post it for you tomorrow.  Smiles..

A Special Day

Hi, it's Wednesday morning and today would have been my Dad's 85th birthday and Mum and Dad's 58th (wow!) wedding anniversary.  Happy birthday my gorgeous Dad - sending you oodles of love, hugs, smiles and laughter.  Not a day goes by without you in my thoughts.  I love you more than words can say!

I'm spending most of today helping my lovely friend Lyn price and sort out things for her stall at a local bi-yearly country fair this Sunday.  I love doing this sort of thing, particularly as she is selling lots of bits and pieces like vintage buttons, paper flowers etc.  What fun we will have sorting it out!

Yesterday stayed pretty hot and my poor garden is starting to show signs of heat/dry stress which always stresses me out.  Because of the size of this garden I need to have a fairly strict watering routine worked out which usually just means keeping note of which area I've watered on what day.  I always feel guilty when I forget an area and suddenly see my hardy geraniums with very limp leaves and flowers - bad mother!  Giggle.

Here is photograph of another rose - this one if Rosa rugosa ''Alba''.  I just love the pure white of the flowers and their fragrance is heavenly.  The flower was just opening when I took this photograph.  As I was sizing this pic I realised aaggghhh there are some whitefly on the bud!  Vile creatures.. bring on the birds to munch them.  I have seen greenfinches eating aphids before, here's hoping they like the flavour of whitefly too!  More tomorrow.  Smiles..

Duck Determination!

Hi, it's another beautiful day (a bit too beautiful I might add!) with a slight breeze blowing.  Yesterday pm it was hot and very windy, with a vile, vile, vile SW gusty wind blowing.  Nothing makes me feel more irritated than windy weather, especially when it's hot too.  John and I plus Chester went out in the ute to get some more rocks for the rockery from a local contracting company, which we placed (sort of) when we got back.  Phew it was hot.

This morning on his way to work next door John tried to move a very stubborn duck off her nest.  We've been waiting for her to get off to feed so that we can remove the eggs before they hatch.  This might sound mean but we would rather do this than have most of them killed by pukekos or stoats etc.  We also don't want any more ducks because we have plenty!  This mummy duck is a definite ditz-brain because in the past when she's had some ducklings she just leaves them to their own devices too much from day one!  John tried to get her to move and was going to put the eggs in an old gold pan I have.  He got her off the nest but she wouldn't let him near the eggs to he put the gold pan upside down on top of the nest.  When he came home he checked the nest and look what he found:

Isn't this just gorgeous!  I think she is so delightful.  Luckily the gold pan is only made of plastic so it's not heavy - she was obviously VERY determined to get back onto her eggs.  John doesn't dare try to move the pan as she is very feisty (understandably, poor dear).  I would have loved to have seen her manouvre her way under it!

It's time for me to have some lunch and then I will need to venture back out into the garden.  I am longing for it to cloud over because it really is too hot to garden - bother!!  Smiles..

Coco and Chanel Are Out!

Hi, ermmm what an odd heading to this post, giggle!  Yesterday we released Coco and Chanel, our khaki campbell teenage ducklings, from their pen.  It was delightful to watch - as they moved out of the penned area they were very quiet and then all of a sudden they started chattering away to each other at the top of their lungs.  Ducks definitely have their own language and we love listening to them talk to each other.  It was as though Chanel was saying to her brother ''wow, look at all this space.  Crikey what a lot of flowers'' as she proceeded to stand all over them - aagghh, giggle.

The other ducks including their brothers and sisters aren't terribly interested in them and of course some of the older male ducks are pecking in their direction if they get too close but that will be sorted in time.  I'll get a photo of them when I can - they are so gorgeous.

Last night we had a lovely time with Lyn and Bevan and got home around 10.15pm which is just perfect.  I'm not a night owl, no matter how hard I try, so I don't enjoy going to bed after about 10.30pm at the very latest.  I'm going back to Lyn's on Wednesday to give her a hand pricing things for her stand at a local craft fair this coming Sunday.

I am reading a glorious book at the moment.  It is a story of a garden - more or less a garden diary - in New South Wales, Australia and it is the most scrumptious book ever.  I'll try to find it online and post the link when I get time.  I've just read a short chapter on roses and I must admit it is making me want a lot more roses than we have.  I don't spray at all so any rose here has to be strong and healthy.  One that I have already ordered is ''Jacqueline du Pre''.  She is the most gorgeous creature I've seen in a while: (I hope this link works!)

Jacqueline du Pre Rose Images

My mind is completely full of flowers and vegetables at the moment which is making it very hard to concentrate on household things.  I need to go through my wardrobe and have a radical clean out so I might start that this morning because it is raining (yippeeeeeee!).  This afternoon I need to pot on some of my hardy geranium seedlings that have come up as well as talking sternly to the ones that haven't yet!  I am SO happy it's raining as the garden needs it badly.   Okay, off to toss clothes around!  Smiles..