December 2018 – Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature

Happy New Year! No Resolutions Here…

So it’s the time of year for looking both backwards and forwards…assessing, planning and – very probably – wondering where the hell the time went!

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Or do you have a more relaxed way of working out what you want to do with the brand-new year? Is it really necessary to have one day of the year when you try to make commitments that are often unrealistically demanding? Or is it better to have an ongoing awareness of what you want to accomplish and how you may be able to do it?

You will have realized that I’m not too bothered about making resolutions at this time of year. But, as a keen gardener, it’s a useful opportunity to think about the work I want to do and the plants I want to grow. It’s a good time to plan seed-sowing and (especially if it’s too cold to work outside), to take a while to imagine how I’d like the garden to look throughout the year.

Garden-planning, for me, also means planning what I want to grow to photograph, and trying to come up with ideas for making areas of the garden more photogenic. (I think that may be a long process!)

Making a list of gardens to visit is one of the nicer ways of spending an hour or two on a grey January day. It promises both inspiration for my own garden and new subjects to photograph. Maybe I should make a resolution after all – to visit more gardens this summer. (It shouldn’t be too hard to keep that one!)

Garden Statues — Ever get the feeling that you’re being watched? These two seem to be just as interested in the visitors, as the visitors are in the garden!

Perhaps the most successful approach to the New Year is simply to decide what is most important and where our focus needs to be during the year. No make-it or break-it big declaration, but something calmer and more persevering. Encourage something to grow quietly month-by-month, and by the end of that year there may be something very pleasing to show for it.

No big display of resolutions, then. But this year I would like to concentrate on using my time for the things I really want to do. (Now my time is much more my own than it was, and I realize just how precious it is.)

That means spending time working on photography and gardening. It means continuing to learn printmaking and drawing skills. And just to enjoy time spent in our garden, visiting other people’s gardens and exploring the countryside. (Luckily Hubby enjoys these things too!) The ideal would be for me to be able to bring all of these things together as much as possible – something for me to work on steadily through 2019.

Of course, I hope to make this blog grow and flourish during the coming year. No resolution needed there! Thank you for reading and for your comments – it’s wonderful to be able to ‘chat’ and to feel a sense of community. (I’d like to be able to put a really big smiley face here!) I hope that you all have a very happy New Year.

Fern sculpture — Art and gardening come together: this fern-inspired sculpture seems to grow out of the water.

Are You Dreaming of a White Christmas?

garden photography

Snow can bring a bit of magic to the garden at this time of year. It covers up the dead leaves of perennials, hides weeds and makes tiny sculptures from the seed-heads that you’ve left for the birds. And if there’s frost too, then those seed-heads become like icy Christmas decorations.

It’s rare for us to get snow at Christmas here in the east of England. In fact, in the last few days, hubby and I have been using a mild spell of weather to get work done in the garden. (It’s very pleasant if you manage to follow where the sun is as you work.)

Snow is more likely in January, when the temperature always seems to drop and you really start to notice the cold. If it snows, then there’s not much chance to get any work done in the garden. It’s a good time to grab a camera and go for a walk, looking for things to photograph.

Snow-covered Echinacea seed-heads. — Guess what’s hiding under the snow! (Echinacea seed-heads.)

There are water meadows very close to our house, so this is where we usually walk. They become a great plain of white, etched with the dark shapes of trees and the even darker waters of the river. After one especially deep fall of snow, the temperature had risen enough to let the top surface of the snow melt slightly but it then re-froze as it got colder again. This made for a very satisfying walk, crunching through that top icy layer into the soft snow beneath.

Back in the garden, the plants may all turn to soft mounds of white. It can be hard to remember which is which. Everything becomes unfamiliar, clean and, for once, immaculately tidy. These are the days when I don’t look at the garden and immediately begin to think of all the jobs that are waiting to be done there. Instead I wander around with my camera, looking to see what strange forms the snow has created from the plants.

The opportunity to take photographs in the snow is quite rare here and doesn’t usually last very long. (These pictures were taken some time ago.) So if it snows this winter, I’ll have to take my chance quickly and get out into the garden to see what transformations the snow has made.

Snow-covered Eryngium seed-heads — Eryngium seed-heads – prickly little starbursts in the snow.

Snow is part of our romantic image of Christmas – all white and crisp and ideal for sledging, snowballs and making snowmen. We very conveniently forget chaos on the roads, cancelled flights at snowbound airports and horribly slippery paths. Snow is an essential part of Christmas cards, holiday TV and happy childhood memories.

I won’t do a Bing Crosby and wish that all your Christmases may be white – it may be inconvenient for your travel plans or, if you’re reading this on the other side of the world, more than a bit unlikely! But I will say ‘May your days be merry and bright!’ I hope that you have a very happy Christmas.

Anemone seed-head capped with snow. — The fluffy seed-head of an anemone wears a little cap of snow.

Not True Blue

flower photography, garden photography

Blue flowers are beautiful but those that are truly blue aren’t common. Those that come to mind first are delphinium, cornflower, salvia, morning glory and plumbago. Many of the flowers that we think of as blue have a hint or more of purple, mauve or lavender in their colouring.

I’ve been sitting comfortably inside while it’s been cold and sleety outside, looking through photos taken in the garden here. Working my way through them has made me aware of how often I choose to grow flowers in the purple-blue and mauve colour range.

Purple-blue clematis flower — Blue and purple blend in the petals of this clematis.

The second photo of a clematis shows a very similar colouring to the first photo. (But you’ll see that the bud in that first photo develops very differently as it matures….) Violet-purples and lavender-blues seem to be very common colours for clematis. That can make it hard to choose between them.

The way the colours in the petals bleed into one another is very delicate. It’s almost like the way watercolours blend into each other and is something that I’m keen to try and capture in a photograph.

Blue and a lilac-y pink penstemon — Blue and a lilac-y pink blend in the flowers of this penstemon.

The purply-blues, lavenders, mauves etc seem to all mix quite easily with other colours but not always with ‘true-blues’. However, the penstemon above seems to have managed this perfectly. Maybe nature can teach gardeners a thing or two about colour combinations. But, I prefer the colours in the flowers below, where the blue is a bit softer and seems to blend more gently with the lavender – perhaps there is a touch of red in the blue.

Going much more to the mauve/pink end of the colour range, there are many flowers that look beautiful and mix with the darker purple-blues very happily.

The hydrangea in the photo below grew in my previous garden in Scotland. The flowers on this shrub shaded from blue through to a mauve-pink. Evidently our soil there was not acid enough to turn the flowers completely blue, but the soft blending of the colours on the petals was lovely. (Here in Suffolk, blue hydrangeas turn pink – no chance of keeping one blue!)

The mauve-purple of the Allium ‘Cristophii’ has a lighter feel to it than the blue-purples but looks good with them. It’s an easy colour to use and the flowers are very attractive, so it’s good to see them self-seed around the garden.

So, while I may not have many real blues in the garden here, I’m very happy that there are so many photogenic flowers in the different purple shades.

At the start, I said you’d see how that clematis bud’s colours developed…. here it is…. Yes, it is the same flower!

Clematis 'Crystal Fountain' flower — Clematis flower showing more colour as the flower matures.

First Frost

garden photography

It’s been quite mild here in Suffolk for the last few weeks but during the week we had the first frost of the season. Suddenly it feels like winter, although it was soon wet again.

While there’s a frost it’s great to be able to nip out into the garden and look to see what might be worth photographing.

If it’s sunny, the sparkle on the frost is wonderful but, of course, it means that the frost will soon disappear. That can make it can hard to decide what to photograph first. There’s never time to photograph all of the frosty subjects, no matter how fast you work.

Frost-covered penstemon flowers. — Frost covers these penstemon flowers.

I like to leave seed-heads on the plants in the garden here in the hope that they’ll get frosted. Sometimes there are a few flowers still. Penstemon ‘Garnet’ is especially good at continuing into the winter, although by this time there is only a sprinkling of flowers left.

Waiting for the frost to create opportunities for photography is a great reason for not being too tidy in the garden. Anything might look good with a coating of frost – flowers, seed-heads, leaves, grasses. It doesn’t matter if they’re dead or alive, so long as there’s an interesting shape or texture.

Frost is a kind friend to the garden photographer in winter – it makes interesting photographic subjects out of very little. (And you can leave tidying up the garden ’til springtime – well that’s my excuse anyway!)

Frosted fennel heads. — These fennel heads have just lasted long enough to get frosted.

Summer Memories

flower photography

I’ve been transferring my photo files over to a new PC, so it has given a chance to look through images that haven’t been seen for a while. Among them was this set of hollyhock pictures which were taken on a long-ago summer evening.

We hadn’t been living here in Suffolk for long and still felt relatively new in the area. It was a warm evening with the sun still shining over the water meadows that run along one side of the town, so Hubby suggested that we should go for a walk. We decided to wander along the river and by some of the old cottages along its bank.

One of the cottages had a little bit of garden at the side that had been taken over by hollyhocks – they looked as if they had just seeded themselves wherever they fancied. The tall spires were spilling out of the garden and dotted along the side of the path. Luckily I had taken my camera…….

A pink hollyhock flower — Pale veins stand out against the bright pink of this hollyhock.

For some reason, there was never the chance to photograph hollyhocks while I lived in Scotland. Some gardeners must grow them there but I don’t remember seeing them in Scottish gardens. (Maybe because they seem too tall and vulnerable for the rougher weather there – the winds can get quite fierce.) Here, though, they are everywhere. They’re a real ‘English cottage garden’ plant and an essential part of summer.

We now have a few in our own garden and they seem to be replacing themselves with their own seedlings. This means I never know what colours may come up – usually pink but there have been other colours – yellow and a deep, dark purply-red.

cream hollyhock — The dark centre is a strong contrast to the translucent petals.

The hollyhocks were a treat to photograph. Their petals were so thin and delicate that it was easy to capture the evening sun passing through them. The light made them vibrant. It showed up the marking of the veins on their petals and the jewel-like colours, especially those with the dark ‘halo’ in the centre.

Looking at the photographs now, they bring back happy memories of summertime and an evening spent exploring our new home town. They’re a reminder, too, that it won’t be so long before next summer is on the way!

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