I'm more interested in the feeling that a place creates, the balance of containment and space. I love to have somewhere to walk around and things to discover. I like boundaries and definition - not necessarily in straight lines - and the thoughtful contrast of big leaves and little ones, dark greens and light... and possibly also flowers. (Not that a lot of such thought went into the planting here I must admit, but it will in future.)
I do have favourite flowers - roses, peonies, and apple blossom. Even with things that do flower significantly though, I prefer a short season, because it's the endlessly shifting focus in a garden, combined with the seasons' reliably enduring cycle, that appeals to me.
Other people see gardens totally differently, and that's great, I'm glad they do.This is just what I like, I'm not saying it's better.
So here are a few pictures for today, only one of which is a flower.
Wonderful pictures! Your peony is like eons ahead of mine. Spring is near!
ReplyDeleteI hear what you say and agree that a garden is a place not only for seeing but for thinking and guessing, feeling and discovering.
ReplyDeletetina, it's not a peony, it's a hellebore - my peonies haven't even appeared above the ground yet :)
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago the dog trampled the emerging shoots of my favourite peony... twice. So I made a frame to protect it out of kerria prunings... which promptly and efficently rooted! (and although the peony did manage to flower that year, it never emerged the following one, and was dead)
- oh and yes, Tatyana, very well put.
ReplyDeleteWonderful signs of new life emerging. Is that chard I spy ?
ReplyDeleteYes, it's chard :) I love the brightness of it. I'm afraid I'm stupidly bad at eating up the veg we grow though, hence the old foliage near it.
ReplyDeleteAbout 4 years ago we had some chard that we left that grew to be amazignly tally - about 8 feet!
I took pictures of lots of other new shoots but they were too small to look reasonable on the screen. But the mummy-plant loves them.... ;)
I like what you wrote about the garden and gardening, I feel much the same about it.
ReplyDeleteIn my veggie garden the yellow and red chard are standing side by side too. ;-)
Ah, so THAT'S chard. We call in silverbeet here.
ReplyDeletebeautiful spring foliage Emily! I love the green hellebore. Chard is such a pretty vegetable, whether it's eaten or not! I'm looking forward to trying some in my new veggie bed this spring.
ReplyDeletegarden girl - hello again - thank you, and can I put in a suggestion of cavolo nero? the taste is amazing :)
ReplyDeleteI agree. The garden is so much more than flowers. For me, my garden is my favorite place on the planet. I'm a foliage fanatic and because of the relatively mild climate in these parts, I can grow a lot of different plants.
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