Let me introduce you to Maggie Hannaford a fairly recent addition to my garden and a bit late to the party flowering but I’m not complaining – isn’t ‘she’ a beauty!
There are enough blooms this year for me to pick for my botanical art and still have some in the garden to admire.
This years petal & pins Christmas Collection I designed with geranium flowers from the garden.
From window boxes in Paris to Australian gardens, these bright happy flowers add a playful dash of festivity – and perfectly suit a summertime Christmas!
I had fun stringing our petal & pins gift tags and some sprigs of geranium flowers above the mantle piece in the studio earlier in the week – the first festive trimmings to appear at our place.
We added petal & pins wrapping paper with this collection – it was exciting to see it develop from an idea to the finished product and branch out from just greeting cards.
The Christmas Geranium Collection is available at selected stockists and from the petal & pins online shop…and for classic with a twist, take a look at the Holly Dress greeting cards from my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe®
When winter is at its greyest the bergenias add a much needed spash of colour in my garden and the rusty coloured stems make a striking contrast to the dusty pink petals.
Massed in a bed on a gentle slope in the middle of the garden, come spring the odd jonquil will poke its way up. Most things have been flowering late this winter – I only noticed the first of my violets today and not many at that but I can always depend on the bergenias to show up as a pretty visual antidote to the cold and grey.
Winter skies are always beautiful in Hobart around dusk with pink hued clouds alluminated by the setting sun.
The aptly named flowering Shrimp Tail Salvia echos the colours of the evening sky and the leaves turn to patches of burgundy and green like an exotic camouflage print, perfect for the Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.™
I once mistakenly picked this flower for a floral arrangement, the strong scent becomes more intense inside and is not at all pleasant – definitely a flower to simply admire in the garden.
There is still plenty of autumn colour around Hobart and in my garden and I gathered some up to design new dresses for the Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe®. The maple tree by one of the front gates is particularly spectacular and has grown to have a lovely arching shape over the steps, hiding a glimpse of the house when you first enter the gate until you reach the curve of the path.
I’ve written before about my half circle path with a gate at each end – this gate (we call it the top gate!) is my favourite to go in and out of in Autumn because of the maple and the other (the bottom gate!) is my favourite in Spring when the rose that twists through the patchwork hedge sends sprays of pink blooms over head.
And just like that summer is over…I feel like I missed it I’ve been so busy but I did get to go for a blissful swim in the ocean in Sydney before I flew to Los Angeles to attend a paper camp for small independent stationery designers.
Crossing the international dateline is a strange thing depending on which way you’re travelling, I lost a Tuesday on the way back and it was offically autumn when I arrived home.
I love after I’ve been away to wander in the garden and see what’s different from when I left – the apples now have their rosey tint, the dogwood leaves are turning russet and the hydrangea hues are fading.
Today I’m joining Cathy from Rambling in The Garden for In a Vase On Monday and while mine is showing the beginnings of autumn in my garden hers will be decidedly showing the delights of spring!
Cathy invites you to take a few minutes to pick something where you are (even if it involves a bit of foraging) and share by leaving a link to and from her weekly post.
Pantone announcing Greenery as the Colour of the Year 2017 has inspired me to look at all the foliage in my garden.
I had fun combining leaves from about five different plants, focusing on texture and shape to design two new dresses for the Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe™ now available as limited edition art prints.
There was not much blue sky today mostly it’s been rainy and grey. As predicted the wind has whipped up and I can hear it howling and whirling around rustling the leaves as I write.
Yesterday I picked a vase of flowers and the splash of orange is perfect to add some brightness to inside as a counterpoint to the drab weather, especially as the forecast for the rest of the week is for more of the same.
Not a lot of flowers about in my garden at the moment but lots of Autumn foliage and seed pods so I have used those in my arrangement with a few nasturtiums and minaret flowers.
I popped the ‘apple cosy’ I bought on our road trip to the north west of Tasmania along side the vase (isn’t it cute!). Besides the colours complementing the flowers it’s a perfect symbol of mid autumn at my place since there are apples still on my tree and a cupboard full of just bottled apples ready for a winter of apple crumbles.
I had never heard of, much less seen an apple cosy before – its purpose is to stop an apple getting bruised in a lunchbox. When I saw this little bit of knitted cuteness I immediately thought of my Fairy Dust friend who loves apples so I’ll be giving it to her next time we catch up.
Have you ever seen an apple cosy?
What’s your favourite winter apple dessert?
Petal & Pins 