Something beautiful: Graham Thomas roses

Oh dear, my poor neglected blog! I want to thank each one of you that persists in reading my sporadic posts, there seems so little time to write here whilst trying to run my jewellery business and all that a big family involves! So, I have decided to release myself from the notion that only long and involved posts are worth writing, and hope that you will enjoy my more frequent but shorter offerings - just beautiful things that I find that inspire me, and I hope you too? Maybe you can think of this little spot on the web as a tiny receptacle for simple, beautiful finds that might brighten your day, as well as offering behind the scenes glimpses into the world of Wild Acre designs? Nothing grand, nothing complicated, but hopefully some photographs and words to enjoy and to remind us all of the beauty and stillness in the world, especially when the pace of life seems a bit frantic?  A brief pause, or slow-down moment in the day? Does that sound ok?

Here is today's beauty - Graham Thomas roses outside my kitchen door catching the early morning sunshine. Yes, real sunshine at last, feels miraculous in this bewilderingly grey June, so I'm catching every ray of it while I can. A cup of coffee sitting on the low garden wall, looking at these yellow beauties was a great, if early, start to the day.

Have a lovely thursday, remember to pause and smell the roses!

gathered: cowslips

This week's posy has the first tiny cowslips of the season with a couple of sprigs of euphorbia. A little promise of Spring even if it snowed yesterday!

It is Mother's Day here in in the UK, so a big cheer for all the mama's giving their all to love and nurture their kids, but also much thought to all those finding today really tough, big love and respect for all that is in our hearts today. xxx

gathered: hellebores

I have always loved having a bit of the outdoors, indoors. Flowers in season even if just tiny posies, but also foraged finds - feathers, lichen, twigs, pebbles - lovely, gathered things that connect me to the landscapes I love. I am really trying to declutter stuff we don't love anymore from our home, so there is room to properly enjoy these small collections that do matter to me. I thought I might share what I collect, snip and enjoy each week here on the blog under the title 'gathered', and I hope it encourages us all to feel that just a few simple blooms really can be so worth the minimal effort involved? It is also, I suppose, part of my goal to make this year more mindful, and the ritual of growing, finding, collecting and displaying is a simple way to bring pleasure and calmness into the week - a bit of margin from all the busyness and deadlines that can take over. It means that I have an easy way to deepen my connection with the seasons, and relishing what makes each month special is in essence about noticing more keenly and finding gratitude in simple things which just seems to make life so much happier? There are lots of hashtags over on instagram that celebrate a similar intention, take a look at #natureinthehome #wanderandgather #thenaturetable  #stylingtheseasons if you are interested, and do please join in with my #naturenotes_february for a monthly collection of my seasonal finds and those of anyone else who would like to share their photos or sketches?

This week, it is all about enjoying the hellebores while they are still carpeting the small woodland part of our garden. They have been in flower for weeks already and I know they won't be around much longer so I am picking a few each week, and popping them in tiny vases to enjoy. The trick with hellebores is to cut them just before they start producing seed, and keep the stalks very short, scalding the stem ends in boiling water for about 10-15 seconds, shielding the flowers from the steam. This way they last a few days rather than drooping within hours. The shortness of the stems means you actually see their beautiful faces!

I would love to hear about any of your flowers or other finds this week, and I hope they give you lots of pleasure in your home. 

This week's pickings from the cutting patch

I'm loving greys and pinks at the moment. Here there is a mixture of japanese anemone,  artemesia, echinacea, annual scabious and poppy seedheads. The pincushion flowers, (much nicer than the official 'scabious' name!), have long been a favourite because they are gorgeous enough to swoon over from bud to full flower whilst being fantastically prolific and long stemmed. Artemesias have been a real discovery this year - there are many forms that provide the most elegant silvery foliage for the whole growing season.

I realise I have been rather scant with the flower news and photos this summer, so whilst there are still pretty flowers in the garden, I will try and post a weekly photo of what I am picking and loving most. I don't sell many now, the jewellery has become my full time business, but I am still growing a garden full of loveliness for my own enjoyment, still with an emphasis on plants that look fabulous in the garden and the vase with the least amount of faffage. If you live locally and would like to buy a bunch now and again I am still very happy to provide for that.

I'd love to know what you are growing and picking in your garden whether for the vase or the plate?

Let's play catch up 2: the garden

What a gorgeous summery week we have had, the garden is in full June flounce and I'm loving the giddy first flush of summer herbaceous abundance. The delphiniums have come back better than ever, I do love them. Dark Knight and Summer Skies are two of my favourite varieties.

I am finally learning the importance of some good vertical lines in a border and now that the alliums are over, it is the grasses, giant nepeta, delphs and lupins that are doing it best at the moment. Love me some floral spires! Poppies and cornflowers are heading skyward too.

Wishing you a lovely June weekend, what a cracking time of year. xx

White tulips

I am revelling in my white tulips this Spring. Tulipa Spring Green was originally planted three years ago and is still going great guns, despite the fact I never lift them over the winter. I suppose if any thing has changed about them it is that the colour seems a little creamier this year, less white. Still gorgeous though and they last well in the vase.

The other, Tulipa Smirnoff has been a fantastic discovery. A kind neighbour gave me some bulbs in January and I was doubtful if they would flower properly being planted so late. Just a couple of months later they were rocketing through the surface of the soil and I just cannot believe how gorgeous they are.

The following pictures were taken after over a week in a vase - I will be growing loads of these next year! The jaggedy edges, like so many little frost spikes, just make me go weak at the knees.

There is something so lovely about the shape of tulip flowers, I am wondering if I could use a similar shape in my jewellery somehow....

Anyway, have a brilliant weekend wherever you are, get your mitts on some locally grown narcissi or tulips if you can, you won't be sorry! xxx

flowers in the house

During a rare sunny moment between scudding, grey storm clouds, I whipped out my camera to take a some pictures of the few flowers in our house - just in time for Jane's monthly floral shindig. It is slim pickings in the garden this time of year, and although a few purple anemones are bravely unfurling in the swathes of mud, I found a few lovely long stems at a flower shop in town and couldn't resist. So I popped them in a white jug along with some green hellebore florets from the garden.

I have been loving the snowdrops beginning to carpet our little woodland area and a few of them always look so pretty in a tiny clay pot I think. They are cheering up our north facing kitchen.

Wishing you all a lovely week. I am full steam ahead with jewellery work, but plenty to do to get the garden ready for Spring too. It feels good to get my hands in the earth again.

hyacinth love

I blame Hyacinth Bucket myself, (she of the British TV sitcom). If hyacinths were deemed slightly vulgar and showy of form and scent before, they have since the sitcom, hit a new low sharing a moniker with the human personification of naff social climbery! Oh dear. Because really they are extraordinary things. These cut hyacinths in my kitchen have been going for well over a week now, looking and smelling lushly exotic and yet somehow resolutely English too.

Their beautifully shaped petals are strong enough to look like they have been made of Delft clay - perfectly carved and coloured.

I dunno, I just love them. And all in February too. What about you, love them or loathe them?

Whichever, have a lovely weekend. xx

an unbeatable floral duo for January: hellebores and snowdrops

Just when it seems the garden will sleep on forever, the unbeatable, unbreakable duo of hellebores and snowdrops pop up in my woodland garden. They are so faithful, so tough, so beautiful. My go-to plants for January floral therapy!

The only help they need is a little dividing and replanting for the snowdrops every five years or so and a chopping back of the huge amount of hellebore leaves in December, so the new shoots can emerge all gorgeous and Venus-like, unhidden by an unruly mop of old leaves. Anyway, that is what has worked for me.

Have you got any January wonder going on in your garden, would love to know? xx

flowers in the house

January is a toughie of a month for flowers in the house - the pine-y Christmas loveliness, all that spicey greenery brought-indoors-to-warm-the heart have been cleared away, and although there are excitements brewing in the garden with the hellebore and snowdrop buds beginning to push through, there is not enough of anything much to pick in the garden. A little bit of foliage here and there but nothing really exciting enough to point a camera at.

So I am making do with honesty seedcases, all light and ethereal,  for a touch of pretty here and there. Honest is a useful flower in itself, white or purple clouds of blooms, and easy enough to grow with a bit of direct sowing of seed - they are biennial so plant the seeds in about may/june for flowers at about the same time the following year. In my opinion they are totally worth it for these gorgeous, shimmering seedcases alone.

I also have a pot of hyacinths on the kitchen table, with little green buds that almost look good enough to nibble on, (I won't!!), a daily reminder that the year is turning and despite being mid winter, things are stirring beneath our feet, life is brewing and new things are happening. Always good to be reminded!

There are more flowers in the house over the pond at Jane's, go take a gander! Have a lovely week.

hanging on to colour

These final garden flowers are still looking so pretty in our sitting room. Not bad at all for mid november, but frosty nights mean they are the very last. Sniff.

However, nature was still looking pretty vibrant down by the river today.

Which was good because I am not quite ready for the slip into monochrome quite yet.

Have a cosy weekend. xxxx