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. 

Holidays in The Dolomites and Venice

We have four smashing kids. The eldest two have slipped through the teen years into earliest adulthood, so 'kids' is a bit misleading really. Luckily for us they still want to come on holiday as a family, and the time together feels so very precious. Our holidays are now pretty carefully planned to have appeal for the whole family and the range of ages and interests our family of six now represents.

Our summer holiday this year has been a week of amazingly beautiful sights and extreme differences of environment. Our youngest would have probably enjoyed less sightseeing and more time playing in a pool, but overall it was a brilliant week together, and a joy to spend time together as a whole family. We had five days high in the Italian Dolomite mountains and three days in Venice. We had adventures in those mountains, long walks at over 7000ft scrambling over boulders and steep mountain tracks, wild swimming in freezing mountain lakes, walking in wonder through beautiful forests and meadows full of wild flowers. I wanted some adventure this year, and the Dolomites certainly gave it to me!

This was a good spot for a morning snack at about 8000ft, mid mountain hike!

Even in these inhospitable heights, there were beautiful flowers and ferns growing in gaps in the limestone.

Following the high paths down into the tree line, the waterfalls, forests and meadows were such a contrast to the rocky outcrops above.

Imagine the contrast arriving a few days later in sweltering, tourist crammed Venice!

It was all a bit of a shock, so we snuck off into the backstreets of some quieter areas to soak up some much less frenetic atmosphere. It paid off, the quiet canals and crumbling facades were the perfect place to soak up the spirit of the place and enjoy a gelato or prosecco or two four.

The beauty of Venice is disarmingly surreal, every corner and narrow street seems to open out on a suprising view more distractingly gorgeous than the last. The tightest of footpath can suddenly lead out to a view of the open sea, a series of ancient bridges or a faded palazzo.

The colours! 

Like Rome, the past and present seem to live and breathe together in the fabric of the buildings and streets in a way more potent than one is used to. It seemed easier to get a sense of place in the backwaters of the local residential areas than the central tourist spots around St Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge. It was fun seeing it through the eyes of our kids too. There is never a dull moment with this one!

We had a simple but really delicous dinner by this quiet canal, at a family run trattoria, dusk falling around us and turning to night as we ate. Memories made.

Our second son is leaving home in September, bound for med school hundreds of miles from home. These times together feel like gold. I hope you are having a fun summer, and make some lovely memories wherever you are. x

cornus, 'Midwinter Fire'

The last little bit of colour in the garden is coming from the greens of the box, ferns, hellebores and euphorbia still strutting their lush green foliage, but the real and only star of my winter garden is Cornus Midwinter Fire. I only have a few plants, but I think I'm going to plant loads more next year so that my whole garden looks fiery and fabulous through the dead of winter!

The colour of the nearly bare stems close-up is amazing,

The closer you look, the brighter they are, and with the low-slung winter sun shining, as it is today, the stems look almost luminous, 

In the spring and summer, they calm down to pale stems and green and then yellow leaves, they aren't anything special that time of year, I don't think, but blend in fine behind the swathes of flowing plants that are doing their thing in the summer. In winter though, they are crazy, glorious, and eyecatching even from a distance. I love them, and they are my December recommendation for some Christmassy glamour in the garden! I have snipped a few stems to make some skinny wreaths from, if they work well, I'll share them in the next post.

Belinda x

Late spring in an English garden

I thought I'd start the week off with some proper full-on garden loveliness and positive vibes:

Oh, I do love late spring in an English garden! The mild winter and spring with sunshine and showers has mean't that in my garden, the flowers appear to be rocket fuelled at the moment - I can't remember a wilder, more flamboyant display of green and growth. I am loving every moment.

First after the late winter snowdrops and hellebores, came the lovely swathes of white narcissi, mine are mainly Silver Chimes and Thalia, but I have some lovely double forms too, and some Pheasant's Eye daffs that are still now flowering their pretty heads off. The display lasts well over a month, they are such a great choice for spring flowers I think and no maintenance at all apart from deadheading.

I have underplanted them with grape hyacinths and some happily self sown forget-me-nots, I like the cream and blue together.

The tulips have come and now almost gone, and this year they have been accompanied by the verdant greens of perennials bursting into growth a bit sooner and more energetically than usual. I love the fresh, juicy newness of it all. In the cutting patch everything is looking so healthy, I am hoping there will be masses to choose from this year.

Happy monday, have a great week. xx

last flowers standing

The very, very last flowers left standing: cosmos, dahlias, astrantia (third flush!!), cotinus foliage and a teeny aster. That is it, finito, adios, all over for another year. This last bunch goes to Jane's flower party, no better place.  It may not be much but it is all I have! 

fairies at the bottom of the garden

The landscape around our home is distinctly autumnal now that the last of the hay bales have been hoofed off by the tractors,

and the land has been ploughed and hoed, looking all neat and tucked in at the sides. Happily, temperatures are still warm enough to leave a coat behind and summer seems to be hanging on in unlikely sunshiny afternoons and southerly breezes. In our garden there are the telltale signs of the season, (I always wait for the spindleberry trees to turn their gorgeous reds and pinks),

but in other places it still looks like late summer to me.

What has changed is the feel of the garden, I can't quite put my finger on it, I'm not sure if it is the soft slant of the light, the carpet of little acorns and first fallen leaves underfoot or the changing colour palette but most likely it is the fact that by now I let the garden go a bit (actually, a lot!), and as you can see a 'naturalistic planting scheme' becomes properly naturalistic!
 

Plants at the end of their season start tilting and wrapping themselves around eachother for support, final bursts of flower mix in with the beginnings of decay, everything looks a bit drunken - in happy, slightly muddled disarray. The result is a magical, fairy tale quality that I don't feel so much at any other time of year. If ever there were fairies at the bottom of the garden it should be right now, playing amongst the little mushrooms that are popping up in the damp woodland earth and dancing in the arching blooms of the last of the roses and anemones. Can you feel it too??

 Hoping you all have a lovely week, with a whiff of the fairytale now and again!