Category: Uncategorized
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The risk of blossoming, and a little nyctinasty
I’ve been obsessed with plants that open and close recently (or more properly, nyctinasty). My new baby passion flower for example seems shy about its own beauty. Until ta-da, when I’m not looking… Ridiculously splendid! And on a writing residency in Suffolk, I even began saying good night and good morning to the plants in…
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A Trip to Tropical Tresco
See whatttttt I did there? We’ve just come back from the Isles of Scilly, it was the perfect holiday but interesting how loads of people have heard of them but aren’t quite sure what – and where – they are. And those who have, say ‘ah Tresco,’ as if that’s the key one. Although yes,…
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Ready for your close up?
God but flowers are amazing. How are we not worshipping them daily? All these were taken today at Great Dixter Gardens – and I would have walked past them all without really noticing if I hadn’t stopped at the first one and then started looking properly. And for more awe and a writing exercise, see…
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The News From the Garden
is earthshattering, a blackbird’s made its nest in the hawthorn tree, and breaking as I write, seedlings planted a month ago are bursting forth, teasing us with their rainbow hints, but if you rub a leaf between finger and thumb you can smell summer already; a baby is kicking its legs in response at the…
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A garden poem for meditation – walking in Stand Wood above Chatsworth House
We were too early to get into Chatsworth House so walked up to the Hunting Tower in Stand Wood while we waited. It was as if we’d wandered into a magic kingdom, and I suddenly realised how many times I’d walked here before in my imagination during meditation visualisations. Here’s the poem that came from…
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What do you do with all your garden guides?
We went on a ‘grand tour’ of the Peak District and Yorkshire last week – only one garden a day but even so I’ve ended up with an armful of guides. But what to do with them now I’m back? Write a poem about them of course… You need to have a plan They…
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Snowdrops rising like lanterns
Winter Garden by Sarah Salway Like the pilgrim divests himself of worldly goods, the garden’s stripped back to a skeleton, only the vertebrae of paths holds its truest form and even as trees hold blossom close, buds aching, it’s still the cutting back that matters most, while through it all the river’s artery rolls,…
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Remembering Capability Brown – Lady Nature’s Second Husband – and a little bit of Compton Verney
The English landscape gardener, Lancelot (Capability) Brown died 236 years ago today, 6th February 1783 – and fittingly is remembered on Twitter, via @BrownCapability: “Your Dryads must go into black gloves, Madam. Their father-in-law Lady Nature’s second husband, is dead! Mr Brown dropped down at his own door yesterday” wrote Horace Walpole to Lady Ossory…
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Poor Susan and the sounds of the city
This week I was lucky enough to go on a guided walk around the city of London with Rosie from Dotmaker Tours. She was concentrating particularly on the sounds of the city – we walked without talking, just listening (almost too intense, was the verdict), we talked how the city would sound in the future…
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Revisiting Salutation Gardens, Sandwich
Although I’m slightly horrified to realise that it’s SIX YEARS since I first wrote about The Salutation Gardens in Sandwich, Kent, it was a pleasure to go back and see them in all their spring glory. Look at the tulips in the bottom corner… Then, of course, they were called the Secret Gardens, but I…
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A visit to The Library of the Birds of London
The complete joy of hearing birdsong again is making up for a stop-start spring this year. And thinking about birds, I had a joyful visit to the Whitechapel Gallery in London last week, mostly to visit the giant aviary created by American artist, Mark Dion. Only four visitors at a time are allowed in the…
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Gardens. Matters of life and love. And other trivia
As soon as I knew there was a Beguinage at Antwerp, I had to visit it. I’ve been obsessed with them since I first visited one in Bruges. These are communities for women, originally Roman Catholic but not a nunnery, normally wrapped around a garden. These photographs above from my visit have been rather shamefully…