Toasting you and Planting Panseys

Welcome. I am so glad that you stopped by. Please join me for a cup of tea so we can toast the New Year together and look for inspiration for a pansy painting.

" Here's to the bright New Year, and a fond farewell to the old: here's to the things that are yet to come, and to the memories that we hold"

We have had very cold weather in Southern California and most of the flowers in my garden have gone to sleep for the winter and the roses have been cut back. The bright spots in our California gardens are our pansies. They do not mind frost and cold nights and their cheerful happy faces always make me smile.

Let's take Bentley, my helpful studio assistant into the garden and look for pansy inspirations.

Finding Inspiration . . . . .

"A New Year is unfolding - like a blossom with petals curled tightly concealing the beauty within". Anonymous.

Here . . . . . . .

There . . . . .

Everywhere . . . .

Looks like Bentley found our inspiration.

The pots of pansies, seed packets and bulbs on my potting bench are just waiting for me to paint.

The completed painting inspired by my day in the garden planting "winter pansies".

Thank you for stopping by for a visit. I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate all of you who visit , leave me comments and follow my blog. Please leave me a comment or send me an e-mail if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.

Sending you warm wishes for a Joyful New Year and a lovely week. Blessings, Erin

Is England just a bad road movie?

Correspondence following a comment on

Felicity Waters blog - Gardenbeet
http://gardenbeet.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/landscapes-in-the-se-of-england/


Noel - thanks for the comments on my blog. I once cornered one of the senior managers at the roads authority in the UK and gave him an earful - I am from Australia and worked at the road authority for 5 years - we were doing amazing projects - the UK is 50 years behind. And we always worked with Horticultural experts - sometimes from Burnley Horticultural Colleges (Peter May et al)
Amway not meaning to sound egotistically its just that I find the road system is THE LANDSCAPE for so many people these days. It deserves as much consideration as any outdoor area. The UK roads authority has not got a clue about its design responsibility - the UK roads systems is the definition of bad design- its non design- its not even thought about - you get a catalogue of plant mixes and stamp them over the country! These guys need to visit France.

Felicity Waters

Hi Felicity

Thanks for your thoughts – I agree with you that British highway landscaping is crap. In fact an awful lot of British landscaping is crap. My own bugbear has been the massive decline in the quality of planting of our parks and urban green spaces – a group of us did some campaigning about this a few years ago but did not go very far. I was lucky though and managed to do some good projects in Bristol (see my website). And there is one enlightened landscape company (HTA of London) who occasionally employ me as a horticultural consultant.

You are very right about roads being THE landscape for many people. But in fact we are not used to thinking of them as being potentially interesting landscapes – your mention of France is hopeful, I have not been there for years, but will be going this summer so I look forward to some inspiration. One problem we have in the UK is that currently there is some real dogmatic thinking about native planting which an ecology lobby has ended up foisting onto the landscape profession via local govt. and planning requirements. Our native flora is very limited and pretty boring – for landscape purposes anyway. There are a few places I can think of where unplanned nature has done some fantastic things – but very dependent on chance comings-together of low-nutrient soils and the local flora:
April – cowslips along the M5 between Bristol and Gloucester
June – pyramidal orchids ditto
April – early purple orchids and primroses along A38 west of Totnes in Devon
All are great at 70mph!

Do you know Rick Darke – Pennsylvania-based plant-orientated whizz-kid? He has been researching native plantings for highways in Delaware? He has even written a manual on the subject which is really good hardworking stuff. You must see it.

How do you feel about me putting this correspondence on my blog?

Cheers

Noel

Wet, Wet, Wet

I haven’t been in the garden for weeks. It was incredibly wet here (Welsh borders) for practically all of November and well into December – and now it is so cold not much can be done outside either.

The rainfall is high here,nearly  2,000mm per year, and the soil, overlaying Old Red Sandstone has enough clay/silt content to slow down water absorption – so it gets saturated very quickly. When really wet, springs appear, and water can actually flow over the surface of the soil. Pooling for several days after rain is normal. In areas where subsoil or near-subsoil is exposed, it is even worse. The whole garden is on a gentle south-facing slope however so there is constant water movement through the soil and no long-term waterlogging.

So, given all of this, and the fact that we have had three cool, exceptionally wet summers, it is amazing what survives – or put another way, how little fails. Even Mediterranean plants like santolinas and lavenders flourish in sticky poor-quality soil with pools of water around them for days. It is hard to think of any failures: Lilium regale definitely, and I think the raspberries, although there was a complicating factor here, as we dug in loads of manure to ‘improve’ the rather poor-quality soil and I think phytophthora may have killed them.

The year before last there was an exceptional period of high rainfall, in, I think, June. A friend, who lives not so far away, Charles Chesshire, had huge losses, despite being also on a south-facing slope – but in his case, springs or at least great upwellings of water from underground (he has the very substantial Clee Hill just behind him) must have completely de-oxygenated the soil, and at a crucial period of very active growth. Thinking about places where you see plants in the wild, wet slopes are often a good habitat for a wide range of species. The conclusion I think must be that plants do not object to very wet conditions at the roots so long as there is dissolved oxygen in the water, so that they can respire, and that means that the water must be moving. This is more crucial during the growing season than the dormant.

Anyway, we’ll probably have a terrible drought this year, which’ll give us something else to think about.

Kitchen and Living Room Integration Designs Ideas by Logos

These are the pictures of the brilliant concept of home interior design. These pictures show the kitchen which is integrated with the living room.

In our never ending search for ideas of design quality, we stumbled on some ideas about how to assemble a wonderful kitchen in the living room. Logos is where we see “Cooking and Living” project, which unites some unique ideas about the internal combination. Project below was created for a family of four. Kelly, Richard and their two children in a special apartment, with spacious rooms, great access to the kitchen and the possibility to supervise the children while drinking coffee. That is why the designers came up with the perfect combination: a kitchen built in a room of life. We hope you see and agree that it is appropriate for your home decoration.

The Similarities of Farming and Health care

Fascinating! The New Yorker ran an article comparing the proposed health care reforms to agriculture, and includes the history of US agriculture. Finally, the whole "agricultural extension agent" thing makes sense!

A big thanks to the Scientist Gardener for drawing my attention to this!

Overpasses and Underpasses for Wildlife

Here is a photo gallery of overpasses and underpasses made for or adapted for use by animals. Hold the mouse cursor over an image to read about the specific project. Enjoy!

Thoughts on Invasives

This article was a good read, even though it strikes me as somewhat contrary-for-the-sake-of-garnering-attention. The best part is actually the discussion following the article. The following was posted by "Andy" on the 8th.

"Eventually newly evolved or introduced pathogens, etc. will catch up with the invasives and then their lack of coevolution with their new biotic and physical environment will bring them down.

"Look at the European honey bee as an example. Introduced to N. America about 600 years ago. By the 1800's they were common throughout N. America (read Irving Washington's account of Oklahoma and Texas for example). They likely had pushed out many (extinct or reduced greatly in population and range) if not most of N. America's native pollinators and may have caused the extinction of the Carolina Parkakeet through tree hole competition."

"I think something that needs to be looked at in depth is the reintroduction of native plants and animals pushed out by invasive species, once that invasive is brought into control through evolution of pathogens, competitors, etc. This has the potential to greatly reduce the initial shock of native species loss following non-native species introductions. This will require the maintenance of native reserve areas where invasives are removed; for long periods (century or more). Which is about all most invasive species control programs can actually accomplish. "

This is the same conclusion that logic has led me to.

Cottage Christmas Part II

Welcome. I am so glad that you stopped by. It is hard to believe that Christmas is less than a week away. Would you like to take a little break and join me for a cup of hot tea and relax for a few minutes? We will look for inspiration to paint one more Welcome sign for my niece. She is the Director of Child Development at a Lutheran School and I have been painting Christmas Welcome signs for her to hang on the doors of the Children's school rooms. I have a snowman sign in mind in a winter garden setting with birdhouses.

Finding Inspiration

Here . . . .

There . . . .

Looks like Bentley, my Studio Assistant, has found some inspiration.

Everywhere . . . . .

Here is the finished sign with birdhouses and Snow Men/Ladies.

Now that we finished the little sign, let's grab a jacket and take a little stroll around the neighborhood to look at some adorable cottages before we walk around Balboa Island and enjoy some of the charming cottages and Christmas decorations.

Now we are off to Balboa Island, a charming island located on the beautiful Newport Bay. There is a sidewalk around the Island and it is such a delightful place to walk and "look-see" at the cottages.

Bentley loves walking around the Island - there are lots of dogs for him to visit.

Bentley and the adorable Scottie really hit it off.

He was sad to see Bentley leave.

I love this weathered blue cottage and hand painted Santa.

Parking on the Island is very tight and lots of the Islander's own cute little vehicles that are easy to park.

This is one of my favorite cottages (a rather big cottage). The house is on the water and the owners have a rotating display on the roof that lights up at night. They change the theme every season.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your walking tour of our neighborhood and the Island. I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate your visit, comments and those of you who follow my blog. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.

I will be taking a blog break to spend time with my loved ones and will return after the New Year. We will have tea and paint together, visit charming shops and gardens and I will share photos of my cottage home and garden.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family Peace and Joy during this very special season as we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Holiday Blessings and Warms Wishes for a Joyous and Wonderful New Year, Erin