Forsythia

In New Hampshire the forsythia are just beginning to bloom, and it is early this year since we had such a long run of warm weather.
Forsythia are ubiquitous in New England but the masses of bright yellow bloom are a wonderful splash of color after the long winter. And they are lovely with the early daffodils and little blue scilla and chionodoxa.
I don't know that there is any trick to growing these flowers, they seem to flourish left to their own devices in an open field.
I only have two complaints with this flower. The first is when they are pruned to square hedges or round balls. The nature of these shrubs is to grow to large graceful masses and the pruning makes them unnatural and ugly.
Forsythia bloom on old wood so although the plants are perfectly hardy here in Northern New England the blossoms are often killed off in a hard winter. It is not uncommon to see a forsythia bare with a little skirt of flowers along the bottom where the branches were protected below the snow line.
I am curious to see how the forsythia fair this spring. We had a mild winter with little snow but there was one week of extreme cold.
New hybrids of forsythia are being developed with hardier flowers, one is called New Hampshire. So perhaps we will see more of these sunny blooms here in the north.

Summer Alliums

I am very fond of alliums and am a great fan of the huge spring varieties especially Globemaster.
But the allium season isn't limited to spring, there are also varieties for summer and fall.
One of my favorites is allium tanguticum. The flowers are small but the blooms are abundant.
Unlike the spring blooms that grow from bulbs these alliums grow from tuberose roots and their foliage stays green and healthy all season so the plants are never an eyesore in the garden.
Here I have photographed them in soft focus to accent the airy, ethereal quality of the bloom.

Approaching a Gallery with Your Art Work

It is almost the end of peony season, my favorite time of year in the garden - the peonies, herbaceous poppies, iris are over for another year. I know there are wonderful flowers to come, the daylilies and phlox and daisies and of course the dahlias but I am always sad when the great June flowers are finished. And we have passed the summer solstice so days are now going to grow shorter
But the garden is reliable, it will bloom again next year. And my peonies bloom on in my photographs.

I wanted to talk about bringing work to galleries for review or jurying. I am on the jury committee of the Walpole Cooperative Gallery and see so many artists who hurt their chances of acceptance by their presentations. So I thought I would share a few tips:
1. Check out the gallery or shop well. Does your work fit with the work shown? Is is redundant with a lot of the work there. You need a space with a similar esthetic to yours but a space where your work will be unique and add to the blend. Find out the gallerie's polieies both for submitting work and for commission. Is the commission so high that it would make your work too expensive to sell?
If there is a process for submitting work follow it carefully.
2. Be confident and proud of your work. I have had artists come in and ask ME which things I thought were good, even criticisizing their own work. This is NOT the time for a critique. I am not going to want your work if you don't even like it.
3. Bring in a current, cohesive body of work. I want to know what you are doing now, I am not looking for a hodgepodge of work you've done over the past twenty years. Show me one or two strong series.
4. Presentation is very important. At our gallery we want to see the art ready for sale, framed, on jewelry displays, tagged and priced. We recently had an artist come in with necklaces in plastic baggies, expensive necklaces she was asking $600 and more for. We were really shocked that she brought them in in baggies. She was not caring for or respecting her work.
Some galleries and shops initially prefer a book of photographs - it should be beautiful and elegant. If the gallery want a disc of work provide that but also some hard copies to wet their appetitite. If they ask for an artist statement and/or resume provide these. Even if you have little to add to a resume prepare something that shows your history with the medium.
5. Be polite of course and don't call and ask for updates, the process can be slow.
If you are not accepted don't make a fuss or argues about it. We have accepted people who have applied a second time but those who were hard to deal with are remembered, we know we don't want to work with them!
I hope this helps! Applying to a gallery can be scary, everyone gets rejected at times. But a local gallery can be a great source of income and artistic support.

Dreaming of Parrots

There is nothing but white outside my windows, though I can barely see the snow through the 6 and 7 foot icicles hanging in front of my windows. So much snow, its been at least 10 years since we've had so much. Plus the weather people are calling for bitter cold over the next few days. At least my road (dirt) won't start to thaw into a soupy, slidy mess.
I am keeping busy knitting and crocheting for Beadedwire and have begun a project photographing sea shells.
But mostly I dream of spring. In October I planted 150 parrot tulips bulbs. And began dreaming about them and spring.
I have a hard time with tulips here, they make delicious food for all the little creatures. Usually I plant them in big pots (the big rubber ones that shrubs come in.) But this year I bought little plastic pots that are supposed to be used for hydroponic gardening and planted each bulb in its own little pot. I am going to be broken hearted if this plan isn't successful.
Parrot tulips are my favorite, they rank with peonies and irises as one of the great garden flowers. Flamboyant, almost decadent, over the top - it is a pleasure to think of them under the snow waiting to fill the world with their extreme beauty.

Polaroid Manipulation

I bought an old Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera about 10 years ago. The SX-70s were produced in the 1970s. They use a film called Time Zero film because it was developed by Dr. Land to remedy the problem of Polaroid film that took almost a week to completely "set" or dry. Thus the name Time Zero, because the film was supposed to dry in no time.

Fortunately for fine art photographers, this instant dry film did not live up to the claim.

Time Zero film does not completely set for a day or two and in the meantime the surface can be moved around, manipulated by hand.

I used knitting needles and crochet hooks to manipulate these two photographs. I like the dreamy, painterly quality in the images.

Unfortunately, a few years ago Polaroid was sold and the new company discontinued production of this wonderful film.

Like many others I immediately began to buy and hoard film and still have a stash in my refrigerator. But last week on my trip to Daffodil Hill I found that my packet of Time Zero film was bad; no image produced at all just a brown mess. I tried another packet when I got home and it was usable but now I am worried that this film may not last. When it is gone, it is gone and with it this lovely art form.

Blue Flowers in Spring

Daffodil Hill was gorgeous last weekend. The carpet of yellow was overhung by soft white and pink magnolia.

Here at home I don't have early azalea or other early flowering shrubs so there is not a lot of color to offset the daffodils, forsythia, and primroses. But I do love the little blue flowers that add their soft hues to the brilliant yellows . The pushkinia and chiondoxa are first, then the scilla and muscari.

The muscari, or grape hyacinth, were one of my mother's favorites: there are dozens of varieties available from pale to deep, almost black versions.

The scilla in the second picture are scilla hispanica or Hyacintoides hispanica. Botanists or horticulturalists always seem to be reclassifying and renaming my favorite plants. But these little blue bells are lovely despite the cumbersome names. The blue version is the most common but I also like the soft purply pinks.

All of these little bulbs are easy to grow. You just plant them in the fall when you are planting daffodils and tulips. They are cheap, so plant a lot to make a statement.

Apple Blossoms

It has been so mild this spring that the flowers seem to be ahead of schedule. I already have a few peonies, iris and even poppies open in the garden, flowers that usually come in June in New Hampshire.

The fruit tree blossoms have passed. They were beautiful in mass and as individual blooms carrying the promise of fruit next fall. The deep pink maroon of the unopened buds is lovely with the chartreuse of the new leaves.

It is a dry spring and I had to drag out the hoses today to water seedlings and transferred plants. I bought many large annuals last week that I hope will quickly fill garden gaps. I planted tithonia, the new double click cosmos, larkspur, agrostemma, hollyhocks in six packs, annual asters, verbena bonariensis, and lavatera. Now I will anxiously hope for rain.

Find of the Day: I love the simplicity and the elegance of the lines and shape of this handcrafted sterling silver gingko leaf ring from esdesigns on Etsy. The ring will be made to order in any size.

The Last Daffodil Days

Yes in northern New England we still have a few lingering daffodils in mid May. I thought the very hot April days we had a few weeks ago (90 in New hampshire in April is not normal!) would shorten their season but the cool rains which followed seem to have prolonged the blooms.
I am very partial to the pink cupped beauties like the daffodil in the first picture. Another frilly ballerina.
The doubles are as lovely as a rose or peony.
Last summer was very wet and cold and I had a difficult time keeping up with the garden. The weeds thrived on the wet climate and my neglect so I am just now seeing the garden through the weeds. It is a huge job but very safisfying.
I am also doing some consolidation, there is just too much garden for one person to manage especially the beds carved out of the back field. I am giving them back to the field so the plants have been moved to older beds except for the peonies which I will move after they bloom.

Find of the Day:

A room full of stars, magical. I would love these stars in any room; imagine a sun room or green house full of stars, decorating the ceiling, dancing in the plants and flowers
These are hand crafted Moravian paper stars from the Starcraft on Etsy.

The First Daffodils of 2009

I'm very excited my daffodils have begun to bloom! Today I worked in the garden (with help from my little dog Rory) raking off leaves and weeding.

i took the top picture today using the TTV method, shooting through the viewfinder of an old Kodak with my digital camera. It is a little unwieldy holding both camera but very interesting.

The second photo is a daffodil photographed under water through the side of a vase. The frilly petals remind me of a tutu so I call this one Yellow Ballerina.

Find of the Day:

This is such a pretty necklace, the little glass flowers remind me of daffodils. The necklace is made of sterling, Czech glass flowers and Swarovski crystals. You can see it and more lovely jewelry at AliBaliJewellery on Etsy.

The Little Iris

The little iris have begun to bloom in the lawn with the crocus and chionodoxa. There are many varieties, the one pictured here is Iris histrioides 'George' which is a deep red purple verging on magenta.
But these iris come in many colors all shades of purple and blue, yellow and white. You can see a wide assortment in the Bent and Becky's Bulbs catalogue.
Unfortunately they are not very perennial for me and I have to replant them every few years. I think this fall I will try them in garden soil rather than the lawn; maybe they will be happier there.

Find of the Day:

Another new form of art, at least for me. This is traditional Japanese Temari, which means 'hand ball' in Japanese. It is an ancient art originally created to make balls for children.

This temari was created by Barbara Suesse, author of Japanese Temari:A Colorful Spin on an Ancient Art (available on Amazon). The ball is filled with rice hulls, covered with soft yarn and then embroidered.

So beautiful it takes your breath away. More of her work can be seen and purchased at her Etsy shop,
Japanesetemari.

My Favorite Mail Order Plant Catalogue

Yesterday I mentioned that I prefer to buy plants locally whenever possible. I have had mixed success with mail order plants. The big potted plants you can buy at local nurserys cannot be shipped in the mail, the cost of shipping would be astronomical. So the plants that come by mail are bare root or small.
Even with small plants shipping is expensive. It is hard to part with a $10 or $15 shipping fee for a $10 plant. But nurseries can't ship for less, plant material and dirt are heavy. I tried selling plants on Ebay one spring and found I was losing money with most sales because I underestimated shipping costs.
But I do order from one mail order catalogue regularly, Gilbert H. Wild and Son. They send me sale catalogues several times a year and the prices during these sales are unbeatable. For example, Stella de Oro daylily is always $1.oo, Happy Returns $2.00. And the plants are always strong and good sized. I have bought most of my daylilies from their sale catalogues and they have all been excellent plants.
I also buy my peony roots from their sale catalogue, very reasonable prices and their roots are larger than several other catalogues I have tried that sell roots for two or three times the price. I like to buy three roots of a peony variety and plant them together to get a big plant quickly so a good price is very important. I don't have the patience to wait for a little $30 root to grow into a decent sized plant in five years.
I think I will try their iris this year, World Premier with dark purple falls and white frilly tops is calling out to me.

Find of the Day:

Joy in Mid-Air, what a perfect name for these lovely, ethereal earrings. These fiber, wire creations are quite large (4 1/2 inches) but almost weightless . Dancing blooms to brighten up a winter day. They are available in a variety of colors from Hypho on Etsy.

Coneflowers

Another very cold stretch of weather, it did not get above 14 degrees yesterday. I am taking solace with seed and plant catalogues. Last summer one of the most successful additions to my garden was one of the new coneflower hybrids. These new coneflowers come in lovely colors with lovely names. Sunset, Sundown, Summer Sky, Harvest Moon and many more.
I bought Sunset last year and it was great, it is much shorter than my other purple coneflowers which grow to three or four feet. Sunset stayed less than two feet and flowered all summer.
These new coneflowers are available from many mail order catalogues though I prefer to buy locally when possible since the local plants are bigger and stonger. I bought mine last year at Bay State Perennials in Hadley Massachusetts, a wonderful local nursery with a large and interesting selection.

Find of the Day:

Despite my dreams of flowers and summer gardens it is still winter and wouldn't it be lovely to have this lush scarf to keep you worn? This is a Las Lopez design hand knit by the artist in Argentina. But despite its exotic origen it is available with a click on the Etsy shop Laslopezlas. What a wonderful extravagance to wrap yourself in pure luxury.

I Bought Myself a Bouquet

I took my daughter back to college a week ago and stopped at Atkins, a great produce market in Amherst. Of course instead of buying vegetables i bought a bouquet of pink striped amaryllis, a huge bouquet of three stems with many flowers on each stem. Only $9 for the whole bouquet.
I have had wonderful fun photographing these flowers everyday all week long. Of course the bouquet changes each day as new flowers open and others mature.
Today there is only one perfect bloom left and I think I will destroy it scanning it on my flat bed scanner. A week of entertainment for $9, less than the price of a movie or even a cheap restaurant meal.

Find of the Day:

Doesn't this pretty necklace look like a flower? I am constantly amazed by the creativity of artists. This necklace is made by a fabric artist in England but can be purchased easily from her Etsy shop Tinctory. It is made from off white silk smocked with white cotten thread. A beautiful new use for a traditional sewing technique.

Feverfew, Classic White Daisies

Feverfew, Tanacetum parthenium, is a popular herb but also I think a lovely garden flower. Some people may scorn it as a weed, and it does self sow quite readily, but I think the little white daisies are a always welcome in the heat of summer. And they are beautiful in a mixed bouquet or by themselves in a jug.
But it is early February now, no need of cooling flowers. However, if you want them this summer February is not too early to sow them and grow them on under lights for blooms this summer. Feverfew is very easy to grow from seed, just put the seeds in little pots of dirt and they will grow.
Feverfew is a perennial but not long lived though you will probably have them forever unless you are a more diligent weeder than I am as they sow themselves around the garden. Small plants, they can fit themselves in most anywhere and do no harm.

Find of the Day: Not quite a daisy but these lovely petals make a unique and beautiful lamp. This lovely lamp is the ultimate in recycling since it is made from plastic bottles hand cut into petal shapes. Each petal is also hand painted with pretty designs. Amazing, actually astonishingly creative.
This lamp is available from the Etsy shop Gulguvenc.

Bleeding Hearts for Valentines Day

It was 8 below zero last night and it is supposed to be colder tonight. Instead of thinking of the cold I will think about Valentines Day and spring Bleeding Hearts.

Bleeding Hearts are an old cottage garden favorite and a perfect flower for a Valentines Day card. They grow easily in the shade garden and look particularly nice on a bank or the top of a stone wall with their flowers hanging down.

The old fashioned bleeding heart is a native of Japan but there are native bleeding hearts as well. The individual flowers are simpler and less dramatic but they bloom all summer and have pretty foliage that does not die back in summer heat. They also like shade.

The little pink flowers on the bottom of this locket are native bleeding hearts. (The locket can be found on my Etsy jewelry site, Beaded Wire.)

Find of the Day:

I think these woven thread earrings look like hearts. I have no idea how she does these but I think they are lovely. They come in many colors, these are called Ruby.

Available from the Etsy shop, SincearJewelry.

Three Plants for a Desert Island

I was visiting gardening blogs this morning and came across an interesting idea on ShirlsGardenWatch: choose the three plants of all the plants in the world that you would take with you if you were stranded on a desert island.
Looking at the beautiful posts answering this challenge with their wonderful rare and often exotic choices I thought this would be very difficult, if not impossible. How to choose just three plants from all the plants I love?
But it turned out to be fairly easy. First I knew my plants would have to be flowers. I love foliage in my garden but I could not live without flowers, everyday all year long. And the queen of all flowers for me is the peony, I don't think I could live in a place where I could not have peonies. Don't ask me to choose a particular cultivar however, I love them all.
And I must have irises, irises in every form, bearded iris, Dutch iris (like in the picture here), Siberian iris, Japanese iris, the little bulbous irises of early spring. I want them all.
My third choice was more difficult. Tulips or poppies? They are both so extraordinarily beautiful. but I finally decided on tulips which come in such an endless variety of colors and styles.
As you can see I have some of these flowers with me even in the dead of winter. Along with seed and bulb catalogues and beads they get me through til the spring.

Please visit Shirls blog to see all of the wonderful ideas from other gardeners.

Find of the Day:

Wahoo, since this is a day for spring and summer flowers, this shimmery chartreuse skirt shouts sunny days. Young and fresh as a day in May without the black flies.

The skirt is handmade by VigilanteLabs in Brooklyn and is available on Etsy.

Whispers

We are really in a deep freeze today. It is -2 degrees outside. But we have a deep snow cover so I am not worried about my garden. One January we had a major thaw and I found little violas that had been blooming away under the snow.
This week I hung a new show at our local cooperative gallery. The show is called Whispers and features flowers, bouquets and local landscapes all printed with just a hint of color, several with a draping of lace.
A few of the new images can be purchased from my Etsy shop, many more can be seen on my Flickr page.

Find of the Day:

I love this whisper of a flower. This pretty peony flower is a brooch, pin all hand sewn in organza by MGMart.

Go see her shop, it is amazement of feminine frills.

Baby It's Cold Outside

We are having another severe winter in New Hampshire. December's ice storm was very damaging to trees (not to mentions the 1000s of homes including mine without power) and shrubs.
There is always the temptation to try to rescue precious shrubs and small trees from the ice. But trying to free small branches will only do more harm. Branches that may survive the ice will probably snap from any attempt to loosen them.
I think Henry Mitchell's advice in the Essential Earthman is the best:
"Whenever there are ice storms, pull the window shades down."
Of course ice can be beautiful, snow magical. So perhaps just a peak outside. My old apple tree is always lovely in winter.

Find of the Day:

One way to stay sane through the long winter is to fill the house with little plants: foliage plants, flowers and herbs.

Here are some lovely planters from my friend Virginia Wyoming. They are available on her Etsy shop, VirginaWyoming. Just $24 for the set.

Cosmos

I love cosmos, I think they are beautiful massed in the garden or as cut flowers.
January is not a great gardening month in New Hampshire but it is a wonderful time to dream and fantasize over seed catalogues. I used to order hundreds of packets of seeds each winter and have 50 or 60 trays of seedlings reading for planting in the spring. Then the hard work of finding room for all of these little plants would begin.
I have slowly learned that I cannot have every plant in every seed catalogue and only allow myself a few choice selections each year.
Topping my list this year is the new Cosmos 'Double Click Rose Bonbon'. I am fond of simple single flowers but must admit to a weakness for lush, over the top double flowers. And these new cosmos are just sumptuous.

Garden Resources:

You can see (and buy if you'd like) the new Cosmos 'Double Click' at Thomas and Morgan Seeds.
Thomas and Morgan has one of the most extensive lists of flowers seeds. There are great pictures of all their listing. I use it as my flower bible.


















Find of the Day: What a beautiful little painting of a cosmos by Coleen Olson. It is gouache on watercolor paper. A 5 x 7 print of this painting is available for only $20 on her Etsy shop Parrish.