Year of Blooms

I bawled my eyes out at the end of Loving Vincent, a film about Vincent van Gogh but before the tears I had an epiphany of sorts - that I'm meant to be planting flowers and lots of them. So this year, I'm doing a project called, year of blooms. I have a rough idea in my head but I'm letting the project be open to change with a simple guideline to have more flowers in the world! This project has already seen hopeful synchronicity. The first flower I picked to plant was sunflowers and as I'm typing this, realising it's the bloom that started the project (thanks Vincent!) though originally picked because it's the right time (I hope!) and I was gifted sunflower seeds (from Ben's brother's wife) after I mentioned how lovely her garden and the sunflowers growing in it, were.

In November, Ben and I visited a cafe where I spent far too long admiring their plant wall. I took photos to remember the plants to seek some out for myself. I pointed to one plant with pretty flowers and asked Ben if he knew what it was, he did, a plant we had been gifted by Ben's Mum years ago but had never bloomed. Three weeks later I let out a little gasp - tiny white flowers sprung forth from the pot – the loveliest omen!

My african violet, despite it's abundance blooms (when gifted to me from Dad) lived the rest of the time, with pretty leaves. You might also guess where this is headed, below is a photo from a couple of weeks ago....

We moved into our new place, flattening out a path from the top house to below and at the end of the path, an overgrown flower bed with two rose bushes amongst the weeds. I've been rose obsessed for too many years but I only just planted my first rose last year. In 2012 we took a trip to Tasmania and visited a hedge maze. As we walked through the maze, hand-painted signs with quotes on them were scattered on the paths. I'm terrible at remembering quotes but I always remember the sentiment of this one, even if in delivery I muddled a few words. It's been an important philosophy to contemplate, especially with renting - the idea of waiting for the perfect time, but how you spend your days, becomes how you spend your life, right? It's definitely time to plant those roses.

Ben's Mum gifted me with this book for Christmas and (below) a desert rose with many seed pods ready to sprout.

I'm going to check back in every month and keep you updated on the project. I need to build a new garden bed for my sunflowers and I'm also going to sprinkle a packet of wildflowers seeds Ben bought. I explained my vague project to our garden friend Lowy and the first thing that came to mind for him was Masanobu Fukuoka and his earth balls. I want to plant seeds at home but the majority of the project will be guerilla gardening with the idea to spread as much beauty as I can :) :) January will keep me busy, sourcing materials and writing lists and starting the growing process! If you have any input or ideas, I'd love to hear them too :) :)