Year of Blooms - June

Time in the flower realm seems to have slowed down a lot.  I went out to photograph all the goodies that have appeared in June and although plenty there were also lots of repeats. 

I recently died my hair light blue so I thought it would be fun to pick some flowers, bobby pin them in my hair and take some shots.  That was a very good + fun idea, making me appreciate my backyard flowers in a new way.

 The frangipani's are on their last leg but the roses all bloomed again!

  

Before this project I thought all roses bloomed only once a year!

 white flowers still popping up

 And success - my first transplanted seedlings from the containers!

Here's what I planted from the container to the garden: cherry rose (seen above), everlasting daisies, cosmos, billy buttons, wild poppy, marigolds, giant pansy and a super swiss variety *fingers crosses* 

 The tree in the yard kept on blooming these amazing flowers (stole one for my hair!)

 On the left above you can see all the seedlings which I then re-potted to the garden! Not all sprouted but I'm feeling like more of a success rate then just planted them straight into the flower bed.

Half way through the month we were told we needed to move out (still might be on the cards) so I just kind of gave up on the garden for a week and felt sad that just as I was making some (slow) progress with the flower bed, I'd have to abandon it all. It's funny because this attitude was what stopped me trying all the years previous.  Even if we do move and even if the next people do away with the bed altogether I'll still come away from this experience having gained skills that I can use in the future and having had lots of lovely moments in the garden, practicing appreciation. To me those things alone should never have set up roadblocks to gardening and so I will keep trying to make this garden successful until the day we do move and I'll happily do it all over again in a new place!

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Year of Blooms - Feburary

I was reflecting on my year of blooms project and specifically what occurred during February and was surprised that lots of little things sprung to mind.

In January I made my flower bed and planted a packet of wild flowers, sunflower seeds, cosmos, and forget me knots. In February I then planted Gomphrena (to attract butterflies) and sweet pea to climb up among my already planted passionfruit :) The most amazing thing was to look back at January's photos of the garden bed and compare it against these recent photos. Although the bed is lacking blooms it's now full of little seedlings :) I did have one bloom in my bed, a little white flower I transplanted from Grandma's property (the Farm) :) I was getting ready to make my 'Feb' flower photo and noticed there weren't too many flowers around our yard so I ended up bringing a piece of white cardboard to the farm which in itself became a nice little reminiscent for myself. 

It's been raining a lot lately so you'll spy a few photos with rain drops on petals but I think they add a little bit of extra magic! The frangipani tree is still in bloom, the rose bushes flowered for the second time this year and I managed to save their petals to add to my paper making. The desert rose completely opened up and my geranium bloomed it's amazing red flowers. I also made my mosaic rose paver and my tally for my clay seed balls grew to 189, which makes me feel confident I can reach 1000 by the end of the year!!! eep! That would be amazing :)

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Mosaic Making

I think I hinted at something fun I wanted to share previously, well today's the day to share my adventures in mosaics! Ben's cousin Carmen stayed with us over the holiday period and she was kind enough to teach us her expertise. I was instantly sold at how fun and beautiful the art of mosaics could be :) Since I'm all about flowers this year, I thought a classic rose would be the perfect design for a plain paver in our yard.

I still can't believe I made that! It was the perfect combo between things I love, puzzles, design and colours with a practical end result :)

After smashing, cutting, assembling and gluing our pieces the night before, the morning was spent grouting and this is where the photos are from :)

This was my piece pre-grout

And now, cue the photos of Carmen being a great teacher!

On the right is Carmen's finished piece that she left with us and which we promptly put up in our home :)

My guy post-grouted

The brick on the very end was a quick throw away piece to use up any left over grout. The shell planter was Ben's Mum who also stayed with us :)

Some close ups: I used a ceramic moon and two ceramic butterflies as well, which has given Ben and I lots of ideas to merge our ceramics with this new hobby. Ben, by the way, did this amazing turtle but he worked slower than the rest of use and had to grout his piece the next day.

Every time I go out into the garden or step onto the paver, I get this wave of proudness! 

Creating is so fun :) 

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