My Garden

It has been a beautiful day today, if a bit over breezy, but my sort of temperature. Warm enough to sit outside for lunch, but not too hot for a bit of pottering.  I took my camera out to capture some of the colour combinations which have happened spontaneously in my garden.  I did have a planting plan once upon a time, but now a-days things usually just appear. The sun was very bright and there were deep shadows. With a bit of judicious editing and by selecting my view point I have tried to make my patch look interesting.  All of the plants are very ordinary and easy to grow, but none the less interesting and often very pretty.  I will tell you the names if I know them, but please forgive errors or spelling mistakes. (I'm never sure what the rules are for the use of capital letters when naming plants, so mine are a bit random)

 Clicking on the pictures will give you a larger view.

Under the cotoneaster in deep shade is a campanula with very lax stems, but which likes to grow upright and lean against the fence. It has star shaped flowers. It doesn't want to come out of this spot, I have tried unsuccessfully to transplant bits round the garden.  I scattered the seeds of the bright pink lychnis all round the garden. I love the way the brilliant cerise flowers seem to glow in the shade.  

This little pink perennial geranium has done well with all the rain as this is a very dry spot.

Here I have more lychnis, sisyrinchium and purple toadflax, which is a weed/wild flower, but the bees love it. Behind it is a large fennel with beautiful feathery foliage.

Some scarlet and white Verbena and Alyssum 

Here is a pink centaurea and aquilegia seed heads catching the sun on the edge of a border - in the shadow you can make out the glowing pink of Herb Robert which is another rather prolific weed/wildflower.

In this spot a self-seeded Welsh poppy has popped up with the snap-dragons and valerian

Here is another campanula with some Creeping Jenny, the colours really sing

And finally here is a little puzzle for you - can you spot the three little frogs in pond weed below?

Thanks for joining me in my garden, I'll share a little sewing with you now.

This is a bit of 'mad' quilting I did following an idea from Quilting Arts magazine for free form piecing and extreme embellishing - great fun but rather a bright mixture.

I enjoyed stitching it but was flummoxed as to what I could do with it - it certainly didn't merit hanging on a wall - or so I thought until I watched this weeks Design Matters TV.  Laura Kemshall was showing how to use all your samples and odd pieces of quilting to make hanging bags.  They are folded from a square, envelope style with the edges touching.

I have edged it with braid made from twisted sari ribbon and it works really well.

Now what am I going to do with it?

Hope you are enjoying some sunshine too - have a good week.

Jill