Friday in the garden

I decided to take my camera in the garden. I am using my 50mm 1:1.8 D lens which is brilliant in low light as it has been very dull here today.
Here are a selection of shots - I took lots - over 40, wouldn't have done that with a reel of film.  I would have had to have been a lot more thoughtful before I pressed the shutter. If you click on a photo it should enlarge for you.

I chose some herbs that have gone to seed.

There are a lot of six spot ladybirds around.  This one was enjoying the fennel flowers.

Another ladybird clambering in the fennel.

This is the parsley. If you look carefully there is a strand of web between the seed heads.

Another shot of the parsley

  

This is a close up of coriander flowers which are rather delicate.

 We have plenty of froglets hopping round the pond, but this one was larger - about dessert spoon size I'd say.  It is good to see them as we had a good size dollop of frogspawn which I photographed in the spring.

However I am missing the blue tits, great tits and coal tits which seemed to have totally disappeared since our neighbour cut down their leylandii hedge about three weeks ago.  We are grateful for the light as it seriously shaded our vegetables, but the birds loved it.  Hopefully they have gone on a country holiday to make the most of the natural food available and will be back when the weather turns.  Meanwhile we are enjoying the large flock of house-sparrows that are emptying the feeders as fast as I can fill them.  We saw very few of those for many years, but we counted at least 20 at one point.  Sorry no photos of the bird life.

However I am continuing to enjoy the Creative Sketchbook course.  Here are another couple of pages.

Do have a great weekend - I'm looking forward to doing some more drawing myself.

Jill

Time Marches on ...

I am a bit tardy getting my March calendar pages posted, but I have actually started it, I have just had an adversion to going through the process of scanning the pages etc.

 I am glad to say good-bye to February - it has been not only a dreary month, but one of restlessness, especially the last couple of weeks.  Every few months I feel as if I am turning another corner in my creative journey so hopefully March will be the beginning of the next phase.

I rather slopped this page together in my new journal - I love filling in the little squares, but my creative energy has been focussed elsewhere. 

Thanks to everyone who was so encouraging after my last blog, ` I quickly came to a decision after writing it.  I have decided not to registar on a college course, but to try to follow my own path taking part in as many workshops as I can, buy books, build up my  local contacts and set myself goals.  When I began this blog with the sub-heading "chronicles of a mature learner" so that is what I am going be doing.  Watch this space.

I took advantage of the sun this afternoon,  so join me and Marvin in the garden.

Have a great weekend,

Jill

Wednesday

My give away draw will stop this evening - there is still room for one more! Meanwhile I will share with you my hand made books I made at the Frances Pickering workshop. They are nearly full now.

First J is for ....

Now 'Come into my garden'...

I have a lot of Euphorbia wulfenni, it fills in lots of spaces and always looks elegant. 

The darling buds of May were inspired by ...

clematis montana 'Elizabeth'  that fills the garden with perfume.

You may recognise the pink campion from the previous post.

Can there be any gardens without dandelions?

And finally the daisy, one of my favourite pages, at the moment.

All round the garden....

Rose Gertrude Jekyll

I feel as if I have been round and round the garden this week. Mr T is going into hospital at 7am tomorrow for what should be a routine op. But he has a horrible habit of being different and we have got all our fingers crossed. He should be out in (3, 5, 7, 10) days depending on who you speak to. I shall be happy with 7. So I shall either be on-line a lot in the next few days with time on my hands or just too busy filling the house with my projects before I have to retreat back to my work room.  I have been very busy and I shall be sharing what I have been up to later, but meanwhile here is a tour of my sister's garden on the Isle of Wight.

 

Janet is a tireless worker and as you can see she has a beautiful garden absolutely bursting with gorgeous flowers and shrubs, as well as a flourishing vegetable garden. This was when I visited last month. Now she says the dry weather is taking its toll so I am glad I managed to capture it at its best. I am sure you will agree that it is worthy of any gardening magazine and I must let her know her garden is here on-line as she hasn't seen these pictures yet, due to her sisters tardiness in getting a disc together for her.

Up the garden path - I believe Janet laid all these slabs herself.

Water lilies

Janet had a pond dug when she had builders in adding an extension - I think they got carried away with the mini-digger.

The pond is raised as her garden goes up-hill. Here she is doing a bit of dead-heading.

This lovely archway divides the garden.

It is a average size suburban bungalow garden, but by creating lots of different areas the garden feel larger than it is.

Climbing Rose Handel

A shady spot by the pond.

A bumble bee enjoying the kniphofia.

The veggie patch

Climbing Rose Ice-berg

Looking back towards her bungalow.

I am sure she won't mind me mentioning that she is a widow bringing up two teenage boys on her own, as well as working three days a week and constantly crafting in her 'spare' time. Her energy and resourcefulness leave me speechless, so this is dedicated to my little sis.

Fly away with me

When you were  a child did you lay in the grass and imagine you were as small as an ant walking through a jungle? Well I guess we all did, which is why it is such a popular idea for stories and films, but when you were young, you felt as if you were the first to have that feeling. I really wanted to believe in fairies too. I just knew where they lived in the nooks in old tree roots and ivy clad walls. It was the sort of thing you kept to yourself if you didn't want to be laughed at, but my friend and I knew where to leave them gifts of flower petals and little bits of bread and cheese.  I would love to think of children today having such innocent and imaginary play, and I am sure some do. I re-lived some of those moments today. It was so beautifully warm and sunny so I popped the macro lens on the camera and got down on the grass. I guess my neighbours have seen it all before, the far from slim lady with the camera, laying on her belly on the grass, and then having trouble getting up again.

 But how small do you have to be for the daisies to tower over your head?

Or look a speedwell in the eye?

There are aliens too...

or you could catch a ride 

and fly off into the blue...

...and thank you to you all who commented so kindly on my previous post, allowing me to let my imagination fly away with me today, with no fear that anyone was going to laugh, unless it was with pleasure.

Jill

In my garden today...

I actually took this picture last year on the 10th of May. The yellow poppies, aquilegias and knapweed have only opened this week so I guess everything is still a week to ten days behind after our late spring. 

Since I have received my bumblebee chart all the little 'b's' seem to have disappeared from the garden and if I do spot one by the time I have got my chart it has disappeared! Hopefully they will be back later. The garden is full of flowers but not the sort they like. 

I was pleased to find several frogs in the garden although we have had no frog spawn this year. I managed to snap this one before it hopped away.

I still had the macro lens on the camera and had to hand hold it so only its further eye and mouth are in focus. This one is better but the iris leaves were in the way.

Click on the photos for a really large version.

Several of you have mentions my new banner - the clematis bud. I must say I am very pleased with it. It has also gone 'ballistic' on flickr. If you are familiar with flickr you will know that they have a page called Explore which has several hundred of the millions of photographs which are uploaded every week which are designated the most interesting. The clematis bud made it to Explore a week a go and has had continual views and comments made on it all week - it sort of snowballs.

Marvin like most cats hasn't really been enjoying the heat but here is a snap from the archives for Jane who I know is a Marvin fan. He has been spending most of his time dozing in the shade.

Meanwhile I have been doing a little bit of sewing, I've half made some curtains for the bathroom, and been experimenting with some free form machine embroidery. I've also working on a few ideas for my walled garden project, but everything is a bit unformed at the moment.

So today I sat in the shade and tried to finish 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel which my friends and I are supposed to be chatting about next Friday. It is taking me an age to read but this week I have managed a few good long chunks which makes the story much easier to follow - I am enjoying it.

Tomorrow I collect my photographs from the Walled Garden Exhibition, and Sally tells me that one of them has the red spot!! 

Wishing you all a good week, and hope you are able to make the most of the gorgeous weather.

It's love all over again...

Love of my camera that is.  So I am going to share a bit of photography info with you. I picked some clematis montana and lilac from the garden (the lilac is my neighbour's) and thought I would get out the macro lens and set up a little photo session. It was bright but overcast in the  conservatory giving a gentle soft light and I set my little vase of flowers on a piece of green card to add soft reflected light. Then it was time to set up the  tripod and start snapping.

I may of told you all of this before, so forgive me but I started taking photographs seriously in 2007 when I got my first digital SLR camera, something I had wanted to do for many years, but hadn't the time for or the money. However with the availability of digital cameras and a gift from my Dad after we lost Mum I was determined to learn to use the camera properly. I took a course with the Open College of Arts as I was still teaching full time and the college offers a totally flexible course and as long as you keep in contact with your tutor you can take as long as you need over your assignments.

I really did not know how much I didn't know about photography and really enjoyed the assignments. The course was called the Art of Photography so as well as learning about the technical aspects of photography the tasks were concerned with colour, composition and conveying a message.

I had enjoyed taking close-up shots of flowers with my point and shoot digital camera and so I treated myself to a second-hand macro lens.  You really need to have your camera on a tripod with a macro lens as you often use a slow shutter speed and need to eliminate camera shake. Focusing on the right spot is also crucial and really only possible with a tripod.

Although I normally use automatic focusing, when you are using the macro lens the area in focus (depth of field) is very shallow so it is necessary to use manual focus. 

In this clematis you can see that the furthest stamens are out of focus, it takes me a lot of concentration to focus on the right spot.

With a high resolution camera it is also possible to make a tight crop to give an even greater close-up. My lens gives good quality clarity does not allow me to get really close, so by cropping I can get the details I want.

When I see photographs like these, I still can't believe I took them! They still give me such a thrill which is why I love my camera so much. Don't you love these lilac buds?

For those of you interested my camera is a NikonD80.