A Eureka Moment with Garden Colour.

Hello!

I give individual gardening lessons and sometimes they can be so rewarding. This week one of my pupils had a Eureka moment.

When we first started our lessons she told me her favourite colours were pale pinks and purples she wanted to fill her garden with these colours. No problem, very nice I thought. We also talked about colours in her clothes and in her house. Again they were pale pastels of pinks, purples and blues and creams. It looked like she knew what she wanted.

Last week our lesson was on designing with colour in the garden. We talked about how society may influence us over our colour choice. For example TV and Magazines selling us a particular lifestyle. Her  homework was to go to an art a gallery and also to look at photos online of gardens online and see which colours and colour combinations really moved, excited her and drew her.

She didn't love Pinks and purples as she thought - what really thrilled and drew her in colours was shades of green, white and silver.  Now she is busy looking at plants with leaves and flowers in this colour range for her garden and her home.

Have a lovely weekend
Caroline
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To learn more about me and Caroline's Cottage Gardens please visit my website. https://sites.google.com/site/carolinescottagegardens/

Poppy Garden - a painting by Karen Mathison Schmidt

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Ever since I bought a  lovely floral/garden print by Rachel Vollerthun I've been on the look out for more garden prints I can put up at home. Bringing the pleasure of flowers indoors. Cottage garden or flower paintings can be a little twee I feel but this one is not. It reminds me of the Californian poppies in my front garden in the height of summer.

This one is called Poppy Garden by Karen Mathison Schmidt, an artist in Louisiana.
Garden and prints can be bought from e-bay. Link below.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/KMSchmidt-16x12-LTD-Ed-PRINT-fauve-impressionist-POPPY-GARDEN-red-yellow-POPPIES/162513968094?hash=item25d6965bde:g:iHAAAOSwxu5ZFj5G












To learn more about me and Caroline's Cottage Gardens please visit my website. https://sites.google.com/site/carolinescottagegardens/

My Experience of Giving Gardening Lessons To My Baby Sister!

Hi there

I have a sister 16 years younger than me - she was a bit of a surprise for my parents! She has been saying she wants to learn to garden but for ages has not been able to get what she needs from books.

In the past I used to write and deliver courses on computer skills so I asked her what she needed to learn and I set about writing half an hour  lessons for her.

There is some key knowledge she needs and also she needs to gain confidence by doing. So I wrote a list of things to cover and some ideas of how to learn them by doing short easy projects.

For example growing a geranium she can learn about feeding, watering, planting, choosing a plant for a particular situation, deadheading and also taking cuttings and some basic design principles such as grouping identical plants for maximum effect.

So far we've had lessons on parts of a plant and what they do, needs of a plant and how they have adapted for various situations, the general principles of pruning and how to find out how to prune specific plants.

Each week there is a short task to do and we chat about how it went.

Each lesson is written on a template - in the first column is the topic title. In the second is the points to cover - for each I try to involve her by getting her to brainstorm the answers rather than me just telling her things. The third column is for more advanced useful information relating to each point to add interest.

We are both really enjoying the experience. I find she is thinking of many ideas for herself and is now able to cope with reading up and using key gardening books such as Geoff Hamilton's practical gardening course and also RHS pocket guide to pruning.

She is saying that I am filling in essential gaps in her knowledge.

I already have 10 lessons written up and could easily do many at higher levels.

There is so much to learn with gardening, it never stops, but it is such a pleasure to give someone the confidence to learn for themselves!

Take care
Caroline

xxx

The picture above is by Karen Mathison Schmidt and is called Garden of Grace. Prints are available in her ebay store.

http://karenmathisonschmidtgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/garden-of-grace-impressionist-painting.html











To learn more about me and Caroline's Cottage Gardens please visit my website. https://sites.google.com/site/carolinescottagegardens/

Pots of geraniums for your windowsill - very cheap or free and very easy to grow.

Painting by Susan Savad of Three Pots of Geranium on a Windowsill. Prints available see below.

Hi.

In a previous blog about bringing the garden into my home I showed a picture of an abstract painting of a garden by Rachel Vollerthun which I've just bought and love. Inspired by this I've been searching on the internet for other flower or garden paintings I might also love. I did find this one today.

I found this lovely painting on Fine Art America where they have many sized prints available for as little as £21. Link below.

Fine art america - link to painting of geraniums

One of the reasons I love it is that I've always had geraniums (aka Pelargoniums) on my windowsills in rows of terracotta pots.

They suit my frugal nature  - they an be bought for next to nothing, they are very difficult to kill and survive neglect. They flower most of the year. You will need to take off blooms that are dying by gently pulling off the plant.

You can also make loads more for free. In late summer (or most times of year to be honest) use a sharp knife to cut off the top 8 inches of a new stem. Gently pull off all the leaves apart from two or three small ones at the top. Then bury the stem in a pot of John Innes no 2 compost to about half its depth. No need to use rooting hormone.

I usually use a larger terracotta pot (very cheap) about 8 to 10 inches in diameter and put 3 or 4 such cuttings spaced out in the one pot. I then put in a well lit place but out of direct sunlight which is above 10 degrees C. Water one a week, there is no need to overwater as they store water in their stems.  Within a month or so they will start growing as they will have rooted. 

As they start growing every time a stem gets to about 10 inches tall - cut off the top 2 inches of each stem. This encourages branches to be made and a more well rounded plant with more flowers.

As well as filling your windowsill they make great gifts. They are also a great way to begin to learn gardening - skills learned will be watering, taking cuttings, pinching off tips to encourage branching.

There are loads and loads of varieties to buy. I like allwoods.com where I've bought some before for as little as £3.50 each. They sell traditional geraniums with all colours, ones with variegated leaves and beautifully scented geraniums. Below is a link to their website.

Allwoods Geraniums/Pelargoniums website

To learn more about me and Caroline's Cottage Gardens please visit my website. https://sites.google.com/site/carolinescottagegardens/

Zentangle Garden

With proverb!

Zentangle can be so relaxing to do - better than drugs I reckon.

I used to meditate for many years which was good but I find it so much easier and better for my anxiety to do something rather than do tricks with my mind. Zentangle was a real find!

Its cheap too - a very fine ink pen costs only around £2.50 - and any scraps of reasonably absorbent paper. Lots of patterns online - particularly on Pinterest to copy too.

Caroline
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To learn more about me and Caroline's Cottage Gardens please visit my website. https://sites.google.com/site/carolinescottagegardens/

Bringing the pleasure of gardens into your home

Hi there

I've been looking for a cottage garden painting for ages to put up in my house - but they are a little too idyllic for my taste.  I've just found the one above and love it - I'm ordering a print of it for my wall at home and the colours give me such a lift!

Yesterday we had an amazing morning looking at the paintings of a local artist Rachel Vollerthun. She uses colour very much as we use colour when we choose plants, mixing and blending and trying things out.

I particularly loved the paintings she had involving flowers and the wonderful colours she uses. The one above seems captures the beauty of a garden but with out some of the potential tweeness of some old cottage garden paintings. I just love it. She has some prints for sale of the above painting and many other originals and prints for you to enjoy and perhaps even buy on her website.

http://www.vollerthun.com/


I came home, got out some inktense pens and tried to recreate some of her ideas. I have a long way to go but so enjoyed it.

Here are some more of her paintings I loved. If you like them too please do share them with your friends via facebook, etc.

When there is not a lot of colour in the garden what a lot of pleasure I get from such pictures. I hope you do too.

Love
Caroline

Key words Colour Garden "Colour schemes", paint, beautiful, "cottage garden" Design "garden design" "working with colour" art Cambridgeshire Gardener "oil painting"