Category: Garden

Garden Painting Workshop

Hilary Cooper

I did consider taking acrylics and a canvas to today’s painting workshop at RHS Harlow Carr run by their current artist in residence, Hilary Burnett Cooper, but I stuck with my regular pen and watercolour and it was a chance to try my larger watercolour box on location. I recently updated it so that there are fewer strident greenish blues and earthy browns, replacing those with colours that would be more useful for flower painting.

Bergenia

Link

Hilary Burnett Cooper Landscape, scenic and figurative artist

Désirée

chitted potatoes

As we’re fairly far north here in Yorkshire and on a north-facing slope, we’ve left it until today to put in the Maris Peer second earlies and these Désirée early maincrop. Drawn here to test out the different virtual pens available in Procreate.

Nestbox Wars

blue tit
sparrow

It’s that time of year when blue tits and sparrows fight it out for who gets to nest in our various nest boxes. Last year the blue tits raised a brood in the sparrow terrace at the back of our house but after a lively dispute between a pair of sparrows and a pair of blue tits over the blue tit box in the rowan tree in the front garden, the box ended up with no occupants during the breeding season.

History is repeating itself with the blue tits franticly trying to repel the sparrows at 8.30 this morning but the sparrows managed to force their way to the box and, as it turned out, despite the narrow dimensions of the brass ring around the entrance hole, they were able to squeeze in.

The sparrow terrace. With resident blue tit.

At the moment it’s sparrows who are taking most interest in the three-nest hole sparrow terrace but it’s early days and the blue tits could easily be the ones who eventually take possession.

Snowy Morning

snow sketches

Snow, rapidly melting, at the hospice this morning.

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The Veg Shed

veg shed

Like a scene from Peter Rabbit, a woman walks up the garden path to Hilary’s cafe with a large bunch of fresh carrots, holding them by the lush ferny foliage of the carrot tops.

She’s soon back down the shed, returning again with three Petanque boule-size beetroots, again with fresh-looking foliage.

“I only came here for a cup of coffee!” she explains.

Squirrel Baffle

squirrel sketches

Rainy, grey skies, a wind from the north, so it doesn’t feel like the first day of meteorological spring.

8.30 a.m.: A grey squirrel bounds across the lawn.

It soon realises that it can’t climb around the baffle on the bird feeder post.

It climbs into the hawthorn hedge and you can see it weighing up the possibilities. No, not worth it. It scampers off across next door’s lawn.

Spring Flowers

Barbara’s brother John has seen the outside world just once in the last month on a brief wheelchair tour of the Hospice grounds so he asked us to photograph some of the spring flowers that are currently coming up in our garden.

The rest of the garden is ready for a bit of a spring clean but the crocus, daffodils, irises, winter aconite and pulmonaria give a welcome burst of colours.

Hellebore

hellebore

Drifts of snowdrops, winter aconites and a variety of hellebores at Brodsworth Hall this morning.

February Flowers

flower drawings

There are a few bright spots of colour beginning to appear on the raised bed behind the pond.

drawing flowers with an ipad

With the afternoon light starting to fade I went for the easier option of photographing them and drawing from my iPad.

This is my first drawing with my refreshed Winsor and Newton watercolour box which I’ve filled with botanical subjects in mind and so far it seems to be working.

Pheasants at the Feeders

pheasant sketches

Five female pheasants alternated from pecking around the feeders for spilt sunflower hearts and crumbs from the fat balls to drinking at the pond (and one unwisely tried to run across the surface of the water!) then going down to the veg beds to rest for a while.

One pheasant, feeding on its own at that time, suddenly burst into a ‘mad half hour’ routine, as my mum used to describe similar behaviour in a cat; darting around and flouncing its feathers as if it was being threatened by some invisible enemy. This lasted less than a minute, not a full half hour.