Monday 13 August 2018

The Patience Of Ordinary Things


Painting by Emily Patrick
See also Emily Patrick's Exhibition in Spitalfields November 2008

Patience of Ordinary Things

It is a kind of love, is it not?

How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Pat Schneider

Saturday 11 August 2018

Old Swan House Garden in August 2018

The garden photographed in early "Chinese" autumn

The grass garden at evening


The grass garden at evening - Lumix wide

The long view with 'orse
The long view

The grass garden at a distance

Drinks in the sun


The drive borders
There's still a lot going on
The wildflower fence glimpsed from the loggia

Sunday 29 July 2018

Old Swan House Garden in July 2018


On one of the hottest driest summers on record, the garden has stood up well.

Come in....to the smallest fenced wildflower meadow ever...


The wildflower meadow at the end of the path

 
The helenium is especially fine this year
The box balls have stood up well to the heat




The grass garden in full somg 

The wall border after Ispahan is over

The helenium and the lower wall border

Echinacea love the heat

The new box pyramids have added to the 'weight' at this end of the garden

The house with its wall of box 0 with the new box walk behind the tree


Wednesday 4 July 2018

Hampton Court Flower Show 2018

Hampton Court

Visiting Hampton Court Flower Show again after many years was a pleasure in many ways, not least because on a very warm day much of the area was shaded by trees and there were plenty of places to sit down as well as to eat and drink, unlike Chelsea.  The surroundings are of course magnificent and it's a joy not have to drive in and out of London, but the show still has gardens of good quality, though more modest both in number and design.







For more photos, click here 

Friday 29 June 2018

Tuesday 5 June 2018

Old Swan House Garden in June 2018


That garden is now almost at its peak in early June. The euphorbia no longer dominate as they have suffered the 'Chelsea Chop' but the roses have suddenly all come out and Mme Alfred Carriere is scrambling up the neighbour's yew, the roses having been properly pruned and tied back for the first time this winter.


The grasses have grown quickly after their hard pruning in March and the mounds of alchemilla have become astonishingly large. The fireworks of Stipa gigantea dominate at the moment before Miscanthus Professor Richard Hansen takes over as the tallest grass, becoming a golden searchlight in the autumn.


The wildflower meadow - probably the smallest in the country to be enclosed with estate fencing - is brimming with plants and has had had an additional supply of oxeye daisy and - hopefully - some teazle added to the mix, which now surrounds an old staddle stone.



The horse surveys the top of the garden and the addition box balls and pyramids


There is new box walk around the pond that looks particularly good lit up at night.


Only the lawns are a disappointment this year, but should soon be brought back to lush greeness.

For more photos, click here

For a video walk-through, click here

See also Blithe Moment


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Monday 4 June 2018

Blithe Moment



Wednesday 23 May 2018

Chelsea Flower Show 2018

Spirit of Cornwall Designed by Stuart Charles Towner with Studio Evans Lane Sponsored by VTB Capital
South African Wine Estate Designed by Jonathan Snow Sponsored by Trailfinders Ltd
Omotenashi no Niwa -The Hospitality Garden by Kazuyuki Ishihara 
Designed by Nic HowarSponsored by David Harber and Savills
  Eco-City Garden    Designed by Hay-Joung Hwang Built by Randle Siddeley

For all photos click here 


Tuesday 8 May 2018

Favourite Writings - Love v Desire - JD McClatchy

A desire can be a vague wish, a sharp craving, a steadfast longing, a helpless obsession. It can signal an absence or a presence, a need or a commitment, an ideal or an impossibility. The root of the word “desire” links it to consider and to terms of investigation and augury, thereby reminding us that desire is often less what we feel than what we think about what we feel. And the still deeper root of the word links it to star and shine, as if our desires, and bright centers of our being, were also like the fixed fates in the heavens, determining the course of our lives. Indeed, our mundane experience of desire often coincides with this sense of something beyond our control, of something confusing, something driving us beyond the bounds of habit or reason. It is the heart of our hearts, the very stuff of the self. Desire explodes past borders of time or law. It drifts through veils of propriety. It cannot be confined by social expectations or strictures.
Love is something else again. As mysterious as are the ways of desire, and as disconcerting its effects, love is desire raised to a higher power. It can be as consuming as desire, but it lasts longer. Love is the quality of attention we pay to things. Love is both the shrine and the idol. Love is what we make of other people, and what they make of us. It can be as dispassionate as a Zen monk’s, or as wasting as the Romantic hero’s.
Love has nothing to do with behavior or circumstance. Love doesn’t require sexual expression, or even a meeting, just as it continues, often stronger, after the beloved’s death.


See also Favourite Writings - Friendship