Category: Beautiful Nature

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Flowers from the garden

Flowers May 23 4_20sq

One of the first things we did when we first moved from our flat London to our house in Wivenhoe, was buy lots of seeds and bulbs for our garden. Finally our (well Dr B’s) years of planning has paid off as we now have a charming little space that’s full of colourful flowers throughout the spring and summer.

Flowers May 23 9_20sq

We’ve got so many blooms that now we can cut and display our homegrown lovelies – here we’ve got pretty cow parsley, vibrant geums, bright marigolds and pretty forget me nots to name a few. I’ll be posting more cuttings from our garden over the summer so you can see what we’ve been growing.

Flowers May 23 7_20w

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A wood full of bluebells

Bluebells

The start of May means bluebells in British woodlands and I’m lucky enough to live next door to a place that’s full of them – here’s some pictures I took while out walking.

Bluebells

You can find both English and Spanish varieties of the flower at this time of year but, while the Spanish version is just as pretty, it can be a bit of a nuisance. According to reports it spreads everywhere and can hybridise with our native bloom, possibly ousting it from its natural habitat. In short, it’s the plant version of the grey squirrel.

Thankfully we don’t seem to have any Spanish bluebells in our local woods and the few bluebells at the bottom of our little garden are English too. I’ve enjoyed studying and drawing the home-grown blossoms.

Bluebells by Ella Johnston

I love the carpet of blue, violet and green that graces our woodland at this time of year and it inspired me to create a repeat pattern design. I’ll be using this on fabric and paper designs soon, so watch this space…

bluebellpattern