My neighbour was tidying up her garden for Autumn and popped in with a bunch of these magnificent allium seedheads.
It's definitely worth planting some of the large headed allium just for the seedheads in September. They look superb in a vase and so beautiful when the Autumn light hits them.
It's Aquilegia week at the flower studio.
I'm selling lots of different varieties at the Cowdray Farm Shop both as plants and as cut flowers. I find them endlessly fascinating and love photographing their unique form.
They are fabulous garden plants as they self seed and pop up year after year. They've been present in every garden I've ever owned and yet I've never planted any until this year. It's been fun selecting new varieties for the cutting garden.
Aquilegia cut flower
Aquilegia stem opening
Aquilegia heaven
I've been making up posies with aquilegia, salmon parrot tulips, forsythia, fritillaries, ranunculus and hellebore. I love this palette of washed out lemons, peach and off white; fresh and uplifting!
Spring garden flowers early May
It's been an incredibly busy start to the year but I always make time to photograph my flowers. I love capturing flowers in season and have been documenting some of my favourite spring flowers. I've been using all of these in my bouquets at the Cowdray Farm shop.
I grew up with parents who adored gardening and growing their own fruit, vegetables and flowers. Our garden was small but really beautiful and full of delicious scents and textures and there was an allottment a short walk away which was a fun place to go on a Sunday afternoon. The shed had curtains and there was always a whistling kettle and kale-a-plenty. My grandparents had the 'plot' next door to ours and it really was a home from home.
My Mother always had flowers in the house and and I know that she, like me, found them fascinating and intoxicating. She trained herself to be a florist by reading library books on floristry techniques. She was a very creative person; a talented dressmaker, excellent cook, artist and writer.
They say the apple never falls far from the tree and my interests turned out to be very similar to hers; the seed was planted very early on.