Category: Garden

Garden · Happy · Hope · Knitting · Nature · Photography · Writing

Changes

sareenmclayLeave a comment
Education, salvation and damnation. Aberdeen with the beautiful gardens below.
(Central Library, St Mark’s Church and His Majesty’s Theatre.)

Recently I was asked to take a photo which would represent Aberdeen. Where to start, the imposing tower of the Marischal College, the miles of beach, the bandstand at Duthie Park? (Not to mention Old Aberdeen, Footdee/Fittie, I could go on …)

The photo is for a writing group.

I have been the local volunteer co-ordinator of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI – or Scooby as it is known!) these past few years.

Our group encompasses Aberdeen and the Northeast but truly, it has members from around Scotland. It is a wonderful group of writers who support one another and provide insightful and helpful critiques as well as a whole host of encouragement and bookish advice.

Recently we made the decision to open the group to all, so you no longer have to be a member of the SCBWI to belong. Scooby has also been going through a lot of changes recently, hence the need for a photo of Aberdeen so our group can be mentioned on the website. I hope this photo does Aberdeen justice.

New members are very welcome and if you would like to join, please feel free to DM me on my Instagram or Facebook page.

The same morning I took the photo of Aberdeen, I nearly missed my bus. I was distracted, taking pictures of the clouds because, why not? I am always trying to remember the names of the different types of clouds, not very successfully, I admit, but it is fun trying. 

Standing at the bus stop cloud spotting seems a good use of time, craning my neck to look up rather than down at my phone. The other day, when I began to think about what I would write in this post, I knew I had to include these two photos. 

Today, I am on the train writing this up, trying not to be too distracted by the sheer variety of white puffs in the sky (one looks like a giant zeppelin!). 

By chance, I bought a magazine for my journey. This time it was Prima and inside, guess what, you’ve got it, there is a whole article about skygazing. Gotta love a coincidence.

Positive psychologist, Paul Conway has coined the phrase ‘Skychology’ for the ‘practice of intentionally looking up at the sky for a few minutes a day to improve your mental health’. Love it. I didn’t really need a name for it, but it is clever and apparently the science behind it proves my sky gazing instincts were worth acting upon. I’ll need to do more!

Those of you who have seen my few and far between posts on Instagram, FB or Bluesky, may have seen these pictures.

For a few years there, I wasn’t too keen on the arrival of Autumn. Not that I could do anything about it, perhaps I just wasn’t looking forward to the colder days.

This year, I am embracing it. How lucky to be able to watch the trees and plants change colour. 

The thought of time spent inside as well, being cosy with the opportunity to carry on with (yet another) crochet blanket, fills me with joy. Bring it on!

Wishing you all a very Happy Autumn.

I am reading ‘All Adults Here’ by Emma Straub (although by the time I post this, I will guarantee I will have finished it. It’s compulsive reading!) I bought it in my brother and sister-in-law’s fabulous bookshop, Book Moon in Easthampton, MA.

I am watching ‘Oak Tree: Nature’s Greatest Survivor’ on BBC 4 with Gavin McGavin.

bees · Birds · Books · butterflies · Flowers · Garden · Happy · Inspiration · Wildflowers · wildlife

Flowers

sareenmclay

I grew up watching Beechgrove Garden and Gardeners’ World on the telly. The arrival of seed catalogues through the letterbox meant I could pour over stunning pictures of flowers, loving their colours, variety and beauty.

Only when I look back now do I realise how much of an impact these, and many other, influences from my childhood have shaped me.

I do love a flower!

Over the years I have continued to watch these long-running television programmes, admittedly not every week. Having suffered from migraines, I find the calm and beauty of them help me when I am at the stage of beginning to get going again.

During the summer I often sit down to watch and then think, I should be outside in the garden, not watching television! A few weeks ago, however, I ended up needing to recuperate from a bit of a fall and had the perfect excuse to sit down and watch the coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. My what an absolute treat!

Brightly coloured flowers were much in evidence at RHS Chelsea.

The knowledge, creativity, obvious joy and laughter on display were so inspiring. I learnt a huge amount and took copious notes – of course! The weather played its part and I was inspired to pot on the seedlings I have; teasels, sunflowers, zinnias, nasturtiums and sweet peas. A job I always put off as I never think I have enough patience to do but then, as ever, one that fully absorbs me and forces me to take my time. Every year I think I will grow flowers to bring in to the house but then I find it too hard to cut them; they look so beautiful where they are!

It does make me laugh though, there I am busy sowing seeds, potting on, watering and trying to nurture the plants when Nature has her own way of deciding exactly what she wants to do. When I was in the greenhouse I must have dropped some of the foxglove seeds I collected one year and the number of plants that have popped up through the stones is hilarious.

I am particularly proud of this poppy which, again, I probably dropped the seed and it has survived and flowered really well since last autumn in a pot in the corner of the greenhouse. It looks so happy there, I am just going to leave it.

I never thought ours would be a garden good enough for any flower show but listening to the experts at Chelsea, I do feel an extra sense of pride. The plants I have chosen have always been for wildlife, we have piles of stones and sticks, bee hotels, a butterfly house, a small pond and a water bath for the birds – with stones for the bees to land on. We began our back garden from a patch of grass, twelve years ago and now it looks so much more mature.

One of the first presents I was given for it was a bird feeding station. It has taken time to encourage the birds to come but the diversity of birds we have had this year has been fabulous. Woodpeckers, goldfinches, great tits and blue tits, blackbirds, dunnets, sparrows, doves, robins, wood pigeons, jackdaws and crows! Fantastic! There is an area which backs on to a woodland and that has been left as a ‘woodland’ garden where we even saw a large hedgehog one year. So along with my rather rag tag, ‘naturalistic’ planting, I have to laugh at myself, for once I am feeling right on trend in the gardening world!

But the greatest gift of all is the sharing. Going around the garden I can point out plants my parents, family and friends have given us. Watching the birds flitting in and around the feeders and listening to the hum of the giant bumblebees, I feel incredibly lucky. Gardening has been a gift for me in so many ways, much like the gift I was given when those catalogues came through the door all those years ago.

A lovely gift – Aquilegia

Like a book, I would find it incredibly difficult to choose a favourite when it comes to flowers. Is there a particular flower you love and why?

I Am Reading

The Flower Book, A Bloom for Every Day of the Year. Gardeners’ World

It would be lovely if you would like to pop over to www.mybookcorner.co.uk where you can read my reviews of the latest books for children. There is the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter there as well, providing you with great recommendations sent straight to your inbox.

Spring Flowers, Sunshine and a Love of Learning
Flowers · Garden · Hope · Latin names · Nature · Photography · Reading · Seasons

Spring Flowers, Sunshine and a Love of Learning

sareenmclay
Primroses in our garden

A quote I read recently by the late Stephen Hawking made me stop and think. Then it sent me on a spiral of thoughts.

I wondered if there is a word for a collector of quotes? So, off I headed, straight to you know where to look it up and yes, apparently I am a ‘quodophile’. There you go then, who knew. Another label to my box.

Perhaps not a box, perhaps I am, as we most probably all are, a whole index card system of labels. I can’t after all complain, as I love to learn the collective nouns for animals and birds, or the Latin names for Flowers, Plants and Trees or to discover the names of butterflies, damselflies, anything really. A name is a starting point for discovery.

I digress.

The quote from Stephen Hawking was about intelligence being the ability to adapt to change.

Change is difficult, it is exciting, it is opening a new file in your life.

As I thought about the quote, more and more, I decided I would add an extra part, for myself.

Intelligence is also the ability to create a routine thereby when changes come, you have the energy and the reserves to deal with it, knowing there is a safety net already in existence.

Spring is a time of change. The lighter days bring us hope and energy. We wait in anticipation for the first signs of flowers peeping through the dark earth like little bursts of sunshine.

Often when I am considering what to write for a blog post, coincidences occur. Such as the primroses popping up in our garden just as I have been delving into The Brief Life of Flowers by Fiona Stafford to you guessed it, learn more about flowers.

Primroses in the garden

Now, here is a book for those who love to learn. One which is filled with so many information trails I have to stop and search for them. For a knowledge collector like me, a book like this is heaven.

There I was scurrying off to look up John Clare’s poem, ‘Primroses’, and John William Inchbold’s, ‘A Study in March’.

Then off I went down another rabbit hole to research women who were botanical painters.

The primroses in our garden have been returning year on year. Time and again I have split them. What began as two plants have given me many, many more. Now, all around the garden, there are bursts of small yellow flowers contrasting with the size of their large, floppy green leaves.

Is it with a gardener’s eye I look at them now? Noticing not only their beauty, but when they appear, which plants are flowering and which ones will need dividing. For of course, is that not the role of a gardener, to be constantly thinking to the future. There, another label for me, a gardener. Definitely a label I would pin to my lapel with pride.

Thoughts of the future have also drawn me to the past. It was after all, on a trip to our local garden centre with my parents that I bought the original primroses. There are many plants in our garden that were gifted to us by my parents; sedum (Hylotelephium), anemones, a tiny lilac tree. On occasion I will find myself talking to these plants, memories drifting back of my parents’ visits and although I know I have adapted as best I can for the moment, to the changes that have taken place in our lives, as I see their flowers emerge, the routine of the garden is of great comfort to me.

A gift of sedum.

Being perhaps foolhardy, I have sown some seeds, teasel and sweet peas. Very early for here but, the sun is shining and there they were. Fingers crossed!

One final note:

A lovely friend sent me this article by Susie Dent. As a logophile, I love learning new words (okay, I know, I have already said, I love learning full stop) so this made my day to learn that I am a librocubicularist – I thought perhaps I was just lazy! Yet another label, and I am okay with that.

So, there we go, some random thoughts on learning and springtime. Wishing you all much joy as the spring flowers appear.

Do you have a favourite word or springtime flower?

I am reading: (so many books, you wouldn’t believe it – and yes there is a TBR pile on the bedside table!)

Wind Swept: Why Women Walk by Annabel Abbs

The Wonder by Diana Evans

The Book of Tree Poems, an anthology edited by Ana Sampson

In The Hedgerow by Nathalie Tordjman, illustrated by Sylvaine Perol

It would be lovely if you would like to pop over to www.mybookcorner.co.uk where you can read my reviews of books for children. There is the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter there as well, providing you with great recommendations sent straight to your inbox.

Gardens, Photography, Reading, Writing and Learning- of course!
bees · Books · butterflies · Flowers · Garden · Happy · Holidays · Inspiration · Latin names · Nature · Photography · Seasons · wildlife · Writing

Gardens, Photography, Reading, Writing and Learning- of course!

sareenmclayLeave a comment

I began this post in the summer. For some reason, I couldn’t get my head around what the thread of it was until I realised, that was the point. This is about meandering.

In gardens that have been specially designed, the aim seems to be to have a winding path. One to deliberately make you slow down and take your time. Along the way, there will be side shoots, leading you to ‘moments of interest’ in the garden. At the end of the path there may be an area that was at first hidden from sight.

I confess to not knowing much about garden design, despite the many I have visited! One designer I have read and heard mention of over the years is Gertrude Jekyll. On a visit to the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) on the North East Coast of England, I was delighted to learn there was a garden she had designed. Oh, how beautiful it is too! Filled with an abundance of summer blooms in a riot of colour, it was an absolute treat to see. Fragrant sweet peas and roses, poppies, daisies and flowering Lamb’s Ears (Stachys Byzantina)amidst others.

Garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll at Lindesfarne (Holy Island).

A long time ago I planted Lamb’s Ears in my garden after admiring them in the walled garden at Drum Castle: the leaves are so soft to touch. So it is with gardens, each one I visit inspires me to do something more with my own. Returning home with renewed determination to try sweet peas again, I think of how amazing their perfume is and how they are so pretty in a posy.

Six-spot Burnet moth

I am a meandering sort of a person, I think. The years have taught me that I do get there, slowly, following paths I choose, often without a clear idea of how it will all turn out but willing to give it a try. Perhaps my way is like the butterflies and moths I enjoy spotting, flitting from one stem to the next but with an overall sense of purpose.

Often I am inspired by others who have followed their own paths. Watching the documentary on the writer Joan Didion, reading about the photographer Imogen Cunningham and Kate Bradbury’s ‘The Bumblebee Flies Anyway’ have set the tone for my summer.

Always one to enjoy a learning opportunity, the talk by Annie Ives on identifying bumble bees for the Scottish Wildlife Trust was right up my street.

Writing this blog has given me the perfect opportunity to use some of the photos of the natural world around us that I love to take. This love of photography combined with writing meant I very much enjoyed running a ‘Scrawl and Crawl’ workshop with SCBWI‘s Karen McDonald at the wonderful Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery. I am hoping the exercises we did will get me writing!

As ever, the garden provides me with so many opportunities to take photos, it is hard to resist! Here are a selection of September moments. Sunshine, spiders and sunflowers, a white-tailed bee on the Sedum (Hylotelephium) and stunning white anemones.

To see the wild flowers amongst the apples this summer was a delight.

I wondered whether to post this or not, time has run away with me but today, as I swept up piles of leaves to let the grass breathe I thought, why not. Perhaps this is a summer/autumn round up.

Leaving the leaves (!) on the flower beds with the aim that they will break down as a natural mulch, I gathered a couple of bags full to hopefully create leaf mould. Making sure there were holes in the bags, I poured in some water from the rainwater butt and am keeping my fingers crossed.

Outside, in the October sunshine, I heard the honks, quacks and barks of pink-footed geese flying in a ‘v’ formation overhead. As I swept the leaves, a beautiful light green frog moved to hide in between the cracks in the wall. So that was the end of my clearing up. I left the rest for the frogs.

The Fuchsia are still going strong but are there any ‘froggy friends’ lurking underneath the beech leaves?

I am reading:

‘Haddo Reimagined‘ by Rae Cowie and Susan Orr this is a wonderful collaboration between writer and photographer.

Do you have a book recommendation which would be perfect for this time of year?

Flowers · Garden · Happy

Every Garden is a Story

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Social Media Perfect? So beautiful but all is not what it at first appears.

It seems to me, every garden is a story. Home to memories made and filled with hope for those to come.

I look around our garden and each tree, bush, flower, everything has its own history. From the many lavender plants – because I find it hard to leave a garden centre without one after happy days spent at the Norfolk Lavender farm, to our five cordon fruit trees, a gift from my parents.

In our garden peony flowers grow. Their perfume intoxicating, their beauty surely undeniable.

But, as a child, peonies never really entered my world. It wasn’t until my sister-in-law included them in her wedding bouquet did I cotton on to how stunning they really are.

Now, the peonies in our garden have their own story. When my parents moved house, they changed their new front garden around. As they did so, they offered me any plants I would like to take. Well, you can imagine, there I was, trowel and spade in hand! Our car was soon filled with straggly plants in bags and pots.

So, back home, I popped the peonies in the ground. I had no idea really what they were or whether they’d take to our colder, north eastern temperatures. Were they herbaceous? As it turned out, they were a triumph of hope over knowledge. The first year one large pink bloom appeared (and I learnt they are herbaceous) then, each year from then on, more and more flowers have appeared.

But, all was not perfect in the garden.

I love these big, blousy blooms and even more, I love where they have come from and the memories they’ve given, and continue to give, me.

This year, when my daughter asked me what ‘those pink flowers’ were called, I was able to share my limited knowledge and my story with her.

A bit of support is needed.

So, yes, now I’ve realised, we all have a story with certain flowers. And the stories can bring so much joy in the sharing.

Which flowers do you have a special story with?

Super visit to the Aberdeen Art Gallery exhibition of work by Quentin Blake.

I am reading: White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link.

The Tale of Truthwater Lake by Emma Carroll.

Birds · Books · Dogs · Garden · Happy · Trees · walking

A Spring in My Step

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I had a hair appointment on my birthday! It felt like a fantastic present particularly now after this latest lockdown. My hair was the longest it’s been in twenty years. It was definitely time for a chop.

Perhaps I was thinking about hairstyles as I looked out my window this morning? A bit of a wind today and the Laurel bush is waving like a shaggy monster from The Muppet Show. The breeze is rippling through the bronze tint on the Beech hedge and the bobbed Kilmarnock Willow is showing off streaks of green through it’s mane.

Green tinted Kilmarnock Willow

Each year I have the discussion about when the leaves will appear on the trees. I always think Spring comes earlier than it actually ever does – perhaps too optimistic? So I look out of my window to check what’s happening in the garden and every morning I try to read a poem. ‘A Child’s Song in Spring’ by Edith Nesbit summed up exactly what I was thinking one day.

Signs of Spring are coming and a blue tit is nesting in the bird box hopefully kept warm by our dog, Molly. Having brushed Molly, we put the fur from the brush into an old bird feeder and recently spotted the birds collecting it to line their nests. In no time at all the feeder was empty. Molly is one very well groomed dog these days!

Well groomed Molly keeping me company as I write this,

I recently downloaded an App: Merlin, which is helping me to identify the birds I see in the garden and out and about. I love the way their calls and songs are available to listen to as well. To top it all I was totally delighted to receive a pair of binoculars for my Birthday. I had a sudden flashback to childhood and trying to use my parents’ binoculars and now at last, I have my own! So with the App and the binoculars, I’m pretty sure the pair of birds who scurry around our garden are dunnocks.

So with my newly cropped hair, my binoculars in hand, I’m off for a walk with a spring in my step. Here’s to life as a twitcher!

I’m reading ‘Golden Hill’ by Francis Spufford and ‘Flight’ by Vanessa Harbour. Still reading Muriel Spark’s autobiography.

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