nature inspired Archives | The British Craft House

Spring flowers are the most beautiful overture to the garden reawakening and welcoming the sun with a rush of blooms and greenery. There are other flowers that I love to see arriving later in the year such as cherry and apple blossoms, poppies and irises. But there is always a thrill at seeing the first flowers of the year breaking through gloomy winter and making the cold days less bleak.

Year by year a little more gets added to our garden and I’m gradually building up a display of early spring flowers. A friend of mine, whose back garden will be a riot of crocuses now, mentioned that she planted bulbs every year and this seems like the best plan to me. Some flowers appear regularly, like the snowdrops in the back garden, and others are more intermittent, like our daffodils. Sometimes flowers die off of course – we used to have a lovely primrose, and I’m not sure that the cowslip will come back this year. So there are always gaps to fill here and there.

Sometimes I only have one or two packets to plant, last year I had quite a few. I added more crocuses because they will look so wonderful when I’ve finally created little carpets of them. I also bought flowers I’ve not had before – muscari, chionodoxa luciliae, scilla siberica and (swoon) dwarf irises. I’ve dotted them around the flower beds in the front and back gardens. I only have daffodils in the lawn, but crocuses look spectacular growing out of the grass so I’ll have to give that a go sometime. It’s easiest with early flowers as the grass won’t be getting cut for a while yet.

This is the first year I’ve had bulbs planted up in containers. It’s lovely having a colourful display in the front garden, but we have a better view on the back garden. The containers sit just outside the back door, where I can enjoy them every day. The dwarf irises have come up best in the front garden though – it’s a sunnier spot, so they look all stately and glorious. They’re the first irises I’ve been able to encourage to grow and it’s a treat to finally have some in the garden.

I think Monty Don from Gardeners’ World plants out container bulbs to his lawns and meadows a year or two after the first flowering. This definitely sounds like an interesting rotation plan to try out. It’s been useful learning from other people so that I can have a plan of what I’m doing. Addressing different garden tasks through the year has been a learning curve since we had a garden. We’re busiest in spring and autumn when weeding, planting, pruning and frost coverings are the main activities. The momentum often falls away in summer due to holidays and different routines. If it’s not too British a summer, we make a point of watering the garden and taking a look round every so often. The biggest task for me is maintenance – making sure that the plants are healthy and thriving through the year, and get enough attention.

Given the season, early spring flowers were the natural choice for my first stick and stitch embroidery designs. I got particularly carried away with the snowdrops. These sketches are developed from my photos of spring flowers, most of them from my garden in the past few years. Naturally I am already planning designs for next year based on the new additions that are flowering now. I’m also working on more meadowy themes for the summer and I hope to have a kit or two released later in the year – I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, although you won’t see these designs in my British Craft House shop, you will find them at TBCH’s spinoff site Buy Indie, where I’ve got a Sweet Thorn corner too:

https://buyindie.co.uk/product/stick-and-stitch-spring-flower-embroidery-patterns-2/

Thanks for reading, have a lovely March!

At the earliest opportunity, I branch off the main path and take the narrow lane which cuts through the woods. I find I am walking briskly through places where I would normally linger. In the heat of the mid-afternoon it is easier to move than to stay in one place. I can feel the burn of the sun whenever I stop and so I walk as if I can escape it. Birds call and chirp. I can’t identify them with confidence until the wood pigeons coo.

I have developed a new habit of grasping the leaves of trees, just for that tactile connection. Another way to remember the differences between them all, and an extra dimension of the whole experience to recall in the relentless activity between holiday spaces. The beech leaves are past their spring softness and have turned a dark and shiny green. They have a thick, almost leathery feel. Some are already brown, crisp and crinkled. Conifers release a green, musky fragrance with their rough feathers. I touch the tips of my fingers to wicked holly spikes, but the larches have soft, comfortable needles. Lime leaves are among the most familiar to me – I try and breathe in the sweet, sticky scent that I remember, but can’t quite catch it today.

Five minutes through the woods and the lane continues between fields. The hedgerows are full of blackberries. I pick a few ripe ones, and then a red one to eat more slowly. The sour tang is similar to rhubarb and lasts a good long time. Near shoulder level, the border of lacy white cow parsley is dotted with deep burgundy dots of great burnet. In a tangle to my right, lesser stitchwort is scrambling along the length of the hedgerow at ankle level. Thin green stems weave messily through the grasses like a long scribble. On cooler days, I have bent to examine the slender white petals of these small, starry flowers. They travel along the edge of the field, dotted among the green like constellations.

Other people are in the lane, so it’s not a spot to linger long, even if the heat allowed. I follow the path round the field, now parallel with the road. Birdsong gives way to the swoosh and rumble of traffic. Eventually I know there will be a turning that goes towards the lake, although I don’t know how far along it is. The path is much more narrow now. Brambles, shrubs and grasses press from all sides. I watch out for nettles and thorns, avoiding stinging swipes or jagged catches. The late afternoon heat keeps me moving. This path is quite busy with people too. We cram ourselves into grassy passing places to make way, trampling bracken and keeping an eye on the thornier bushes.

After a while, a broader path leads down towards the lake. The air freshens a bit nearer to the water. The hedgerows give way to open grassland and neat gravel paths. There are boarded walkways through marshy areas, green and reedy, with pink accents of invasive Himalayan balsam. Soon the boards open out to fields near the water, where there are people and sheep. I stand in the heat listening to the tearing rip of grass being eaten; a sound of concentration occasionally punctuated by bleats, as if a slow conversation is taking place over the long afternoon.

Tag: nature inspired

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