Growing at The Flower Show

Post 67

Would I ever be so silly as to pose with a Guard? Of course not-
not unless drunk, or rather, drunk with the scents, sights and sounds of this year's Flower Show. (Do not miss the hourly video that plays across the clock's face. Do not.)

 

 

And the plants were pretty darn good too.

Above  is a combination I have never seen before but works: stone, Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, and the reddest of red English daisies. It's like the daisies are applauding the tree's movements. Clap your petals.

The common luxuriness of English cottage garden style was in evidence. As in the pic above  -- white Cosmo, the mallow that goes violet to purple and tall agaratum.

                                                                                                                                                    And isn't this the bees' knee's? Talk about  contrasts to make harmony.                                                                              A huge amount of what I have learned about gardening I learned at the Flower Show -- by just looking.                                                                                                                            It is easy to copy things, but unless you understand the principles behind the original, you will not copy well. You'll just get pastiche

I do not like to copy, but to understand and adapt. So I look and ask questions. From my answers grows my style. If I were to just steal or appropriate, I'd bypass growth. And growing a garden well means growing yourself as well.

Here I pause, my eye arrested by the contrasts of color and texture.

And hows this for a roar of color?  This bookcase of plants would only look right in the Tropics or under the too bright overheads of the Convention Center.

And maybe because I've been doing photography all Winter, I notice I am more drawn to strong, simple form that I used to be. Below is one of my favorite plants I saw.

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It's like a male form of seafan coral.  And now, on to some pitcher plants next to granny bonnet daffs.

Behold the hills and vales of this lusious succulent.

These roots could be fruits--or are they?

This world is an amazing place and the plant life on it one of the many things that  makes it so amazing.

The Flower Show is a blast because it exposes you to all sorts of groovy new things, things you had not imagined existed.

But you find out they do, and with that knowledge and understanding your own imagination and sense of possibility grows.

And becomes a bit more amazing as well.

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A short shout-out to Daniel Hogg who came all the way from the mists of Cornwall to tell tall tales (well--they couldn't all be true, ... could they?) of the fabled Lost Gardens of Heligan

 

To the Jane Austen Society for their award-winning display

And to this, the most lovely clematis I think I have ever seen, now slightly wilted, but still somehow unearthly in its not-quite white beauty.

And last of all, some wisdom

And a sign at the bottom of the barrow.