Firstly I am so sorry it has been such a while since I posted to the blog. I had such high-hopes for the New Year! I have been slightly thwarted by a few technical issues which meant we have been offline. But thanks to the brilliance of Big B we are back. Hurrah!
The thing about gardening is that you have to have faith, you have to plant believing that something will bloom in the future. I have begun to realise is that to really make the most of your plot, you have to put some time into planning, to imagine what things will look like. I am not sure I am very good at that.
However for the first time in years I planned to plant some bulbs in the autumn. There are some advantages to being a regular visitor to your local garden centre. If you get so friendly/addicted the owner (Brenda) will remind you to do things ahead of time. A little time pottering about in Autumn has ensured that the depths of winter are not too colourless. I decorated our fireplace this Christmas in an array of pretty glass and pottery filled with hyacinths and paperwhites. The smell is intoxicating.
Her work is so enchanting.I have no idea what prompted me to think about pressing some flowers. But at the end of the autumn I took the last fragments of colour from the garden and placed them between sheets of baking parchment and squished these within the pages of coffee table books in our living room. Oh how I yearned for my childhood flower press. Long gone I am afraid.
Little B couldn’t quite work out what I was doing….’But why? Seriously why?’
‘Well I am not quite sure son, but if it works out well, in a few months I will have beautifully preserved flowers which will still have their lasting colour.’
I can remember as a child not having enough patience for the whole ‘pressed flower’ process. Now life is too busy and I easily forgot what I had done until the dark evenings of January. What a pretty treasure found within the pages of our books. Colour from the autumn, pressed, preserved and appearing like time travellers in the Spring.
The key for me is to stop, take a breath and plan – what can be sown or pressed now can be enjoyed in the future.