In the decay lies beauty.
I invite you to look for it this week.
The withering beauty gallery is here.
26 Comments CherryPie on Sep 27th 2012
Synopsis (from book cover):
Now Katherine Swift, one of the most acclaimed gardening writers of her generation, takes a fresh look at the garden she created over twenty years in the grounds of Dower House at Morville, meditating on everything from the terrain and its history, to the plants and trees, and the odd habits of the animals and humans who inhabit the garden.
Is everything in the landscape older than you think? Might a flower in your hat change your life? Can cats and cardoons cohabit? These are just some of the topics that Katherine Swift considers in this enchanting companion volume to The Morville Hours.
With specially commissioned colour photographs of the garden by Jane Sebire and line drawing by Dawn Burford, the book follows the turning wheel of the Morville seasons, from the green shoots of spring, through summer and autumn, to the stark beauty of winter, and back to spring again. It is a journal full of surprises and enchantments that will appeal not only to gardeners, but to all who enjoy the natural world.
Review:
This book follows on from Katherine’s very successful book The Morville Hours and is once again the book is elegantly written. The chapters in the book consist of articles from the column she wrote for the Sunday Times when she was their gardening correspondent between December 2001 and July 2005.
Katherine talks about her day to day musings as she tends to her garden throughout the year. It covers the things that that worked out well in the garden, some happy accidents and future possibilities for the various garden rooms. It is however much more than a gardening book, covering diverse subjects such as astronomy, bees, the Morville cats, past American Presidents and other historical figures. In one chapter she muses about time and the use of a garden tree to construct a sundial within a turf maze and how it was ‘initially’ in time with the church clock.
Amongst the things I learned are that there are eleven thousand species of moss worldwide, that lichens are not one organism but two living in symbiosis and that bees do not hibernate over the winter, they are in perpetual motion and continually beating their wings to keep warm.
As with the The Morville Hours it is a book that I will read again and also dip into from time to time. I am looking forward to her next book which is provisionally entitled ‘A Rose for Morville’. I am also reminded that I must visit the garden, living in Shropshire I don’t really have an excuse not to.
6 Comments CherryPie on Sep 26th 2012
The glasshouse was built directly opposite the main entrance to the Walled Garden and was intended to instantly impress visitors due to glass being expensive and exotic fruit a luxury.
12 Comments CherryPie on Sep 25th 2012
As I headed to work this morning the rain was torrential and there were rivers of water on the road and there was a distinct autumn feel to the air. I noticed on my short walk from the car park to my office building that the leaves on the trees now had slight autumnal hues whereas on Friday they were completely green. Some of the leaves had fluttered to the ground and I managed to enjoy the view despite the rain.
The back of my skirt got absolutely soaked as I made that short walk and when I arrived at my building I found that the office was freezing. Many people were still wearing their coats so I knew it must be bad. It was so cold my skirt didn’t dry out until around lunch time. Most unpleasant!
Although I am very fond of autumn I can’t help wondering what happened to summer? I seem to have blinked and missed it.
22 Comments CherryPie on Sep 24th 2012
To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake (1757 – 1827)
18 Comments CherryPie on Sep 23rd 2012
Next week it begins.
Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.
Spring in the Southern.
I love the change over of seasons.
Out with the old,
In with the new.
The changes may be subtle at first.
But they are there…
Do you see the changes happening
around you?
The Season’s Beginnings gallery is here.
16 Comments CherryPie on Sep 22nd 2012
Newly launched in the Vision & Verb card shop is a ‘limited edition holiday cards‘ gallery. As with the main gallery all profits from the cards sold help fund Kiva loans.
The profit from every card sold (approximately 50%) will be given back to the larger world in allotments of 50$ loans to men and women seeking to start their own businesses. The conduit for these loans is Kiva, a non-profit organisation that enables us to lend to the “working poor” around the world.
The pictures in the mosaic are thumbnails of the ones that I have chosen to include in the gallery.
6 Comments CherryPie on Sep 22nd 2012
