flowers

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Love in a vase

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day here in England. My twin daughters live at different ends of the country, and because of their, and my, schedules we were, to my dismay, destined not to meet up for the day.  They were though, dutiful enough to send sweet and thoughtful mother’s day cards, and to my surprise and delight, also both sent the most wonderful bouquets.  I wish I could harness the scent, which fills our living room, to share with you, but in the absence of smellyblog here are a few studies I took of the flowers.

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Bores? I don’t think so!

Doing a bit of voluntary work sometimes brings the most surprising rewards.  I was assisting one of the ladies at the IT group where I teach a few weeks ago and happened to ask what her password was for something. ‘Hellebore****’ she said. Now, Hellebores happen to be amongst my favourite plants, and when we had the garden landscaped in 2013 I insisted on a bed planted only with them, so of course we got talking, and to my delight she told me that she was a Hellebore ‘breeder’ and had lots of unusual types in her garden.

This week, she invited me to go and see them and take a few ‘babies’.  Her garden is quite magical and bursting with Hellebores of all types and colours – spotty ones, double ones, ruffed ones, a quite gorgeous and rare bright yellow one… all currently in their full glory. She generously dug up seedlings and small plants and I came home with a car full!  They’ll take a couple of years to grow, but in the meantime I thought I’d share with you a few photos of those that I do have that are already in a profusion bloom!