About

“Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“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: Auguries of Innocence

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”
~Iris Murdoch, Irish author

“He who plants a garden
Plants happiness”
~ Chinese Proverb

“Autumn is a second spring
When the leaves are like flowers”
~ Albert Camus

“I try for beauty and harmony everywhere, and especially for harmony of colour. A garden so treated gives the delightful feeling of repose, and refreshment, and purest enjoyment of beauty, that seems to my understanding to be the best fulfilment of its purpose; while to the diligent worker its happiness is like the offering of a constant hymn of praise. For I hold that the best purpose of a garden is to give delight and to give refreshment of mind, to soothe, to refine, and to lift up the heart in a spirit of praise and thankfulness.”
~ Gertrude Jekyll (Wood and Garden)

“All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today”
~Indian proverb

As someone who is passionate about plants and flowers and garden design, here are some of my favourite public and private gardens and flower portraits from all my travels. When I started this blog in April 2013 I didn’t have a garden of my own but managed to squeeze a few specimens into pots to adorn my front ‘patio’ (OK so that’s stretching the truth of my outside space, but it was big enough for a table and chairs amongst the pots – just!) Three years later in April 2016 I moved to Cornwall and finally got a small patch of outside again. You can follow the garden on my new Cornish Blog, where I am slowly coming to understand my new plot of land in my new county.

I will try to find out the Latin names of any portraits I publish here, but if I can’t and you can, or if I have made a mistake in naming anything then I won’t be at all offended if you step in to help me out. In fact I would appreciate your help in naming some of the plants that I can’t.

Enjoy!