a life like this
Games and activities are not only for children. Adults equally enjoy playing games or performing activities that give them a chance to have fun and disconnect from their busy routine lives. Organizing a field day for adults is a great way to get everyone onto the field to have
How about a romantic dinner in a lavender field? You can experience it at Azienda Agricola Valtresinaro, in Emilia, Italy
Seeking respite from their frenzied life in New York, Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez found the ideal escape: a charmingly rustic house and gardens buried deep in the Massachusetts countryside. Hamish Bowles ventures north.
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I find it fascinating going back through the sketches of historical masters of art. It tells you so much about their craft, passion, mindset and how they learned. It also humanizes them, as you get to see that they experimented, learned and made mistakes just like every other artist. The useful thing about sketching is ... Read more
This serene battle map features a pleasant country lane, just keep off the crops or you may have an angry farmer to deal with!
A septic field is a necessary evil, but it doesn’t need to be an eyesore. Learn about 21 plants to spice up your drainage area now on Gardener’s Path.
Angelica stricta purpurea Discovered via Pinterest User Pasika Khernamnuoy My knees shook when I first discovered this rare & spectacular Angelica growing at the Mendocino Botanical Garden. Luckily, the kind folk who work there let us have some seed of this amazing treasure. Growing quickly to 4’ tall & 3’ across, its foliage is a beautiful, …
With fuzzy silver-green leaves, a clump of perennial Lamb's Ear looks like a velvet cloak thrown over a garden bed. Give it full sun and well-drained soil.
From Seattle to Oslo, these outdoor saunas take relaxation and high-design to the next level
Oh, Italy. You’re incredible. In this blog post, you’ll find my top ten favourite spots I visited in the Dolomites. With so much to explore, these locations only scratch the surface.
First images from the K-5. Boy is it fast! Just getting my head round all the controls at the moment. The high ISO is pretty amazing, this shot was taken at ISO 3200, will really help to get faster shutter speeds in low light. Explored - thanks everyone!
I was looking through some older wildflower images, wondering if we are going to have any wildflowers this year...Anyway, I liked this one, so I processed it. Looks a little dreary with the white background, so take a peek at it on black.
No NGS garden this weekend, so I had chance to catchup with my garden and try to tame my vegetable plot. I made the mistake of letting some potatoes grow, instead of oiking them out, when they first protruded from the soil. They were potatoes which had been left in the ground from last years crop. I felt bad digging them up but didn't estimate how much room they would take up. Consequently, they smothered my lettuces, french marigolds and tomatoes and when I had finally had enough of them and dug them up, the measly few potatoes they yielded, were green, as they were too close to the surface! Also I made the mistake of sowing too many tomatoes and I am finding it difficult to find a space for them. I absolutely hate throwing plants away, especially if I have grown them from seed, so I will have to shoehorn them in somewhere. And there is my next mistake. I put plant in too close together. Oh my goodness I don't think my veg plot is going very well this year! Runner Bean 'Painted Lady' I have had some success in the flower garden though but I won't take all the credit. I had a patch of grass, on which I put plastic last year so that I had somewhere to grow butternut squash, in grow bags and this was going to be my veg patch, until my best friend Linda, suggested that I would be better growing flowers there and to save the veggies to the top of the garden, which I did. We removed the turf, which was pretty much dead anyway and stored it in a space, to rot down to loam. (You will see from the photograph below, that there is horrible green plastic still covering the turfs) I moved some plants which I had in the garden, to the new bed and with space it meant buying some more plants. Some women like shoes and handbags, but I cannot resist a gorgeous flower and I get great pleasure from buying plants - ooh it's such a lovely feeling! We then purchased two tonnes of Scottish pebbles from StoneZone in Ferndown in Dorset, which cost an arm and a leg but well worth the effort and expense, although back breaking work, with Andy shovelling the stones into the wheelbarrow, pushing it up the drive and then depositing them for me to put around the plants. Work in progress Lavender Vera I love visiting garden centres and from one of my local garden centres Stewarts in Ferndown, I bought this lovely willow heart wreath, to go on my studio door. I love bits and bobs in the garden and I am excited as I have purchased a new book from Amazon called Shed Chic. I want to overhaul my summer house and this book looks very inspirational. Is anyone every satisfied with their garden? At the beginning of the season I had high hopes for my veg garden. It might still come good. The peas, beans and runner beans are all looking good but I still have a lot to learn, still with my companion by my side, although he is not much help, gardening is always a pleasure and never a chore. Boots my gardening companion
Garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith raised his own prairie garden from seed and was delighted to find it requires a fraction of the maintenance of a conventional border
