A Garden of earthly delights

For the Past Week or so, I have been making Flowers!

*******

I am actually a pretty good gardener in Real Life and I have turned the grounds around my home into a house with a garden rather than a house sitting among the weeds.  It has taken a long time to  FINALLY be happy? ( for a while anyway) with the planting combinations and the way the flowers are maturing.

Gardening is an ongoing process and even when you think you are done, YOU ARE NOT.  It is still officially winter, and I haven't yet done my big Spring Clean-Up yet.  It NEEDS to be done and SOON, as my garden is a mess right now, littered with droppings of brown (evergreen?) needles  from the surrounding trees. The buds are beginning to form and the bulbs are already poking their heads up and out of the earth.  Anticipating the time when the flowers will be in full bloom and to off-set the winter blues, I have been making a miniature garden of potted flowers and shrubs.  It has been an interesting experience as I haven't done this for quite some time.  The last mini garden project was with the house that the rats destroyed.  I went into the garage today and retrieved the white picket fence that used to stand upright around the doll's house until the real life 'Hunca Muncas' plowed it down as they hurried through the front door to begin tearing and eating the fabric off the interior walls. 

I have since cleaned out and up the mess and tried to secure it better but the garden is trashed. On the Bright Side; it really needed to be up-graded anyway so this is a little bit of practice towards the time when I pull the seaside cottage "At Home by the Sea" together and give it an over-haul.

 The photo above shows the Roses and Clematis on the white picket fence, I made this back in the 1990's.  The foliage has all deteriorated over time and I will have to make more again but the form of the plant remains intact.  I made them out of a bundle of artificial flowers that I bought from somewhere. I remember the thrill of finding something with tiny little stamens in the centers and they made perfect clematis!  I made the roses out of bundles of silk ribbon ones that came from the craft store and although I like the look of them from a distance, up close, they look like ribbon roses and they need some additional work.  All in good time.

In this photo is some of the new things that I have been trying out.  A pink Hydrangea,  english Lavender, white Heather, Lady's Mantle in a pot with a Winter Cabbage, and a vining Clematis on a heart -shaped willow frame. The hydrangea proved to be THE Most CHALLENGING.  I must have cut and applied and removed and replaced those flowers and leaves at least 4 times before I felt I was satisfied and able to move on.  Whew!!! What a job!

Here is another view of the new flowers.  This includes some Allium and there are 2 different varieties pictured.  There are the more lavender ones in the urn to the right and the mauve/pinkish ones in the center of the photo.  I planted them in a pot with a variegated Hosta and some Cordyline 'Red Sensation', that I would like to make more of as I like the rich color of the purple, and the architectural form of the spikes.

Here is a wheelbarrow that I painted and aged and looped a black garden hose over the handle.  I placed the potted Lady's Mantle( alchemilla mollis) and the  winter cabbage inside.  I made the lady's mantle  from a plastic plant that had a rounded leaf that I recut and glued to a plastic stem.  I made the flower bracts from a different plastic plant and then used bright yellow sand to give the airy look to the mollis.  The cabbage is a crepe paper rose bud that I cut open and coaxed into shape with water.  Then I painted the outer leaves with a bluish acrylic paint and curled the leaves back to weave into the lady's mantle.  I decided to paint the flower pot to tie everything together.  I think it turned out pretty good. , I unfortunately don't have any more of those rose bud (sigh).
Below are 2 shots of ...
MORE PLANTS!

To give a better look at the plants in the collection , I decided to group them against a white backdrop.
In the back is an Evergreen shrub that started out life as brush tree that comes out at Christmas time.  It is usually loaded with red foam balls which I easily removed and will use later for something in the mini kitchen.  I glued and coated the shrub with green paper leaves that came from a vining plant from Michael's.  When it was dry, it was then re-painted shades of green and green mixed with browns.  The Heather is just snips of a fake plant that had all of the little white bits on it already.  I just cut it to size and glued it into a pot.  Easy.  On the left is a stand of what is supposed to be Fennel, which I used to grow in my Real Life garden until became too big and self seeded everywhere.  So as tribute to it I made some in small, but now I think it looks more like Dill Weed and so maybe it is that instead. I used to have dill in the garden until that too grew to be too big too.  (Some times you have to learn the hard way.)

My favorite colors for the Real Life Garden are PINKs and LAVENDERs.  Representing the flowers in my garden are the mini Rose Bush in the pot top center and the skirt of the lavender colored Alyssum.  The fragrance that is in my garden from the wall of roses and the alyssum and the lavender plants is sooo intense.  I just LOVE IT. I have made a trough of some Kale to add texture and these also were made from plastic plants that were cut and re-shaped into what you see above.  The roses are also plastic and originally purchased at Joanne's Fabrics in the craft section and I have made them into carnations and now roses, by cutting the petals and painting them with tints and shades of pink.  The leaves came from one of Fat's Finds from the dollar store in her neighborhood, and I cut and shaped and glued each one onto a stem and then painted individually as well.  It was very time consuming and I don't envy Janine doing the wall of climbing roses that she is planning for her French garden at MINWORKS.  There is a pink Hydrangea to the left and in my real garden I must have at least 10 to 12 of these shrubs. Some are in pots but the rest are in the ground and they are always a surprise as to what color they will turn out to be.  Sometimes they are bluish and a couple of years ago they became the most intense shade of burgundy that I had ever seen!  Last year they were more pink.  The acidity of the soil plays a big role in the color and I am surrounded by tall pines and cedars and so it is always interesting trying to guess what the end result will be.

I nearly forgot the Delphinium!
( also plastic pieces)

 

I've included the pot with the birdhouse from the earlier tutorial just to round out the photo.  Most of these blue flowers are growing in my garden except the 2 pots of Plumbago that are front and center.
The allium in 3 of the pots with the Lavender to the left and also below.  I made it with lycopodium, which is usually used for mini Xmas trees.  Janine gave me some directions year or two ago and wanted me to try it out.  I waited until last year and made it and the pot to house in it.  I love Lavender! 

With all that pink and blue in the garden,  I needed some ZING!   Red geraniums add that bit of zest to the mix. These, also were made by cutting bits and pieces from plastic plants and piecing them together to make a whole new plant.  The flower heads started out as pink foam and paint was layered on until the end was achieved.  Not bad for a first try?

Here is a closer look at the birdhouse pot.  The tall spiked plants are  Salvia  in front of the  Allium  and laced with Impatience which are an annual here on the Canadian west coast and used prolifically
because of the unstoppable' nature they have and the intense, reliable colors.
I have also made an Urn with a fern.( see below)  I made the urn from a plastic silver trophy found at the thrift store which I detached and painted to look like iron.  The fern also thrift, was from aquarium foliage that was in a bag of similar castaways.  I repainted it, and even though it is of fabric and not plastic, it took the color well.

 I hope that you have enjoyed the tour of my mini  potted garden.  It was fun to do and  helps take the mind of the dreary winter days.  

"The kiss of the sun for pardon 

The song of the birds for mirth;

One is nearer God's heart in a garden, 

Then anywhere else on earth."

(Dorothy Frances Gurney)

********

elizabeth