Labyrinth

Variations on the labyrinth design have been a recurring theme in my sculptures I have done square ones and triangular ones but I keep coming back to the circle. I made this model out of a mix of plaster and vermiculite about 10 years ago and intended to scale it up and cast in bronze but never got round to it.

 The idea was to gently pump water up into the middle where it would flow slowly to the edge and flow over all round the rim to be collected below and pumped back in again. As each channel flows in the opposite direction to those adjacent to it the play of light could be quite hypnotic, I tried filling it with water today but it soaks into the plaster very quickly, there is no flow in this version and was hard to photograph.

Even zoomed in on the photo you just begin to get a taste of how the light forms beads, with each wall polished to gold, silvery water flashing in the channels and the rest in dark bronze that would rapidly verdigris in the damp it might be fairly spectacular in the final version. I am now inspired to have another go at a bigger version with a pump...again it will have to be when I get a few moments to spare and a furnace...one day.

Soil and San Andres de Teixido

First thing this morning I had a chat with the young man on the dumper truck and he was only too pleased to drop a load of soil and rocks in our drive, the soil in the front is a bit shallow so this will make life a lot easier for the plants and help define the shape of the drive...once I get a few mins to move it all.

After a busy day back at work and a few hours house sorting I finally got out for a little while, San Andres is about a 20 minute drive, its not far just is a winding slow road but passes through some lovely scenery with cows...

 ...and with flowers...

... and rocks and trees.

The cliffs a little further on are the highest sea cliffs in Europe, they are plenty high enough just here but fitting in time to continue round on the road round to Cabo Ortegal is also well worth a trip.

If you don't visit in your lifetime you will visit after death is the thing people say about it, I am not quite sure what that signifies. Here is the info in Gallego.

San Andres is the little cluster of buildings down in the distance tucked snugly into the cliffside, it is almost as important as the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostella. There is a lovely walk down from the cliff top car park or you can park down at the bottom.

With a bit of a zoom you can see the famous church and where the stalls usually are, there is usually some tacky tourist stuff for sale but there is also some lovely local honey. It was quiet today but can be heaving if you visit on the wrong day.

Behind me the hills were doing soft curvy things.

At my feet the squill is flowering and there is a lemony scent in the air to go with its parma violet one.

These little things are lovely a circle of hearts with a star in the middle ahhhh.

I stopped in at Cedeira on the way back for some shopping and timed the drive past Vilarrube just right as the sun set over the estuary at low tide

Flowers for Jenny

Mostly photos of flowers mostly planted by or for Jenny

 This one is still only partly grown and with all the rain is now putting on 6 inches or more a day. If you click on the image a couple of times it will zoom in there is a mass of blue flowers forming. Use the back button to get back to the small pics.

 This is on a cutting I planted for Jenny last year, like Jenny it is adorable.

 Sally in mid pounce she came out with a cricket to play with.

 Everything is growing ridiculously well this year I think it was late July the nicotina peaked last year, they are already huge and there are a few months of flowering still to go. The oleander in the foreground is one of four that are all preparing to flower although they will be a month or so yet. Again you need to zoom in to see them.

 That sweet pea found its tripod, climbed aboard and thanked me by flowering, the seeds I planted are just out of sight but all seem to have come through so there are about another 50 sweet peas in two rows, each row is about a foot long, I need to do some transplanting before they get much bigger.

 Somebody chomped a petal on the first aquilegia before I could get the camera at it.

Another lovely scent is in the air a little more each day.

I wonder how much pollinating ants do; they are in quite a few flowers and often covered in pollen.

 There doesn't seem to be as many pansies as last year but there might be a load of late ones hiding in the long grass.

 The Naval orange blossom is doing very well it looks a bit scruffy but smells wonderful, its a very smelly time of the year in the garden just now.

Its a strange thing gardening, three years ago the garden was pretty much a field with a few established trees and shrubs in the front and not much else. It felt like starting with a blank canvas. Rather than draw loads of plans in advance I like to have a bit of a think over a few months then start to make some changes, keep mulling it all over and using the space and make some more changes... plans are all very well but you need to be in the space walking around for a year or more getting the feel of where the wind blows, where the sun shines, where the views are. As plants and shapes are introduced the whole feel of a place changes and initial ideas need to evolve, pretty little corners and good places to stand or sit or play or where you need to go regularly to inspect things like fruit growing all need linked by paths that make sense for getting from a to b to c efficiently, then the paths themselves influence further planting. This time, far more so, than in previous gardens I have tried to pay attention to where to put flowers with scent so they are near sitting places or along routes to other places not tucked away or hard to get too. Having the eucalyptus made me think about scents in a different way, the dead leaves on the ground have distinctly different sounds and smells in dry or wet conditions both equally wonderful. Now when I prune laurel, escalonia, conifers, lavender, rosemary or anything with smelly leaves a fair bit of the trimmings just go on the path and for days or sometimes weeks the scent lingers or is rekindled by passing feet. Still no smell-o-vision cameras in the shops unfortunately.
I will go for a walk and take some different picture soon I promise but it is all a bit busy with decorating and updating the bathroom and I am back to work tomorrow so it may be a while yet before I get to do a decent walk.

More plants

Hooray I fixed the washing machine just as I was running out of clothes, managed to tidy some of the house for a change then I did some strimming and planted more stuff another agave and a prickly pear in the middle of them, in about 5 years they should be big enough to be touching each other  with the cactus in the middle it will be a no go zone as they are a bit prickly...

...but quite striking even at 2 years old. They are on a dry little hillock at the top of the garden and I have planted some elegant palms nearby, it is odd planting such things in ground that also hosts stitchwort, toadflax, foxgloves and wild honeysuckle.

One of the apple trees is doing very symmetrical blossom in groups of 6

The biggest Camellia out front has been flowering since January and is really peaking just now, they can look a bit dowdy with browning blossom on them but this year the petals are falling like pink confetti

 The bananas from Jungle seeds have enjoyed escaping their pots and getting out into the rain. Incidentally I heard via Mel that if it thunders on a full moon it will rain for 15 days here - its doing well at that so far but loads of sun in between showers and a fair bit of the rain is falling at night. I bought varieties of banana that were edible or edibleish but not expecting flowers or fruit this year. This one should reach a couple of meters and have broad stripy leaves and a rich reddish stem.  When the wind blows hard the older leaves snap but do not break off, they hang there collecting moisture from mist and rain for a month or two and directing it to the base. I must do something with that pear tree trunk in the background it has been seasoning for a couple of years and should have some lovely carving wood inside it.

Strawberry day

The incredible thunderstorms and scorchio spells have worked some magic in the strawberry patch, there were 6 today I seem to remember that within a few weeks there will be kilos, I had better think of things to do with strawberries.

 I have started playing with bits of stone on the lareira, I started polishing the corner of it a while back, it is a lovely blue and green serpentine  - it will take a while to polish it all but should be worth doing.

 The council have been clearing the ditches at the sides of the road, two youngish lads driving a mini-digger and front loader dumper truck respectively and arguing a lot, I managed to understand a little of it - mostly - "You didn't want to do it like that; you wanted to do it like this."  Its holiday today so they didn't turn up, there is some lovely soil in there so I have been out digging some up too.

 This was a cutting 18 months ago, I hope to go round the shrubs tomorrow taking more cuttings, it pays off.

 This young rhododendron is growing fast, I find them harder to strike cuttings than azeleas.

 The leopard aloe flower is suddenly changing shape

 and the aloe vera is now about chest high, shame I keep breaking bits off it and using the gel.

Its flower time some of the little succulents are wonderful if you take the time to get down and look.

 the individual flowers are almost protea like on this one  

 I had to run for cover as a huge storm rushed in, I spent ages with the video going but missed all of the good lightning.

Blog is getting very gardenish, I really must get out more. 

Rain at last

Sweet rain on and off all morning mostly gentle and steady with wisps of mist flowing through the trees.

Then the sun came out for the afternoon to see the cows home.

 Back to gentle rain late evening so I spent an hour planting marigolds and tomatoes, mixed salad, melons, squashes and a weeping willow, then I moved a few more box plants to thicken up a new hedge, ideally we need a few more days of heavier rain but the earth is starting to soak it up and seeds planted last week are starting to show.

A day in Spring

I spent the most of the day fitting our new chimney and sorting some plumbing then had a wander round the garden and off to see friends. 

I think this is purple toadflax, it is very like little snapdragons and there is loads of it.

Bindle, Ruan Stanley and Alfie have arrived this is Stanley looking pensive.

Lorena's lovely little chalet mostly made from reclaimed material...I want one please Sam.

When she saw the camera she insisted on posing 

The old olive tree provided much needed shade even late afternoon it was a tad too hot today.

Alejandro decided to wait for trifle rather than come kayaking, the video is the last few hundreds meters of track leading to where it is easy to get the kayak in the water. 

The track leads to a very handy and quiet parking place.

Tamarisk is flowering well this year.

There seems to be a path going on round the estuary towards the bridge must explore it one day.

An hour after high tide is the wrong time to go in at Vilarrube, there is a lot of water heading out to sea, the trouble with that kind of Kayak is there is not room for anything but a very compact camera so no pics of the journey unfortunately.

The main beach at Vilarrube is really safe but the estuary bit is not, it took no time at all to get from the launching spot out to sea but coming back was more effort, the first half of the outgoing tide is fairly dangerous with very strong currents as the whole estuary empties through a narrow channel in a couple of hours. Coming back in at times the flow was faster than I could sprint paddle against and its a long very rapid kayak. I had to dodge from one side to the other to make any progress and stopped off to play with the whirlpools, amazing how they move around within about a 40 X 40 meter area and very strange being spun around by them, I would not like to have been swimming. I eventually made it back a few hours later, fortunately a little creek leads fairly close to the shore and there is not too much dragging across sand to do.

Back home I could hear a lot of singing outside and a flash revealed two local suitors seranading our pretty kittys.

And behind them an arum captured by flash.