garden nook

My Walk this Week 203 – Spring Garden

My walk this week returns to our garden where Spring is in full flow with the birds singing and the colours spreading.

garden pots

But there is a rare anomaly for me in this post! The images and soundscape are from different weeks with the audio being recorded one week earlier than the photos. This is very unusual for me but there is a reason for it. The recording was made while I was digging the first small vegetable patch and as I did so in the breezy sunshine, a blackbird sang his heart out in the trees behind me and it was such a joy to be doing this work to his and other birds accompaniment.Continue reading

garden focus

My Walk this Week 172 – Wandering Round the Garden

My walk this week took me wandering round the garden on a bright August day.  I was sitting watching the birds flutter and fight over the feeder outside my studio where I was weaving and thinking about the similar aural textures of my activity and that of the birds.

sparrows fluttering

If you listen to the soundscape below you may understand what I mean, but it could just be my imagination. Being able to get out, or at least look at, the natural environments around me is essential to my wellbeing.Continue reading

botanical colours galore

My Walk this Week 159 – Botanical Beauty

My walk this week looks and listens to some botanical beauty in Swansea’s Singleton Park. It is late Spring and new arrangements have been made in the formal garden and the colours abound in the less formal areas.

Swansea Botanic Gardens

Swansea Botanic Gardens

The hot-house is exotic with the blooming of enormous bright flowers and the sound of running water accompanies the humidity in one section while fading away in the cactus house. The twisting paths both inside and out give a sense of exploration and discovery as you round a corner or enter a “tunnel” and find another colourful viewpoint or vista.

Swansea Botanic Soundscape

Sitting in the peacefulness of the arranged beds, listening to the birds and the gentle hoeing of the gardeners, Continue reading

Hidden head

Intentional Garden Design – Reviewing the Walk

The details of this Dorset garden, where my walk this week took place, show just the kind of garden I like – informal but with elements of intentional design.

hanging basket

It is a mistake, in my opinion, to try to control nature – nature will always come out on top in the end – but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy arranging different aspects of it in our gardens. That is how we end up with  interesting collections of patterns and textures connecting the man-made with the moss, the rust with the rose hips. Continue reading

Honeysuckle

Colour To Be Found and Hidden Reflections

It may be a wet late Autumn on my walk this week through this Dorset garden but there is still colour (other than greens) to be found as well as some hidden reflections. Red, purple, yellow, white – all natural colours compared to the bright plastics in my previous post.

hidden reflections

I love all the shades and tints of green as well, whether blurred in reflection or crisply in focus, the range is phenomenal. I have heard that we are more attuned, more perceptive of greens than any other colour – whether or not this is true, it is easy to believe.Continue reading

rust wave

Growth and Abandon

Exploring some details on my walk this week, I found growth and abandon simultaneously in this Dorset garden. Nature will always take over if given the chance and in the broken leg of an old swing, it found an ideal opportunity.

broken swing

RGB or red, green and blue I found in the plastics which never disintegrate however long they are left while the patterns of rusty metal could tell or prompt any number of stories. You could weigh inContinue reading