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Beauty in the winter garden

text and image britt-arnhild

For months the frozen winter garden can look dead, uninteresting.
But when I walk around, with my eyes, and my lens, I find tiny little surprises. 

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Inside I continue my garden dreams:

 

 

A deer in the garden

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We were sitting inside, eating our Friday night pizza when my husband suddenly cried out: "Look, there is a deer in the garden!"

With as little snow as we have had so far this winter, we haven´t seen many deers. Probably they find the food they need in the nearby forest. But today one walked through the garden. It was too dark outside when we saw it. The photo is from March last year.

 

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Are you ready for another garden book?
What about
The Omnipotent Magician
Lancelot "Capability" Brown?

   

I first heard about Capability Brown through a Christmas magazine, many years ago. Since then I have "met" him in Great Britain several times. Last time in May last year, near Bath.

 

Time for a January garden party?

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I wonder,
I just wonder.......

 

........if it is time for a January garden party

....soon. 

 

 

A thin layer of virgin snow

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A thin layer of fresh, virgin snow in the Blue Garden when I came home from work today. To come home in daylight.....well, I did come home a bit early, but still :-) My challenge now is to be patient, the kind of "stillwinterwaitingforspringwhichisalooooongtimeaway - patience"

 

Reading about Old Roses might help:

 

My poor bonsai wants more light

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I am back home, to a Blue Garden deeply frozen.
I can´t remember such a cold, cold winter.

Will my roses survive,
what about my rhododendrons,
and all the other plants?

We only have a very thin layer of snow in the garden, which is also unusual. The snow is a duvet for the plants, I am sure they miss it.

 

Indoors my bonsai is still alive,
but it is suffering in this dark, deep winter.
Several times a week I give its roots a warm bath. 

 

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A book about bonsais is on my wish list, but so far I have none.
So the book I do pick up tonight is

Claude Monet
painter of light. 

 

I need all the light I can get these days.

While I was already out with my macro lens

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My macro lens was not satified with the rhododendron, but continued over the yew tree.
Looking at the photos now, they remind me so much of rosemary. I wish I had a garden filled with rosemary. I have not. The Blue Garden is too cold, even to chilly in the summers.
I do have my wonderful yew trees though.

It has been even colder here for a few days.
Cold and dry and not at all the weather my sinuses likes.
Everything is absolutely lovely though, with sun from a clear sky, more and more light every day. 

I am going away for a few days, and though the rest of the family will stay at home, The Blue Garden will be closed.....probably.

 

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What about my all time favorite travel garden book meanwhile:
unfortunately amazon has no image available

 

  

 

But I do have a macro lens :-)

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But of course I do have a macro lens fototaker.
It is just that I forget to use it :-) 

So the other morning I wrapped myself in warm, thick winter cloths and waølked out into The Blue Garden. With my Tamron macro.

Without a tripod, with a tiny little breeze in the air, and with living hands which refuse to be completely still,
it was very difficult to get sharp images.......

......but I did have a lot of fun.

 

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Back indoors I light up the fireplace, and sit down with a garden book. 

 

Making envelopes for my columbine seeds

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A long time internet friend of mine, Roz, the owner of Autumn Cottage, has created a facebook group, ArtistDates, and invited me as a member. The idea is based on Julia Cameron´s old book The Artist´s Way.

I don´t have the book and has not much of an idea what it is about,
but the week or so I´ve been a member of ArtistDates, has already been of inspiration.

For a long time I´ve had some tiny little ceramic bowls standing on my desk. I can never resist these bowls when I travel, and over the years I´ve got a great collection. Since autumn, a few of these bowls have contained seeds gathered from The Blue Garden, seeds waiting for me to make special envelopes for them.

A few days ago I wrote in ArtistDates that I was going to have an  artist date with myself over the weekend, and when we came home from church yesterday, the time was there.

What a relaxing afternoon.
Terje volunteered  to make dinner, so I had all the time in the world up in my studio.

One step led to the next, and soon I found myself sorting through drawers, cabinets and files in the studio. Now I know where I have EVERYTHING, and creativity can flow freely :-)

At night, before going to bed, I started another ccreative project, a new travel diary for 2012.....inspired by a photo I found from Eritrea 1999.

But that is a tale for another day.

 

 

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This post is today also published in Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods, but the book suggested is not the same.

Here is a wonderful coffee table book I found at V&A last year

 

 

Frozen Rhododendrons

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My poor rhododendrons.
Will they survide this freezing cold without a snow quilt?

Years ago I used to make quilts all the time.
Why did I never make snow quilts for my plants?

They look beautiful with the frosty quilt stiches,
and their ready buds,
but is this winter too cold for them?

I am hardly out in the garden these days.
It is too cold.

Better to stay warm and snug indoors with a garden book

  

 

The first sun rays

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For a few weeks during the winter The Blue Garden is completely without sun.
Then, slowly, slowly, the sun comes on visits. Shortly in the beginning, then longer and longer stays as we walk towards spring.

We slept long, very long this morning, after a dinner with friends last night. This lead to a late, very late breakfast, and while we were sitting at the breakfast table, I saw it......the sun played hide and seek outdoors.

I ran upstairs to my studie to grab my camera, continued outside, and managed a few shots of the sun says.

 

Yes, we are truly getting longers days,
yes, we are truly heading towards spring and thaw........
...eventually.

 

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The sun rays left hours ago.
Darkness has fallen and I am reading
the all time favorite garden book