A spray of pressed flowers
If you love flowers and gardens, flower pressing makes the most perfect hobby.
It’s both stimulating and therapeutic and it will give you all the scope you’ll ever need to express your creativity.
And you’ll be using the loveliest materials that nature has to offer.
Pressed flowers can easily be sourced from your own garden.
And you don’t need to plant anything special either.
Your garden will provide you with all the material you need.
You can learn how to press flowers quickly. And once you know how, there’s no end to the variety of ways in which you can use your pressed flowers.
Artistic collages of pressed flowers and greenery make the loveliest greeting cards and wedding invitations. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: flower pressing, from your garden, how to press flowers, pressed flowers
Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com
I found this great chart about the best apples to use for cooking and baking. It’s a very helpful guide because it’s so easy to get unstuck when you use the wrong variety.
For example, when making an apple sauce, if you use the the type of apple that doesn’t break up, you end up with a lumpy sauce.
And speaking of sauces I find that the best apple to use is Granny Smith because it makes a fine, smooth sauce with a sharp tang.
I also use Granny Smith apples for baking. No need to add sugar either. Just take out the core and replace it with a few seedless raisins.
Works every time! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: apples for cooking, baked apples, best apples for baking, granny smith apples
These blue irises were planted in front of this prolific rose bush and the combination is stunning.
The irises are the bearded hybrid variety and they don’t stop blooming. The colour combination is particularly striking too.
If you click the picture you will be able to see a bigger photo which will give you a much better idea of the impact of the contrasting colours.
I wrote in a post some time ago that my irises were being decapitated by birds. And that has continued for a few years in succession.
Fortunately, this year there seems to have been no such massacre of my flowers. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: blue irises, focal point in the landscape, irises and roses, unconventional colour combinations
This time of the year just before pruning time, rose hips are in abundance. So what can we do with them?
I had heard that rose hips are very rich in Vitamin C so I checked and lo and behold there are a number of rose hip syrup recipes that are used and made by those in the know.
How to use Rose Hip Syrup
The syrup can be diluted with water to make a refreshing cold drink. You can also pour the syrup neat onto your breakfast pancakes or waffles for a delicious and health-giving treat.
Some of the rose hip syrup recipes that I’ve seen are rather lengthy and they put me off because I like quick and easy solutions.
So here is a simplified version:
Rose Hip Syrup Recipe
- Wash and trim about a kilo of rosehips. Pop them into a blender and process till they are a coarse mush. I would process half at a time so as not to overload your blender.
- Put the rosehip pulp into a covered pot and boil for about 20 minutes. Remove from stove and strain the liquid through a clean muslin cloth.
- Add sugar and boil for another 5 minutes. Cool and bottle. Keep in the refrigerator and use as desired.
Some recipes suggest boiling the discarded pulp a second time and repeating the process. But I would think that the best flavour and goodness would come from the first load.
Let me know how you like it!
Tags: Rose hip syrup, rose hips, Rosehip syrup recipe, rosehips
With the days getting shorter and autumn just around the corner I am now able to give you the report I promised about the results of my crazy rose pruning experiment.
You may remember that last winter I told you about my rose pruning effort and how I had engaged a professional rose pruner to help me.
The thought of pruning all my roses was a little intimidating at the time – but if truth be told I suspect that I was simply too lazy.
Well, pruning day arrived and the professional pruner brought some tools and some loppers and proceeded to lop off my roses in a most frightening manner.
All I could do was to stand by and watch helplessly – and hope that he knew more about pruning than I did.
I was wrong. I know now that I knew better. Much better. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: professional pruner, prune roses, rose pruning, rose pruning experiment, rose pruning season
Garden Queen - a true queen among roses
The top five roses in my garden include 3 hybrid teas and two floribundas.
I’m sorry that this article is limited to only 5 roses but you have to stop somewhere and the list could go on and on.
If you asked me to choose another 5 favourite roses I could do so with ease.
But let’s take a look at my top five roses for today only – because tomorrow I could change my mind as there are so many to choose from.
So here they are: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 5 favourite roses, Deloitte & Touche, double delight, Garden Queen, Mr Lincoln, My granny, roses for the vase, top five roses
