:: echium candicans ::

golden sunset colours perfectly infused the world with beautiful warmth, even though the air temperature was plunging glacially while Miss P captured some of it for posterity...

...like this stunning echium, bayside on our way home this afternoon...

:: primula vulgaris ::

...not blue, not purple-blue, even, but PURPLE - is the colour of these small Winter wonders tucked away all Summer and Autumn...

...below two pears espalliered outside the sleepout is an efficient under-planting of comfrey plus these delightful little primroses or polyanthus...

...during the warmer months the comfrey sprouts explosively up and over their heads, shading them from the heat of Summer...

...and once all the fanfare of the comfrey dies down as it does after being harvested for the last time around the end of May, then it is time for these little beauties to shine and they do all through Winter and into Spring...until...yes, you've got it - comfrey time again! 

...but back to the colour - what the heck is wrong with my camera - I've tried all that I can think of and it is truly clear in this photo - as I say - these flowers are PURPLE, not the blue depicted by this photo. The camera appears to be taking captures that are on the very cool side - and it bothers me when I care about colour as I do...any suggestions? It is an Olympus XZ-1...

...

:: brassica oleracea ::

yesterday I was having a discussion about what colour 'chatreuse' actually is - these striking heads of romanesco broccoli are indeed that verdant colour...

...while the romanesco broccoli (or Roman Cauliflower, Romanesque Cauliflower or Broccolo Romanesco, as it is also called) does not appear to be a flower in the traditional flowers-in-vases-sense, it is in fact an edible flower bud! Cool!

...as well, it is visually interesting in that its form is a series of ever-decreasing spirals that terminate in tiny peak buds, the logarithmic spirals following the pattern of fractals - sacred geometry of nature on the kitchen bench...

..and, no, I did not grow this fine specimen here - it was from our visit to the Opawa Farmer's Market this morning - wish I was growing such beauties - one day...!

:: rosa xxiii ::

Turns out I seem to have quite a love for roses...this is another look at the 'rock'n'roll' rose, which was a birthday rose for Miss P last year...

...seems amazing to me that these roses which all look bedraggled, starving and skeletal are still pumping out the odd flower...

...and by odd, I don't just mean that there is one here and one there...I mean they are starting to look very odd, too!

But by only giving a peek at the centre here, at least this bloom takes on the veil of 'interesting', rather than loosely-blown, washed-out and ragged at the edges...!

:: pansy iv ::

A sweet antique pansy tonight...an unusually warm and sunny day today with Northwesterly winds blowing a balmy 22 degrees at our place today.

:: camellia ::

Memories of Mervyn Adams Shoes shoe boxes from the seventies...it's camellia season again!

:: leucanthemum vulgare ::

Some days are just so sunshiny like this petalled disk of sunshine goodness that is the common daisy...

...and I delighted in finding some peeping out at me on the morning stop-start-stop-start kind of walk with the curious Miss Olive today...

...apart from that I was opportunistic in the garden, moving things around and tidying before we get really blasted with the weather again...

...something miraculous was finding a 1 litre plastic container with about 50 sweetpea seedlings all standing tall and proud, having accidentally germinated after ((me) accidentally) getting water in the bottom of the container...was a lovely moment to transplant them into pots to grow strong through the Winter in the greenhouse, especially since I thought I'd missed the boat on sweet peas this year!

...more miracles were self-sown vermillion calendula plants - all happily sitting in 'wrong' places, of course...so these I dug up and transplanted out to the relatively bare front garden, around the apple trees and along the fenceline, filling in gaps...

...and lastly, I would like to mention the erlicheer or daffodil bulbs I 'found' on top of the soil at the domain recently...they should make their presence known along the path into the front garden in a few weeks' time, so long as neither the local feline or avian populations dig them up for me first!