I really enjoy taking photos and I'm surrounded by so many fab photo opportunities all day long. With close up photography you get to see so much more detail and I find it fascinating.
Take leaves as an example. Just photograph one leaf selected at random and you get to really study how amazing nature is....
I've been looking forward to October as, apart from the amazing Autumn flowers, foliage, seedheads that appear, I've also got an action packed month of weddings, dinners and parties to arrange flowers for in addition to some lovely family celebrations to look forward to.
The weather has been incredible and although we've had some heavy rain in the last week we've also had many glorious days with bright blue skies, sunshine and sensational sunsets.
Shorter days, turning leaves, cooler evenings, a garden full of fabulous hips and berries and gorgeous grasses; Autumn has finally arrived.
Autumn flower urn
Some of the ingredients I'm using this week at Cowdray Farm Shop
Autumn Dahlia
Lanterns
My neighbour was tidying up her garden for Autumn and popped in with a bunch of these magnificent allium seedheads.
It's definitely worth planting some of the large headed allium just for the seedheads in September. They look superb in a vase and so beautiful when the Autumn light hits them.
It's been a really beautiful summer and I've been lucky enough to spend so much of it outside, arranging flowers, tending plants and watering (a lot for the potted plants that I sell at Cowdray Farm Shop) in the cool of the evening just before sunset; a magical time of day.
The summer season has been non stop this year and the event work, like the flowers, has been abundant.
For this event at Cowdray House I wanted to showcase the abundance of summer flowers and seasonal fruits and also to showcase a small selection of the huge variety of plants that I've been selling at Cowdray Farm Shop this summer; verbenas, abelias, pelargoniums, senecio, clematis, honeysuckle, crocosmia, dahlias.
A sprinkling of garden roses and a few unripe blackberries from my own woodland garden complete the look; the abundance of summer 2016.
The abundance of summer
Summer table centres
Garden flowers at Cowdray House
Freshly picked
It's Aquilegia week at the flower studio.
I'm selling lots of different varieties at the Cowdray Farm Shop both as plants and as cut flowers. I find them endlessly fascinating and love photographing their unique form.
They are fabulous garden plants as they self seed and pop up year after year. They've been present in every garden I've ever owned and yet I've never planted any until this year. It's been fun selecting new varieties for the cutting garden.
Aquilegia cut flower
Aquilegia stem opening
Aquilegia heaven
I've been making up posies with aquilegia, salmon parrot tulips, forsythia, fritillaries, ranunculus and hellebore. I love this palette of washed out lemons, peach and off white; fresh and uplifting!
Spring garden flowers early May
It's been an incredibly busy start to the year but I always make time to photograph my flowers. I love capturing flowers in season and have been documenting some of my favourite spring flowers. I've been using all of these in my bouquets at the Cowdray Farm shop.
One of my all time favourite Spring flowering bulbs is Fritillaria Meleagris.
You may have heard them referred to buy their common names of Snakes Head Fritillaries, Dropping Tulip, Chequerboard Daffodil or Chess Flower; all rather accurate descriptions of these gorgeous little nodding flowers.
Unlike most Spring flowering bulbs which like well drained soil, Fritillaria Meleagris like damp conditions and are happy to be planted at the edges of damp woodlands or in wild flower meadows and will flowers from March to May.
The exquisitely beautiful native wild flowers are members of the Lily family and their colours range from pink and white, purple and white to plain white. I love the purple and white chequerboard ones.
I've planted up some Fritillaria Meleagris in lovely zinc bowls to sell at The Cowdray Farm Shop, on The Cowdray Estate, here in Midhurst where I provide all of the cut flowers and plants. I'm also including the cut flowers in the bouquets I sell as I love to surprise and delight customers with something unusual and seasonal.
I have a little bunch of these glorious cut flowers on my own kitchen table as I like to test the vase life of all of the flowers I sell. I'm happy to report that they are looking fabulous on day 5 and they look set to continue for at least another 5 days!
It's a floral life!
