Admire all that blooms
Take a meandering walk through our flower filled garden in spring
This is love letter 5 of 100 little ways to live slowly, simply & seasonally. Read previous posts or take a peep at what’s to come, here:
Oh spring, what a delight you’ve been.
The last three months, my floral fascination has reached new heights, beginning with the plum blossoms and jonquils in late August. I have always liked flowers, but as a gardener I’ve focused on growing edibles over ornamentals. This year, whilst nurturing seeds for a delicious summer to come, my heart was stolen by the petals and pollinators who brought our garden back to life after winter’s dormancy.
This love letter is a visual one. It is a compilation of my favourite photos of the most bewitching blooms I’ve had the pleasure of admiring right here in our garden and home this spring.
Enjoy this leisurely stroll back in time through little pockets of our Peninsula patch, accompanied by floral quotes and poetry I adore.
Plum blossom
This first tree in our orchard to stir in spring is our blood plum. It doesn’t snow here where we live, but these fluffy, snowball shaped white clusters are a fitting farewell to winter. Being a biennial producer, both our plum trees flowered profusely this year and are presently laden with green fruits safely under net.
“With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?" - Oscar Wilde
Jonquils, Daffodils & Hyacinth
Blooming bulbs spring up all around our garden in spring, but my favourite would have to be these sweet white jonquils that I now ceremoniously bring indoors to mark the start of a continual cut flower rotation adorning our mantle and kitchen windowsill.
Which leads me down a little tangent…
Seasonal Homeschooling
For context, I don’t garden or admire flowers alone. My littlest loves are home educated, which for want of a better term means we spend our days, weeks, months and lives together living simply, slowly and in tune with the seasons. Aside from reading and free play, one constant in our home is nature study! We’ve been members of For The Love of Homeschooling’s Nature Study Club for two years now. We choose our monthly study themes in keeping with the seasons and we absolutely loved learning more about blossoms and bulbs theoretically whilst tangible admiring their life cycles in real time as they bloomed before our eyes in our own backyard.
Back to the orchard…
Quince blossom
Don’t tell the other fruit trees, but I have a favourite and it’s quince. Seriously, look at those marshmallow saucers! Every year I love watching our orchard trees unfold their buds one after the other, but it’s quince who steals the show year on year.
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” - Alfred Lord Tennyson
Lilacs
Lilacs will have my heart forever anon because every time they bloom I am reminded of my wedding day. I walked down the garden path to marry my darling 8 years ago with lilacs in my hair and in my bouquet. Their scent is the one of the most splendid smells I know on this earth.
If this letter alone isn’t enough to convey my love for all that blooms, our wedding theme was Liberty Florals and I wore this dress…
“I love her so much
That I never can tell
If she’s sweeter to look at,
Or sweeter to smell.”- The Lilac Fairy by Cicely Mary Barker
Apple Blossom
The last fruiting tree to bloom in our orchard gives quince a run for its money. And what a finale it put on this year! A bonanza of blossoms gave way to a heavy crop of golden delicious fruit that is thankfully also sitting pretty under netting, safe from our colourful, noisy neighbours, the rainbow lorikeets and sulphur crested cockatoos.
Calendula
Once you plant Calendula, you will have it in your garden forever. These cheery orange flowers self seed abundantly and have been continually cropping all spring long. Not only do they bring all the beneficial bugs to your patch, they are edible and a medicinal powerhouse. What’s not to love? This spring I have hung posies to dry upside down in my kitchen window and am slowly amassing a jar of dried petals for tea. We also have a jar of petals infusing in oil on the windowsill that we will use as the base of a homemade moisturiser. Calendula also make a colourful addition to any garden salad.
“I must have flowers, always, and always.” - Claude Monet
Waxflowers
Another heavenly scented, abundant bloomer - Geraldton wax flowers remind me of honey, which is probably why our local bee population loves them too. They are brilliant cut flowers for the home with their radiant pink clusters that outlast all others. This is my go to flower I cut from our garden to gift to others. Who doesn’t love a sweet smelling, long-lasting, vibrant vase full of flowers?
Foxgloves
Trying to choose three photos from the hundreds I have snapped of these showstoppers was tough. I think I have a picture of every stage of these illustrious beauties unfolding from every angle. They have hands down stolen my heart this year. This is the first time I have grown foxgloves and I don’t ever want to live without them again. Planted out as young seedlings last spring (2023) it was a slow wait for these now towering giants to begin reaching skywards but this made their unveiling all the more sweeter. One of the most delightful sounds in the garden this spring has been the amplified buzzing of bees feasting on the nectar inside each bell.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” - Audrey Hepburn
Poppies
Giant Hungarian poppies as tall as me were a delight to watch unfurl in October alongside our perennial Californian tree poppies. These paper delicate, short lived flowers are where the pollinators came to party.
Butterfly Bush
Butterfly Bush brings all the flutters to the yard and damn right, you should grow it in yours. The Australian Painted Ladies began dancing around our front yard the minute the first comb of these teeny tiny buds burst into life. This perennial shrub continues to expand year on year and its irresistible flowers are a hub of activity. I have loved lingering before it and marvelling at all the insect action.
Roses
Confession: I almost didn’t include these familiar flowers because I have a love/hate relationship with roses. Their spiky nature and high maintenance pruning don’t align with my laissez-faire style of gardening but somehow they continue to survive despite my neglect and borderline contempt, and lure me back with their intoxicating perfume and delicate petal formations. Okay roses, I’ll admire you as I do all that blooms. But I draw the line at deadheading.
“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” - Vincent Van Gogh
Align yourself with the seasons
Spring is the most wonderful season to connect and commune with the more than human world through the invitations flowers offer that draw us in for a closer look. The more attention we pay to the metamorphosis of plants, the more in sync our souls will be with the earth and its natural rhythms. Time spent in the presence of flowers budding, burgeoning and blooming is never wasted.
Whilst the blossoms have now faded for yet another year, leaving room for fruit to form and swell, so too our creative energy is ripening. Now is the time to dive bravely into doing what you’ve been dreaming up.
Do you have a favourite flower or a few that never fail to enchant you? Are you a fellow flower fan or know someone who could use a dose of virtual gardening?
Thank you for reading my musings on the many little measures that add up to a slower, simpler more seasonally attuned life.
I hope my words help gently guide and encourage you on your own journey.
My writing is free to read, and always will be.
Loved this post! You’re making me very envious, I miss having a garden so much.
And thanks for the heads up about For the Love of Homeschooling Nature Studies. Sounds right up our alley. X
Oh this was a delight for the eyes!
It’s given me such a yearning for seasonal weather and to be surrounded by flowers.
On my parent’s farm there were blankets and blankets of calendulas, to me they bring endless joy with their cheeriness. I feel you with the roses too! Such a delight to smell, such height maintenance!
Pea flowers I find enchanting, and a good old cosmos never goes astray!
Thanks for sharing your world, you’ve created a beautiful space, and that nature study set up makes me drool a little!
P.s. there is a song of the Tansie Flower in the flower fairies of the wayside book. I still know the poem off by heart!