quiet paws.

The weather has been getting decidedly warmer of late (at least where I live), and with the heat comes the sights that accompany the summer months…

Flowers are bursting into life and delivering their fragrance into the welcoming arms of the world…(they make the bees pretty happy too).

Trees are becoming heavy with fruit and are then in turn frequented by many feathered and winged visitors who are happy to take advantage of their crop…

Thank goodness for one solemn protector who guards the activities of this blooming, buzzing and fruiting garden with watchful eyes…

As for me? Well happily, my recent love affair with dresses will grow ever stronger as we move towards Christmas and beyond. What could be more appropriate than a brightly coloured floral dress to usher in these blue sky days?

Dress weather has well and truly been declared…

Winter is my favourite time of year. The fashion is wonderful (all those beautiful coats, jackets, boots, gloves and hats), the weather alternates between crisp, crystal clear blue-sky days and perfectly mood-filled rainy, gray-cloud days. It’s the best time of year to warm up with a glass of red wine, to relax in front of an open fire-place, or to snuggle under the covers for just a few extra minutes of comfort.

One thing that I particularly love about winter is observing the contrasts of the season in the garden. I love imagining all the hidden preparations taking place below the soil as bulbs and seeds get themselves busy with preparations for spring. I also love that during a season which most people associate with hibernation, some plants are producing some absolutely beautiful flowers to brighten the wintry world. In lieu of being able to provide each and every one of you with a fresh bunch of flowers, I thought I’d share a few images of the blooms from my (potted) garden. I hope these digital blooms will inspire and awaken your senses as much as they do mine…

Well after successfully enduring their artificial winter in my fridge for the past few weeks, all the tulip bulbs are now in the ground (or rather, in the pot). I’ve split my divine mix of 45 bulbs through three separate 30cm plant pots. Now they are being kept hidden from the sun while I wait for them to sprout upwards through the surface layer of earth to display their greeny goodness.

In addition to my previous bulb purchase, I forgot to mention the arrival of my most lust-worthy purchase of black tulips a few weeks back… but they’ve also been ‘chilling’ in the fridge (I’m thinking they’re going to look smashing surrounded by a contrasting mix of white, violet and red blooms).

Ten of these lovely ‘queen of the night’ black tulip bulbs (which I purchasead from Van Diemen Quality Bulbs) are now resting patiently beneath the earth ready to awaken in the not-too-distant future and amaze me with their beautiful blooms (well, fingers crossed anyway).

I’ve often been drawn to growing bulbs. Whether this is due to the two beautiful Gladoli blooms which would appear, as if by magic each year at my parent’s home, without receiving any love or encouragement… or simply out of the need to bear witness to the metamorphosis of something brown and dry, into something beautiful and refined. It’s really quite incredible.

The fact that I have often thought about growing tulips in particular, may of course be influenced by many other factors. Perhaps it is due to some random association I’ve made through art courtesy of Monet, or perhaps it is due to my strange obsession with Vermeer, and then by association an obsession with all things Dutch…which leads me back to tulips …

I think it’s safe to say that I’m not entirely clear on the reasoning behind the desire for bulbs myself, and I have to say that it doesn’t really matter. The most important thing to me right now is that I finally committed to purchasing some lovely, lovely tulip bulbs (courtesy of the wonderful folk at Tesselaar). Even better than that, my perfect collection of bulbs have arrived!!

Given that these pretties will be grown in pots within the delights of sub-tropical Brisbane temperatures, the bulbs are currently enjoying their ‘artificial winter’ in the fridge. Very soon they’ll be making the transition from the inside to the outside, and I honestly can’t wait to see how they go.