flowers | Veronica Roth

It all started with white bluebells

May 5, 2013 By Veronica 22 Comments

So you all know about my love for bluebells…well…the other day I found some white bluebells growing on the side of mom’s house and mom happily let me dig a few for my garden.

Don’t they look lovely in the last of the evening sunlight?

I thought the white bluebells deserved a lovely spot in the perennial border at the front of the house.

Morgan likes to be very close to me all the time and chose to watch me from the round bottomed pot under the noble privet.

It took several hours of edging but the front flower bed looks great and my special white bluebells will shine there.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: Camera, flowers, This is how we do it, Vancouver

Random thoughts on Friday

April 26, 2013 By Veronica 41 Comments

This morning I woke up at 3am! And the worst thing about it is I was awake. I mean properly awake. I took a melatonin in hopes of falling back asleep before I actually had to get up at 6:30, and fell into a sort of half sleep, half dozing state and the alarm woke me up from a most horrific dream. (And I’m thinking, “what the hell…for this I don’t drink caffeine?!?”)

What is it about bad dreams? What do you believe? I sort of think that it’s my subconscious trying to work out some situation I’m having problems with in real life, but if that’s true, what is my grandmother, now gone for millions of years, doing in my dream…and aliens in my house…and why won’t my cell phone work on their planet? Ok, well, maybe I understand that last one.

So my brain’s not all that sharp today, I mean, insomnia and all those aliens hiding in cupboards eating all my apple jelly…so here’s a bunch of random thoughts from my fuzzy brain:

1. To my mind, there’s very little in this world that can come close to the wonderfulness of crisp, white, air-dried cotton sheets. Can anyone think of anything better? (well, apart from the obvious: sharing those crisp, white, air-dried cotton sheets with your love later that evening)

2. The previous owners plunked this lovely, rustic bird box on the top of the pole holding the drying line. A little chickadee family has nested there last year and has staked the box out again this year. It’s a perfect place for them because it’s a good 20ft off the ground and nothing much can get up there. The only problem is that the line vibrates the pole and the box, and the chickadees come storming out giving me the middle claw on their way to the neighbour’s huge copper beech, where they shout at me. So then I feel bad about using the line.

3. So to make them, and me, feel better I filled up the bird bath with fresh water and the bird feeder with seed.

4. I don’t really care who gets the seed though. Squirrels are just as welcome as are the crows and the rosy house finches, and the chickadees. It’s a first come first served policy round here. I know there are a lot of birders, (and my neighbours), out there who will argue that I should do my best to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder, but I like the squirrels. I think they’re funny and love how they climb right inside the feeder and have their own personal banquet and, besides, everyone has to make a living somehow in this world.

5. All my neighbours are swearing about and digging up extra bluebell bulbs with a vengeance. I don’t get that either. I’m saving them from the lane construction site and from my neighbours compost piles, and transplanting them all over the place. You know, I have a city garden and I just picked this large bunch of bluebells and it didn’t even make a dent in the flower beds. Besides, they don’t really last long, I think they’re over with by June for sure, and I want to enjoy them as much as possible.

So I’m thinking that with my wonderful fresh sheets and the bluebells and my windows open to the night air, I just might get a good night’s sleep.

Linking up with my new friend Nancy from A Rural Journal and to Claudia from Mocking bird hill cottage and wishing everyone an early bedtime, and a peaceful, long and deep sleep.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: flowers, home, This is how we do it

Dandelion crowns, a tutorial

April 25, 2013 By Veronica 19 Comments

I promised a few gals that I would show a tutorial for dandelion crowns next time I make one, and since I really have to mow the lawn, here’s a (long winded) how-to, with a much easier diagram at the end…so you can skip over the boring photos…lol. Dandelions have beautifully bendy stems, except for the super thick stemmed ones, and make fantastic, sunny ephemeral crowns.

Step one: pick a handful of dandelions with as long a stem as you can manage.

Pick up one with a very long stem in your left hand. This will be your base line. Pick up a second with a reasonably long stem in your right hand. Cross the stem of the right hand one over the stem of the left hand one at the flower heads.

Hold both flowers at the “cross” of stems with your left hand and bend the right-handed dandelion stem behind the left-handed dandelion stem.

Now bend the left dandelion stem, which is now perpendicular to the right one, towards you, between the two flowers.

Bring the bent stem parallel with the right stem.

Hold both the flowers in your left hand, pick up a third flower and loop the stem of the third flower over both the first two flower stems and between the second and third flower heads and parallel with the first two stems.

Now you have three.
Continue with another, and another…see how the chain is starting to form?

Longer and longer it goes, careful not to choose dandelions with stems which all end in the same place. Try to vary the stem lengths.

Within a few minutes you’ll have a lovely long chain.

Cut a length of twine, grab a twist tie or even some sturdy grass blades and tie the beginning to the end of the chain.

And find a freckle-faced princess. (Joking, she doesn’t need to have freckles, any old princess will do)

Just not a Morgan princess!

Here’s a quick diagram. Now go out and have some fun. When I was a child my cousin and I chained a dandelion chain all around our summer cottage. Took a month, the beginning was fluff by the time we got the end to it…but hey, we didn’t care.

PS: this crown is very ephemeral, only lasts for a few hours.
PPS. Works with English daisies and clover too but takes a lot longer.
PPPS: Take loads of photos.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: Chloe, flowers, Fun, This is how we do it, Try this...a tutorial

A little miracle

April 24, 2013 By Veronica 21 Comments

Once upon a time, well, about 16 years ago, I did two things. Bought two blooming cymbidium orchids and saved a Blue Tick Coon Hound puppy from being shot. (Farmers in the country at my cabin didn’t want him and that’s what farmers in the country do apparently) We didn’t keep Sam, the puppy, because he wasn’t a city dog, but I found a lovely home for him with some lovely people, he a hunter, she a housewife, several children, living in the middle of BC. Each time I checked on Sam he seemed to be happy and healthy and living out his hunting breeding legacy.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, Sam, not the city dog, ripped up both orchids in a fit of puppy play. I was going to throw them out but my aunt decided to try to save them.

Fast forward to now. My aunt kept and babied the remaining plant, now one orchid for the past 14 years and kept threatening to throw it out because it would never bloom.

After my aunt died I took the orchid home and put it outside on the back patio and brought it into the garage and then into the house for winter.

And look!

I can’t believe it! It’s given me seven beautiful flower stalks.

Do you think that’s my aunt smiling down?

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: Camera, flowers, Story

Come walk around the garden with me

April 8, 2013 By Veronica 13 Comments

Morgan’s up for a little walk, she’s not impressed by the glorious ranunculus at the kitchen door, I am, how about you?

On the back patio I’ve started cleaning out and replanting the blue pots; so far this year in hot pink and red geraniums.

Most of you know I call C “Clover”. So she loves clover and has chosen to grow this beautiful little plant in its own special blue pot.

Guess what I found in the very back of the garden, in last year’s forgotten carrot pot. Brand new, sweet and crispy carrots. The pot needed to be emptied and cleaned so the carrots had to be harvested, but what a little treasure we got for tonight’s salad.

In the back flower garden the muscari have gone a bit crazy. This year I’ve been giving clumps to friends and relatives.

Milo likes to guard the hole in the hedge where the aggressive orange cat sometimes sneaks thru. Not on his watch!

Here are the trilliums from the shade garden. I’m not sure how everyone else feels but to me there’s something so romantic and special about them. Such a fragile West Coast plant and so protected that you rarely see it in the wild. Mine did not come from the wild; they came from my late aunt’s garden.

But the star of my early April garden is the camellia tree. Almost as tall as the house, with flowers the size of side plates, it never gets rusty in the rain, never drops its buds, and blooms its little heart out for me.

I’m sorry but I do own the most beautiful camellia in the world! Ok, in Vancouver then…ok, in my hood.

Thanks for coming with me. See you tomorrow.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: flowers, home, This is how we do it, Vancouver

A walk in the old hood

March 27, 2013 By Veronica 12 Comments

I used to live much higher up the mountains and this beautiful park used to be my every day walk. There is a special lake here which serves as the Vancouver drinking water reservoir, so it’s a very peaceful place since people are not allowed near the water. Today there were a few wild swans on the lake and a large flock flew over head, probably off up north for the breading season.

The hummingbirds are back and flashing their ruby throats all over the place and absolutely dazzling jewels in this blue and white postcard setting.

The water level flowing down the dam is still moderate; the thaw hasn’t really begun.

I walked from the park thru the streets and over the little creeks of my old neighbourhood.

One of my old neighbours was trimming his forsythia. I stopped to ask him if I could have some for the vase and he said he was more than happy to be rid of it. I couldn’t understand that because to me forsythia is so cheery and bright, so happy to bloom, a real herald of spring. I came away with a huge bunch.

A bit further on my walk someone was trimming his magnolia. How lucky can a girl get?

Those soft velvety buds are simply beautiful as they are, let alone when they begin to open and reveal their brilliantly pink and creamy blooms.

I chose some vases and spent a few lovely minutes arranging my branches.

I thought the magnolia would look lovely in this creamy ironstone vase but in the end I felt loathed to cut down the spectacular stems and so got a cut crystal ruby vase I brought from Prague years ago.

Now I can’t stop photographing the magnolias in the evening sun.

Ok, one more.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: Camera, flowers, Fun, This is how we do it, Vancouver

Probably got too much sun today…

March 21, 2013 By Veronica 15 Comments

I really do adore having a 100yr old house that creaks and groans. I’ve been out all day and just now the sun-warmed house is cooling down and popping and snapping its old bones and I have to tell it it’s loved just the perfectly imperfect way it is.

I ~~stole~~ gathered some hellebores from my mother’s garden and put them in a vase with some other little garden snippets and the evening sun lit them up so beautifully that I spent a happy few minutes photographing them. (I would have taken more time but I lost the light.)

Then I put my cheery little arrangement in the living room and the house creaked its appreciation rather loudly.

I’m looking at some of the photos and loosing myself in the beauty of the blossoms. These hellebores absolutely have to be painted immediately…well, maybe tomorrow. It’s evening and Morgan has missed me. She’s terrifically determined to replace the lap top on my lap. I’m stroking her soft fur and wondering how I might be able to spend the rest of my life happily photographing and drawing flowers.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: Camera, flowers, home, Vancouver, Well then...this is a life moment...isn't it

Finally, a chance to get out in the garden

March 18, 2013 By Veronica 8 Comments

I just realised that I’ve been working in the garden for a couple of hours this afternoon and I’m actually showing you photos of my “Potting Bench”.

Oh well, I did work in the garden for a couple of hours but there’s not a lot to show for it. The garden really swallows up the work…don’t you think so?

So here is the the west wall of my garage. In it is a large and lovely window. Perfect for starting seeds. On the wall hangs my late aunt’s oil of irises; a flower that I love to pieces. (Before anyone starts yelling about beautiful oil paintings hanging in the garage, remember that there are so many artists in this family that…yes…big oils are hanging in the garage, and it gives me my beautiful space that I crave.)

Beside it is a green chalk board rescued years ago when Shaughnessy Hospital was rebuilt. On it is a chalk map of last year’s garden.

I love the old letterpress drawer for sorting seeds. It used to hang in C’s room and held tiny fairytale glass things but then she grew up.

This zinc tub was a thrift store find, (probably $5 or less…I’m a cheap date), and I just empty the seed starter mix into it, and a wire basket holds new tubers and bulbs.

Right, time to get working. The cold frame is in place and the soil warmed, the sweet peas were started yesterday, (St. Patrick’s Day ritual), and now to plant the peas, beans, greens and the Nigella seeds I ~~stole~~ rescued from the gardener’s compost pile at Kew last year.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: Camera, flowers, peace at last, This is how we do it, Vancouver

Oh, what was that bright light in the sky?

March 16, 2013 By Veronica 19 Comments

Morgan had to jump on the window sill to have a better look.

I think it might be the sun!

So good for our damp little hearts.

Better run outside and plant the rest of the flowers in the garden before the rain comes again.

Clover? There’s no moving C right now. She just got an early birthday prezzy from her grandmother. (C’s birthday is April 9th but her old pc was misbehaving)

I once read a Ray Bradbury short story set on Venus where it rained all the time. (I’m sure the he lived in Vancouver when he wrote it) Once every several yrs the sun came out for a brief time. One school girl boasted about seeing the sun and how wonderful it was but the other school children didn’t believe her and locked her in a closet. Then ran outside for recess. That was the day the sun came out and all the children laughed and played in the sunshine until one felt a drop of rain and the clouds moved in and it began to pour. They then thought of the little girl locked in the closet who missed that glorious time, they walked to the closet and silently let her out.

C is being the girl in a self-imposed closet right now. But it’s alright.

And in the time it took me to photograph this and write this post…maybe 30 minutes…it’s clouded over and now it’s raining.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: Camera, Chloe, flowers, Story, This is how we do it, Vancouver

On headaches and owls and violets

March 15, 2013 By Veronica 12 Comments

Don’t remind me that I sometimes say that I find the rain in Vancouver romantic in that Blade Runner sort of way. I’m so not feeling that right now.

I can’t remember when I last saw the sun. (I think there may have been a day last week.)

Walking and the weather have been gloomy and I’ve spent most of my time working inside.

The good thing about rainy weather is I feel like getting some art work done and that’s very good for me. Also days like this have a drop in barometric pressure and that sometimes means a headache settles in and last a few days and actually I find it impossible to concentrate on anything but art.

The other day I brought home some salmonberry branches and found some violets in the garden. I sketched them on some music paper.

I get into moods of wanting to sketch or paint and then I start to look for some creative ways to express the art work. Lately I’ve been completely in love with some old music sheets. Some of the paper is very old and has been held together with scotch tape which has long ago lost its grip and has left beautiful golden marks on the paper.

For any purists out there who want to preach acid free and archival quality at me, I know. I’m not so interested in having a sketch or painting last the centuries as I am in saving or at least extending the life of ephemeral objects, like this music paper; of breathing new life and new beauty into it and of composing a symphony of sorts using the tools which I know how to use.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve sketched a dozen small flowers in watercolour, pencil, ink and chalk on different sized sheets of the music paper and mostly sent them out to friends. Today I was looking thru my photographs from West Cottage at Christmas and I remembered the barn owl who lives there.

Today I sketched him swooping down from his barn in chalk, charcoal, ink and silver. I think I’ll carry on.

Filed Under: Veronica Roth Tagged With: flowers, some days must happen, This is how we do it, Vancouver

It all started with white bluebells

Random thoughts on Friday

Dandelion crowns, a tutorial

A little miracle

Come walk around the garden with me

A walk in the old hood

Probably got too much sun today…

Finally, a chance to get out in the garden

Oh, what was that bright light in the sky?

On headaches and owls and violets

Where I say “Hello”

Where to look

What I said

When I said it

Blogroll

Where I get silly

Where I write an epistolary novel

Where I digitize

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