Flowers for a Friday...

Walking with the family in Wellington last week (actually running, my boys never walk anywhere) we came upon this little grove of hydrangeas in a shady corner of the Botanical Gardens. Gorgeous.

Okay so the dusty pink is a little bit grandma. But who cares? Grandmas are the new black, just ask my mum.

Gardening inside and out...

Thank you for all your kind, sympathetic comments about my son's foray into indoor gardening.  What am I talking about?! You all LAUGHED.

Actually I did too but not while I was cleaning the floor and trying to get dirt out of the cracks. (some is there to stay)

Now to my outdoor garden. It's a work in progress so I took a stroll to get some inspiration and see what I should plant to replace my hedges. I found a lot of green. Green, green and more green. When did flowers go right out of style?

Luckily everyone's picked my favourite, the Iceberg rose. They look simply lovely lined up behind a white picket fence and the grey villas I like so much are a perfect backdrop. Icebergs are blousy and beautiful and wonderfully disheveled. We ordered Icebergs for my wedding flowers and the commercial ones looked nothing like they should - they were prim and perfect and quite overworked.

I loved these old-fashioned climbers peeking out from a less than perfect picket fence. The pale pink rose will probably go when the landscape designers move in.

So what did I learn from my garden tour? Green is good. Actually green is god. And lots of structural plants in rows at different heights with dark grey pots and edging. Crisp white paintwork and blousy white roses.

I came home and popped this Nicotiana or flowering tobacco plant in a pot.  I grew these in my London courtyard and they have a beautiful delicate scent in the evening.  Despite the name it is not the scent of smouldering Marlboro Lights.

Luckily hydrangeas are back in fashion - I read that somewhere this week but they're probably only talking about the white ones. I've just planted one in my new patch of soil where the hedge used to be. You know how I like to be dead on trend.

Liking...

I am rather liking this...

From West Elm via Lonny magazine. And I am also rather liking these on my wall.

Yes the pictures I showed you last week are done and not only in frames but on the wall. But wait, like a bad commercial, there's more. I started with this.... 

It doesn't look too bad outside on a lovely sunny day but it was really not that nice. I liked the shape and size and height and price, I just didn't like the whole el cheapo honey-pine thing. And it came from a shop stacked with so much el cheapo honey-pine furniture that you would sear your eyeballs if you stayed too long. So sandpaper, a paint brush, primer, paint and Me and you get this...

Yesterday to reward myself, instead of the black vases which wouldn't last a week on that table,  I brought home a bit of winter greenery.   

Hydrangeas are my favourite flower and seem to do pretty well inside. Our villa is heated to a nice average temperature of 21 degrees. I like it like that and so does the hydrangea. The last one stayed for six months and the blooms slowly turned from white to a lovely pale shade of green.