Visit to Holmes Farm Garden

Evening Everyone

Yesterday, I said that if the rain held off we would be visiting one of Scotland's Open Gardens. It rained in the morning, poured in fact, but the afternoon was brighter so we decided to chance it and drive up to Drybridge, North Ayrshire, to visit the garden at Holmes Farm.

It's a lovely garden in a beautiful countryside location. A plantsman's garden, it's been created by a confirmed plantaholic. It consists of meandering paths that lead you through bed after bed of mainly herbaceous perennials, shrubs and small trees. On entry, these stunning seed pods on a red acer caught my eye, and that was only the beginning.

The garden is well stocked with many varieties of hardy geraniums, thalictrum, irises, centaura, hostas, sambuca, acers and much more. I was looking for ideas of what plants would look good growing together and wasn't disappointed. Though, much as I loved the beautiful partnering of sambucus nigra and an acid green hosta, I won't be attempting to copy that in my garden ... too many slugs and snails to even think about it.

There are some 400 iris at their peak right now, both interspersed throughout the herbaceous beds and in this area, left photograph above, which was dedicated to nothing but iris - with a fabulous backdrop of mixed clematis. A family of twiggy deer gaze over at the iris from the lawn in front.

Some plant collections are grown permanently in polytunnels. They clearly love it there - even the diascia is enormous!

These two fabulous honeysuckles were growing just outside the polytunnels ... the perfume was just divine.

I particularly loved this delicately leaved, double flowered thalictrum ... it's one that I definitely plan to grow down in the wooded area.

And finally, two more plants that really caught my eye, a deep pink bistort and what I think might be called the handkerchief tree - stunning!

Fortunately, there's a nursery at the farm, with a large stock of plants, including many of the irises, hardy geraniums and thalictrums that are now on my wish list :)  I don't think it will be too long before I'll be paying another visit.

This is just a small selection of the photos taken and it wasn't easy deciding which to show and which to leave out - the plants are all so photogenic :) But I hope you enjoyed the ones I chose.

Take care,

Snippet Sunday - A Bunch of Watercolour Cards

Hello and Happy Sunday to you,

I think I might have mentioned in a recent post that I have enrolled on an online class, Watercolor for Card Makers, and today I'd like to show you the results of my first attempts. They are not perfect, far from it, but I am having fun giving it a go. Fairly lengthy post follows.

Card #1 - the aim here is to paint with watercolours and then use a stencil/mask to create texture. And it did work but I didn't take into account how much the colours would fade once dry. I used AquaMarkers by scribbling on a tile and using water and paintbrush to lay down the colour. The result was disappointing.
Materials: scraps of watercolour card; AquaMarkers, Twilight Blue, Aquamarine; Royal Purple, Clear Scraps Chicken Wire Stencil; Spellbinders ribbon label die; greeting stamp from Stampin' Up's Wetland set; Memento Tuxedo Black; plum coloured Papermania Textured Card; aqua satin ribbon; white card base

Card #2 - for this attempt I used a mix of AquaMarker and distress inks in shades of pink for the painting technique and then sequin waste or punchinella for the texture - even less successful then the first! Another failure! However, I did think the depth of colour was better - not so washed out as in card #1 - so used it for the background to the stamping. Spotted the stamp in my local craft store, it made me smile and I just had to have it ... it's guaranteed to cheer a poorly person up :)
Materials: scrap of watercolour card; AquaMarker Rose Carmine; Ranger's Picked Raspberry and Spun Sugar distress inks; sequin waste/punchinella; stamp by Inkadinkado; VersaFine Vintage Sepia ink pad; scrap of chocolate brown card for matting; patterned paper - Create & Craft Summer Textures 6x6 pack; a square Kraft card base; enamel dots from My Mind's Eye, The Sweetest Thing Honey Love.





Card #3: by the time I got to this one I'd invested in a small set of Winsor & Newton paints and what a difference they made. The stencil used produced a better effect too - the texture is much more pronounced. I now have high hopes that with much more practice I might even do better in time! And in the process, I'm learning how to mix paints to produce different shades and how to water them down to get the desired intensity ... get me, I almost sound like an artist :)
Materials: scraps of watercolour card; Winsor & Newton watercolour paints - ultramarine, cadmium red hue, viridian hue; That Special Touch of Chevrons mask; American Crafts blue card for matting, card base and butterflies; Woodware small butterfly punch; Wild Rose Studio Kalahari Dreams patterned paper for background; Sheena's A Little Bit Sketchy Only Words From the Heart stamp; Bakers twine and gems to decorate.

I'm submitting card #3 to the Butterfly Challenge #8 which is bingo themed ... I've chosen the gems, butterflies and punches line.

Also, I'm skipping over to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 128 - tons of scraps and snippets of watercolour card were used to make the toppers on these cards.

I should have made much more progress by now and had a lot more to show you but working with watercolour card and paints is proving to be quite testing. I've already mentioned one problem encountered, that is obtaining the intensity of colour I wanted ... I think I've got that sorted now ... but the other is that when you apply water to any card it has a tendency to warp, especially it would seem watercolour card! And I'm still working on how to overcome that wee problem by trying different drying techniques and adhesives ... I think there will be a lot more trial and error to follow!

I hope you are enjoying your weekend and having a wonderful time. We are off to visit a garden that is open under the National Garden Scheme this afternoon to see if I can pick up a few good ideas. I'll be taking my camera in the hope of snapping some pretty plant associations and anything else that I think would maybe look good in my own garden. All being well, and if the weather stays bright, I might even have some good photos to share with you too.

In the meantime take care and happy crafting,

This Week's Smiles - For Week 72

Hello Everyone,

It's been a good week for smiles for me ... hope yours has been as good. Warning, I have rather a lot of photos to show so without further ado ...

First up is a pic of my daughter, Juli, (centre) presenting the pictorial wall-hanging she made to her friend, Gerry Hughes (to left of Juli). Gerry is a remarkable man, the first profoundly deaf man to become a teacher and the first to sail single-handed across the Atlantic Ocean!The wall hanging depicting Gerry's yacht, Quest lll, sailing on a choppy looking Atlantic Ocean, was all hand-stitched. Juli actually made two, one for Gerry and his wife (to right of Juli) as a memento, and the other was auctioned to help raise the funds he needs for his next trip - that is to sail round the world solo, via the five great capes on his yacht, and so become the world's first deaf yachtsman. Juli's hubby, Graeme, is left of Gerry and the others in the photo are friends of both couples. The wall-hanging was sold  for £100.

Next up is my lovely grandson, Alun, who is proudly showing off the medal and cup he won at his school athletics recently. He was the joint winner of the Athletics. He won 2 events, 400m and javelin, and was runner up in the 200m, triple jump and high jump! Can you tell he loves sports :)

Next up is a bunch of photos taken of my granddaughter, Jolene, having fun with her dad, my son Alun, and her mum, Elaine, on her 14th birthday treat to Aviemore, Scotland.

There was a bit of an embarrassing surprise when she opened this door ...

And finally,

Celtic's youngest fan! My wee great-grandson, Brodie, in his new Celtic strip - love that smile!

Apologies for going on a bit, but there has just been so much smile-making stuff to share with you I had trouble deciding where to stop :)

If you managed to get this far, thanks and I hope you enjoyed my photos too. To check out or share a few more reasons to smile do pop over to Annie at A Stitch In Time - you'll find plenty to smile about.

Hope you have had as good a week as I have.