"White Trillium" glaze oil 8 x 8 My friend and neighbour, Monica, and I do a long walk along the river every week; today in the two hours between the beginning of our walk and its end, the trilliums began opening in the ravine. The trout lilies are almost finished blooming here, in our late garden which is always a week or ten days behind everyone else, and the weather is unseasonably cool and windy. Nonetheless, even here the trilliums are opening their sweet faces to the sun. All of these spring members of the lily family take years to build up enough strength to bloom; removing the flower undoes years of patient growth so I've had to learn to lie down beside them and take pictures of anyone I wish to paint. Their pure white captures and reflects the colours around them just as snow does. Trilliums even die back gracefully, blushing deep pink before their three petals drop.
I'm a fool for blue too, of course. The scylla has finished now; its Mary's blue drifts throughout the garden are spent, but the Virginia bluebells thrive in their place, often in the company of panicles of pink bleeding hearts. When the neighbourhood kids drop by to see who is in bloom, we often select particularly splendid specimans for them to take home to their mothers. It has taken a few years, however, for them to adjust to the idea of seasonal blooms. After seeing the rhododendrons in full bloom one spring, every subsequent visit began with the complaint "Where are the flowers???" I began to feel quite guilty about being unable to produce a big floral show on demand. This year we're going to work on developing an appreciation of tiny exquisite flowers; mouse-eared chickweed might be a place to start.
I'm a fool for blue too, of course. The scylla has finished now; its Mary's blue drifts throughout the garden are spent, but the Virginia bluebells thrive in their place, often in the company of panicles of pink bleeding hearts. When the neighbourhood kids drop by to see who is in bloom, we often select particularly splendid specimans for them to take home to their mothers. It has taken a few years, however, for them to adjust to the idea of seasonal blooms. After seeing the rhododendrons in full bloom one spring, every subsequent visit began with the complaint "Where are the flowers???" I began to feel quite guilty about being unable to produce a big floral show on demand. This year we're going to work on developing an appreciation of tiny exquisite flowers; mouse-eared chickweed might be a place to start.
RSS Feed
