Wild honeysuckle is the thing

"If you don't love things in particular, you cannot love the world, because the world doesn't exist except in individual things"

Thomas Moore

The ditches are a jumble of briars, a tangle of weeds, a mess of curling browning leaves. They cascade onto the lane, in the subdued light of early autumn. 

A heady scent draws you into the middle of a phenomenon. The wild honeysuckle is budding, flowering and fruiting all at once. In the darkening days of autumn this climber is still in it's stride, an exotic reminder of life cycles. 

The young ones on the lane have returned to school, a trio of thrushes are practicing their skills at the top of a tree, the now enormous cattle are munching the EU grass.

And wild honeysuckle is the thing today; absorbing, beautiful, tender.

More life cycles of flowers here in the Petals Gallery

And if you have a minute, you can still vote for Foxglove Lane in the Blog Awards here 

Thank you! 

 

The wildest thing

"Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness."

Mary Oliver

      See more images from my wild garden and from Ireland's lush hedgerows here in the Gallery 

April hedgerows

Bumble bee

Gorse

Violet

Blackthorn blossom

Ladybird

Herb Robert

Primrose

It's three years now since I started this blog. One of my earliest posts was a photograph of creamy Blackthorn blossoms on the ditch. Today just a short walk up the lane reveals again the quiet beauty of our wildflowers. While the coconutty gorse dominates and is blooming all over the hill, along the ditches there are small splashes of colour. Getting in closer (some of these are really tiny) there are ladybirds competing for space along the grassy highway, and bees busily buzzing.......

Take a deep breath, spring is here, summer is just around the next corner, and creamy blossoms are still as good as it gets........

There are some more Irish Wildflower images here

~Another evening amongst the wild Foxgloves~

I've spent many years now photographing the stunning and exotic wild Foxgloves (Digitalis Purpurea) on the lane here. So when I started this blog 2 years ago I named it after them. A regular feature of childhood games, magical drawings in fairy stories and romantic cottage gardens, Foxgloves are an annual blissful treat. 

Being biennial, where they will bloom each season remains a last moment surprise.  Last year the local council sprayed a large corner on the main road and to my amazement dozens of Foxgloves flowered there in the bare ditch. 

Those dormant verges have harboured the wild things during winter. Suddenly all has been revealed again this month in great abundance. Best of all they have scattered themselves all over my wild garden, getting closer to the front door every year.

The mystery and beauty of wild flowers is an endless fascination. The survival of so many Foxgloves in spite of agricultural "progress" and pesticide spraying here and there, is also an inspiration. Resilience, adaptation, showy blooming.......I like to think that's me too.......except maybe for the showy blooming!!




Read more about Foxgloves on the Kew Gardens site here

Digitalis purpurea was named by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in his pivotal publicationSpecies Plantarum in 1753. The generic name Digitalis comes from the Latin for finger (digitus), referring to the shape of the flowers. The specific epithet purpurea refers to the colour of the flowers, which are frequently purple (although a white-flowered form is fairly common). Common foxglove is a popular ornamental, and many hybrids and cultivars are available. It is a source of digitoxin, a glycoside used in the drug digitalis, which has been used as a heart stimulant since 1785. It is also well-known for its toxicity, and ingestion of the leaves (usually as a result of misidentification for comfrey, Symphytum officinale) can result in severe poisoning.

The tinkling of a bell

Whenever I feel a bit out of my element, I listen out for the sound of a tinkling bell. This all started with a dream I had 20 years ago. In the dream I was an elf with a bell on my hat. I was creeping out of a cardboard box that I lived in and observing a beautiful landscape stretched out in all directions around me. Eventually, as I left the box one cautious step at a time, I could hear the bell tinkling on my head.

At that time, this dream helped me to take a chance and dive into a new project I was working on. I could imagine myself wandering off, my hat bobbing along and that sound would always ease the anxiety.

That image still comes in handy every now and then. Especially in these uncertain times. Times when we all need to take different perspectives.

Today I opened a little shop attached to this blog. It has taken a fair amount of work and is still in it's infancy, but it is there! I am slightly spooked by the move so as ever I am bobbing along listening out for the sound of a bell and exploring a new unknown territory.......by the way these photos are of Wild Carrot.


You can now download or buy Foxglove Lane images here please feel free to share any feedback you might have, I would very much appreciate it.

Is creativity just about putting one foot in front of the other?

 

 

 

 

 

These are just some of my favourite photographic memories from 2011. All of these photographs were taken just 5 minutes from my back door where I observed nature on Foxglove Lane continuing to express itself in ordinary ways. Some times I went out with my camera in a happy mood as the sun was shining or the flowers and bees were plentiful.  Other times I expected nothing and pounded the lane in the grey mist...just hoping to come across a friendly mouse or an interesting insect. On these days little surprises would capture me.....leaves turning golden, seed heads blowing in the wind, ice on dandelion petals and I would come back with a bouncier spring in my step. It was about just doing it.

2011 was a year of bereavement in my own life and I have no doubt that the whole blogging experience and the kindness of strangers mitigated the sadness in different ways. While I was losing someone I was also gaining someone, I found some other part of myself again. An inner world, a more fearless creativity, a sense of seizing the day with more urgency. Recovering from a bereavement seems to be a similar process, it's about getting up in the morning and putting one foot in front of another.

So for 2012 I will continue as before, putting one creative foot in front of the other, not thinking too much about all those ifs and buts, living life for each ordinary and extra-ordinary day as it comes. Is that what creativity is really all about?



Happy New Year dear friends!