A natural when it come to matching colours

It's not me who's a natural.  I'm hopeless! It's Mother Nature I'm talking about. You only have to look into my wardrobe to see that I haven't got a clue about colour schemes, and I can never remember what colour any of my clothes are when I'm shopping for new stuff. Even my black clothes don't match each other. Who'd have thought there were so many shades of black? But Mother Nature never has a problem matching her colours. She can even get orange and pink to go together.

She manages it delicately with this double begonia:

She adds a sprinkling of orange discreetly to this pink echinacea:

And she's bold and 'in yer face' with this dahlia:

The only way that I can be sure of wearing matching items is to have them all the same colour but again Mother Nature has out-styled me. How about this for a perfect blend of a single colour?

What colour schemes are hanging up in your wardrobe?

All the above photographs were taken this afternoon in our garden and yes it's still looking amazing thanks to Mr A's hard work!

Spontaneous Photography

It's that time of year again when I keep bursting into spontaneous attacks of photography.

I'm sure you recognise these flowers from last year but you do realise that...

...they're not the exact same flowers as last year, don't you?

I mean, these flowers have appeared from the bare earth in our garden 

and even though it happens every year...

...it makes me wonder why people don't believe in magic... 

...because it doesn't get more magical than this, now does it!

Is it Spring yet?

I've had a lovely holiday. Lots of family and friends came to visit. I've eaten more food than was sensibly necessary. I've done lots of chatting and hugging grandkids and now it's over. Yesterday  morning I took a New Year stroll down the garden. The sky was a solid grey. The ground was muddy to the point of being squelchy. There was nothing particularly inspiring...

...until I reached the very end of the garden and looked up at the Mahonia bush with its display of bright yellow flowers. They may look mediocre in this photograph but they put a smile on my face.

Spring isn't far away!

Are there any flowers appearing in your garden yet?

Five Favourite Flowers

We've been to Ireland to help friends celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. If you've ever been to Ireland to help anyone celebrate you'll understand why we're both still feeling a little weary. How do they party all night and then carry on partying from lunchtime the next day? At their age? *groan* *yawn*

So I'm spending time in the garden regaining a little strength and clarity of thought. Mr A has excelled himself this year. Our garden is amazing in spite of the rain and here are my five favourite flowers that I photographed over the last two days:

In 5th place comes echinacea - I love those tiny bobbly bits (not a technical term) in the middle.

4th sedum - The tiny flowers fascinate me.

3rd geranium - We have a number of different geraniums in our garden. I told someone at the party in Ireland that we almost had the National Collection. Wrong person to tell little white lies to!! He has over a 100 in his garden and he started quoting Latin names at me. I went and chatted to someone else.

2nd gladioli - There's just the one spike opened so far, such an elegant shape.

In 1st place comes the rose - I couldn't blog about favourite flowers without including a rose although I had trouble finding one that hadn't been mushed by the rain. When I was a kid Dad bought me a rose bush of my own, deep red, lovely perfume, and he was the only person to ever call me Rosey Posey. Roses have always been my favourite flower.