:: beauty outside the bedroom window ::

It's a holiday here today in Hawke's Bay - and felt a bit like a Saturday morning...open the curtains, get a warm beverage, slip back into bed, grab the knitting...look up and see... the beauty right there!

There is always something lovely to view - the ornamental cherry tree in the background is a clear indicator of the seasons, lovely green leaves darken through Summer, turn a rainbow of warm shades in the Autumn, then fall, giving us the beauty of it's Winter bare bones exposed and Spring is heralded by a ridiculous amount of frilly white blossom fluttering perilously on it's extremities.

This 'Mutabilis' (a Chinese rose) languished for about 5 years before I felt brave enough to tame it by trimming back to a stronger framework...I'm a learner pruner.

For about 3 months now I have looked out the windows in the morning and worried that I went a little too far...but lately, to my relief, there has been a lovely burst of growth on the fenceline and now we have this array of stunning blooms upon which to gaze.

I particularly like the way it begins as an orange, almost red bud, opens to a pretty coppery-apricot and lastly outstretches as a delightful pink - the combination of all three on it's boughs being truly beautiful.

:: 30 days of Spring - small miracles ::

thirty days ago, on the 20th of September I stepped out on a Saturday morning, amazed suddenly at the rate at which growth was surging ahead in our gardens - and decided to take a few pics as I went for this wee ramble...

 I didn't imagine I'd be so taken with the actions around me that I'd explore this every 10 days. It has been fascinating for me, plus a good excuse for a wander. Some plants have 'seen it all' in just 30 days - l like this rose, which was a promising bud, here...

 

...and these were a tiny cluster of tightly-closed fuschia-pink buds...

 ...under an ever-enlarging canopy of shade and protection this year's bottling supply of pears is quietly growing...

...the quince tree is now covered with many more baby quinces than one family could ever consume...

...and here's that tiny grape sprout!!! - stupendous growth...

 

 ...these look like the tightly-gripped fist of some mean ol' fella...

...not so easy to distinguish/comprehend the scale - the fig which was apparent here, too...is MUCH bigger...

 ...now why would the background of this photo be SO blown-out, I wonder?? because to FIND these two plums, I had to crawl under the tree and point the camera skywards. They are now cleverly, nestled very carefully away deep among the leaves, right under the branch...and today was one of those incredible Spring days - hot, sunny, clear with a bright blue sky...

...just a bit bigger...

...and this week we ate the first strawberries...mmm...so the original ones I photographed are...GONE!  These ones sit on a dandelion plant - a weed, perhaps, but one I don't find the heart to rip out, so they remain bedfellows.

Well, it has been a wonderful gift, a meditation perhaps of the wonder of the divine energy that imbues all things. I feel privileged to have witnessed all these miraculous events.

What small mirales have you seen lately?

:: the passage of Spring, 20 days on... ::

20 days ago I departed on a quick morning tour of our garden with my camera in tow. I had a some time at home alone and a walk around to check out the changes felt like a beautiful way to enjoy it.

 I have been enraptured by the speed at which Mother Nature can create...the now-spent bloom on the left was a bud 20 days ago...

 ...a cluster of baby apples - a sweet group of bright fuschia-coloured buds, petals tightly packed...

...very clearly we see miniature pears now - WOW!

 

and the base of the crumpling quince blossom swells now with a small, fuzzy quince fruit...

 ...not as pretty-looking yet - never-the-less the promise of succulent beauty is here - these berry blossoms are busy pushing forth berries...

...whilst the very subject of my initial wonder - this end of the grapevine has unfolded no less than 7 leaves and 2 bunches of grapes so far from that tiny, furry first sprout - only 20 days ago!

 

the tiny fig is now the size of a golf-ball and has a proportionally-large canopy for protection...

...a strong theme for these immature fruits - the two plums are considerably bigger, as is their soft bright leafy shelter, seemingly fluffing out all about them...

...I nearly didn't find the same cluster of sly blackcurrants, now almost entirely hidden...

  ...last for this morning's walk were the strawberries - and I'm determined to believe there IS a hint of blush there!

 I've truly experienced awe and wonder while recording these small doings in our own garden - there is no doubt in my mind a divine creative energy exists.

When I posted 20 days ago, it was a couple of days shy of the Spring Equinox - and it truly has felt as if Mother Nature has a countdown going to get everything grown to complete perfection in the 182.5 days until the Autumn Equinox.

:: blink and maybe you'd miss this ::

 there's a Hindu folk tale about time summed up by Lord Vishnu telling Lord Brahma how so many incredibly huge number of eons occur not even in "the time I take to blink my eye"

 and I feel as though metaphorically, this was the intense amount of growth our garden did this past week or so...

blossoms unfolding fully...bees busily making the most of the sporadic sunshine...

petals fully outstretched...

 ...delicate quince blossoms fading fast...

...the turnover in the floral department running at a tremendous pace...

...more thoughtfully slow in the case of the furry apple leaves...

...while the grape sprout was astonishing to me - even a tiny, tight bunch of ...grapes!

 and this climbing rose had me utterly perplexed as to which leaf stem I'd snapped last week - I'm fairly sure it was this one...

a dramatic burst of growth - like hands reaching up to the warmth of the sun...

another surprise was hiding under the now-thick cover of leaves on this plum-bough...

and here blackcurrants swell...

hoping it's not too late to have mulched and fed the seemingly-voracious strawberry patches this weekend past...

...it really all appears to be growing so urgently right now - blink and I think I'd miss this!

How is your garden growing this Spring?

:: spying on Mother Nature this morning ::

At a time of the year, when these delicate Snowdrops are still lingering here.... 

...and one of my favourite fragrant flowers is just beginning to flourish...

...Mother Nature is magically composing the most joyous symphony in our garden...and I was drawn out there with my camera this morning...delighting in every single (seeming) incredible feat of growth and abundance...

...some of the fruit trees in the orchard can't wait to frock up in their best party frills and shiver in Spring frosts bedecked in petals all pink or white...they would be the stone fruit - plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots and their delicate blossoms are mostly all ephemerally dashed to the ground in the all-too-chilly Spring winds...

...while the pip fruit family like the pear and apple above, dress sensibly in their new leaves first...

...so many wonders - like the beautiful wrapping of these quince bud petals...

...and when was the last time you really looked into the centre of a flower to check out what happens in there? All I could really think about was the promise of luscious berries in Summer...

...and leaf buds literally thrusting miniature furry, leaf-babies heavenward...

...and can you guess what this is?  I was surprised to find this soft, pink tenderness surging forth from the woody tip of...a grapevine! ... 

 and amazed at firstly the brilliant red and secondly the exquisite unpacking of perfect rose leaves...

 ...and here is the plant that spurred my curiosity this morning...a tiny green fig pertly sitting up next to a very new, very first bright green leaf sprout...on a tree, otherwise bare-naked!

 ...and there were more surprises - here are a couple of the earliest plums, while the last unfertilised (?) blossom not yet fallen, dries brown beside them...

 ...lurking beneath leaf-shields are wee blackcurrants, swelling behind flowers as they wither, crumple and shrink... 

...and in the vegetable gardens the first strawberry blossoms were floating - and this - small and green, but soon to be plump, juicy and RED... 

 and last, but not least - asleep in their pod...some baby peas, merely slumbering or growing astronomically-fast?

Ah, Persephone's Return from the Underworld to bring back the light to the Earth - how confident, faithful and abundant indeed - how lucky we humans are - if only we would realise :)