Empire Bouquet

My Mom shares a birthday with Queen Victoria - and this is the bouquet I made her for her today. All the plants and flowers are from her garden and the vase is a [not very precious] family heirloom. I used lilac [Flieder], bleeding heart [Tränendes Herz], lungwort [Lungenkraut], lily of the valley [Maiglöckchen], garland spiraea [Brautspiere], rhododendron and columbines [Akelei] and was especially enchanted with finding out the various English names for the bleeding heart: "Dutchman's trousers", "lady in a bath", "Venus's car" and "lyre flower" - love them!

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend, Qaroline

Garden party @ Fatty Fashion Fun Challenge

Hat: Oxfam; cardigan: Ulla Popken; dress: selfmade

I am a bit late for this month's Fatty Fashion Fun Challenge "Garden Party" but really wanted to participate [can't resist an invitation to any garden, really] - and what a brilliant opportunity to show off my latest sowing project!

I haven't found ANY beautiful cotton summer dresses for fat people in a long while and decided that it was definitely time to make my own. I found this inexpensive printed cotton in our local haberdashery and I love love love it! [Big ice-cream fan, too.]

And as you're already here, why don't you join me on a small tour through the garden?

pond with Japanese maple and floating apple blossoms.

mobile radish/strawberry/salad unit in a basket - on wheels!

lawn covered in lady's smock.

icelandic poppies, salads, baby aubergines, herbs and tomatoes.

love the smell of lilac.

any excuse to wear a hat.

Roadtrip: Gütersloh Botanical Gardens

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Gütersloh Botanical Gardens, just a half hour's drive away and stunningly beautiful. I wasn't aware of the fact that Olafur Eliasson designed a "scent tunnel" for this particular garden!

Olafur Eliasson's "scent tunnel"

I love that this quite small garden is so much more formal than the botanical gardens I have visited before, divided into lots of garden rooms with different themes - especially the lavender garden, although not yet in bloom, was amazing - I will definitely come back again! [There is also a very nice café in one of the greenhouses, well worth a visit!]

Lavender Garden

cherry tree avenue

Perfect Start Bouquet

I'm back from my short blog sabbatical - and now that so many beautiful blooms are out I can start again with my bouquet blog. These gorgeous yellow tulips are one of my favourite varieties; the blue vase is handmade [by my Mom] and I guess it is something about the colour combination that always makes me smile.

just a few days later

Thanks to the mild weather our camellia is covered in whitish-pink blossoms - in all the last years frosty nights destroyed almost all of the buds and this is the first year the camellia is able to fulfill her full potential - such a shame that the blossoms have no fragrance!

I have been working on a lot of new crafting projects recently - this is my current one: this freestyle embroidery is meant to be turned into a pillow case [some day soon, hopefully]. I am working with pure white cotton yarn on rough dark-blue linen and because I don't have to count threads or follow any kind of pattern it is actually quite relaxing.

freestyle paisley pattern - very individual shapes ;-)

Wishing you all a wonderful month of May -

Love, Qaroline