We seek inspiration to create great gardens, but they can also serve as the inspiration for artwork. This section includes information about writing, photography, illustration, and other art forms that were inspired by plants, nature, and gardens.
As the Vernal Equinox draws tantalizingly close, the birds can sense the coming change. Already, their calls are more raucous in the mornings — their numbers are increased on branches excited for above-zero days and equalized day and night. Where we live, we can’t really count on true Spring weather until later in April but …
Hello, and welcome to the start of something a bit different here on You Grow Girl. First off, don’t be alarmed, this is not Gayla typing these words… this is Gayla’s partner Davin. I lurk around behind the scenes most the time assisting with the design and technical upkeep of the site. Gayla has occasionally …
Last summer I resolved to try and make further use of the plants that I grow by employing them as natural textile dyes. When their season was through, I did a few experiments, dying various fabric scraps with the burgundy leaves and immature blooms of the large false roselle plants I had grown that year. …
Davin surprised me with this drawing on our kitchen chalkboard this morning. I know that some of you in the warmer regions have already started your tomato seeds. Around here I still have a month(ish) to go before I will start my first batch of dwarf varieties. Which varieties are you growing or planning to …
I needed a bookmark, so I made one. Random scraps of paper and bus transfers do the work of marking my place in a book, but they are not special. They just are. I knew it had to be botanical, because… exhibit a thru z… and it was a pressed leaf that provided the inspiration. …
As previously mentioned, I decided to stop posting weekly from my ongoing Herbaria project. However, I am still assembling the boxes and taking the photos each week and hope to make this into something bigger once the full year is up in May. Until then they will make an appearance now and again rather than …
I bought these bright and colourful botanical-themed embroidered panels in a little textiles shop near(ish) to the hotel we were put up in in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This shop was full of embroidered textiles, but I honed straight in on the old pieces in various stages of disrepair and ignored the new. This one is …
Until recently it had been at least a year since I picked up a needle and thread to embroider or cross stitch and I was itching to get back into it. I took some time over the holidays to rekindle the interest and now it is back, bigger than ever. I am stitching up a …
The entire block is festively adorned with swaying animatronic santas, flashy light extravaganzas, and colourful wreathes. There are plastic moulded nativity scenes, herds of wire-frame deer, fences wrapped up to resemble presents, and branches stuck into urns and tied around with oversized velvet bows. There are garlands, enough to form a line across the world …
As I walked around the garden on the morning that I took this photo, deciding which plants would make the cut, I was struck by the shift in foliage colour. Suddenly all of the perennials had taken on their fall colour, which is why I dedicated 1/3 of the boxes this week to foliage. I …
The week I photographed this Herbaria was also the week that I started to seriously pick up the pace in shifting my houseplants indoors and I think it shows. The Japanese maple leaves have their autumn colour and this is the last sighting of outdoor basil until next June.
When I began this project, I set a parameter that allowed me to repeat a specific plant as long as a different stage in its development through the changing seasons was depicted. For example, I have included Columbine meadow rue (Thalictrum aquilegiifolium) twice: early in the season when it was in bloom and in August …