THE OUT OF FOCUS BRIGADE

Snail on an apple tree twig.

Loose and Leafy is primarily for wild plants; street plants and plants of the hedgerows. (Insects too.) From time to time I visit an open-to-the-public kind of garden. Rarely do I show photos from an ordinary garden belonging to an ordinary house. I haven't for ages.

Blurry apple blossom

This afternoon, I was meant to be sitting outside, drinking tea, chatting, with music in the background. 

Music is difficult outside. You need it loud enough to appreciate but quiet enough not to bother neighbours. With a bit of fiddling around the sound was perfected . . . and it was all very pleasant.

This scented geranium leaf is not specially blurry but the light pointed it out.

But I can't sit long if there are things to see - even if I'm meant to be engaged in relaxed and friendly chatter. And this afternoon there was a special kind of atmosphere. A storm is brewing and it's taking a while to get to the break-out moment. Sometimes, before a storm, the atmosphere goes clear and everything, even at a distance - especially at a distance! - can be seen in more detail than usual.

Well, having built up your expectations . . . it wasn't that kind of light today. It was . . . not exactly hazy . . . but not quite as clear as it is most of the time either. And there were unaccountable little patches of brightness; a leaf here and another there which seemed to have been out to buy batteries and had turned on torches of their own.

Out-of-focus hosta leaf

So up I got, left the tea on the table . . . and pottered off to look at leaves . . . and things.

But, as I say, the light was odd.

I can't remember having posted out-of-focus-photos before. But this is what I'm doing here. I could pretend I was using some special technique or camera setting; but I wasn't. They just didn't come out right.

At the same time . . . by chance . . . they show what it was like this afternoon. Initially I chucked them aside. But I kept coming back to them. And I like them. There are different kinds of beauty.

Tweet

(All photos in this post taken on the afternoon of May 17th 2016.)

I STUCK MY FOOT IN A GARDEN - and a present

I'm not a gardener. And this blog is mainly for hedgerow plants (with a bit of seaweed thrown in).

HOWEVER . . . when I went out with my camera to advertise the up-coming stuck-foot post . .  the wind was blowing and everything was waggling about: branches, leaves, grass - and me!

I'd taken only about fifteen steps before I gave up and scurried home.

So I borrowed a garden and stuck my foot there - there where walls gave some protection from the wind.

Then I plonked myself in the only available pool of sunlight and set myself to see what I could see.

I saw beautiful red cotoneaster leaves on the branches of a bush that had been grown as a standard.

I saw beautiful red cotoneaster berries in an empty terracotta flower pot.

I saw a red chrysalis (or something along those lines) in the pot-bound roots of a box bush stood in water before being untangled. And I saw a ripple of light in the water.

I saw heart shaped leaves and dead leaves.

And I saw an old vine branch with the dried out twiddly bit that would have fixed it to something if it had found something to fix itself to.

And all this time - I didn't move a foot. Not the slightest slither. A stuck foot post.

This is the idea.

There's more about it on the Stuck Foot Post Page.

Are you a Stuck Footer? If so - there will be a link box for Stuck Foot Posts on next week's Loose and Leafy. (21st - 25th January 2015)

* * *

And now for the present. Well, it's not exactly a present. It's a 'You can have this book if you review it on your blog' situation.

Featuring over 1,000 plants
RHS Companion to Scented Plants 
is an authoritative guide
to creating beautiful,
well designed gardens
that are highly scented,
and shows how scent can turn
a good-looking garden
into an unforgettable one.
Price - £25
(But your's will be a present
if you'll review it for me
'cos you are a gardener.)

It's the Royal Horticultural Society's 'Companion to Scented Plants'. It arrived before Christmas and I really have been too busy to give it proper attention. Do you have time to give it yours?

I also have a problem with this book. It's probably to do with not being a gardener. It's ever so thick. (And heavy!) It has masses of pictures and loads of information. There are chapters about

Planning Your Garden

Planting With Trees and Shrubs

Walls and Vertical Planting

Roses

Herb Gardens . . .

those sorts of things.

And each chapter has a list of plants with descriptions.

Which is all good.

So what's my problem? I like honeysuckle to be called 'Honeysuckle' and have 'Lonicera' in brackets. I like jasmine to be called Jasmine and hyssop to be under 'Hyssop' not 'Hyssopus'. I'm a heathen. A barbarian. A street urchin. Latin is useful. Latin is important. Latin should be there. But me? If I see Latin coming first my prejudices run riot and I get cross. Which is not fair to the book.

So . . .

as many of you are gardeners, there's bound to be one who can give this book its proper credit. Volunteer to review it by saying so in the comments (by the end of February) and I'll pick a person at random and post it to you. How's that?
(I'm really sorry but the offer has to apply to Europe only - (including whatever we're called - UK? GB? something along those lines!) - postage costs!)

Tweet