Spring is Sprunging

February 7, 2015 The Crazy Crone flowers, Passionflower Vine, photographs, photography, Uncategorized flowers, photography

I went for a walk today and was amazed at how many plants and trees are in leaf or flower. We’ve had a pretty mild winter (so far, it’s going down to 15C with rain on Monday) and Spring is obviously on its way.

The hawthorn’s May blossom is out, as are the flowers on the orange tree in the communal garden. Hibiscus blossoms are popping out again and the arum lilies in our neighbour’s garden are flowering. Wild fennel is springing up all over the place. Our yellow winter jasmine is in full flower. Our bougainvilleas and passion flower vine have new leaves coming through, as has our jade plant. Some of our Veldt daisies are out. Our bottlebrush has been out as has our grevillea bush. And our cyclamens in the pot in the corner of our garden are also flowering very prettily. Oh, and our freesias have just sent out new leaves so, hopefully, we’ll be seeing the plants in flower shortly.

I particularly love the hawthorn blossom – its scent takes me back to my childhood when my friend and I would go for a long walk to the part at the end of the West Cliff pedestrian area in Ramsgate, south-east England and enjoy the scent of the hawthorn hedges when they were in blossom in spring.

Below are more photos of Spring in North Cyprus!

Red rose in communal garden - this bush is covered with flowers. — Red rose in communal garden – this bush is covered with flowers.

Black-Eyed Susan & Other Garden Goodies

July 3, 2014 The Crazy Crone apothecary's rose, basil, BeFunky, flowers, grasses, Passionflower Vine, photography apothecary's rose, BeFunky, flowers, photography, PicMonkey

I’ve seen a couple of posts on US blogs this week about Black-Eyed Susan flowers and they are quite different to what we call Black-Eyed Susans in Australia and here in North Cyprus. It is a hardy creeper with bright orange to pale yellow flowers. Ours got really whacked in January when we had a viciously cold wind blowing here from north Europe, but it has finally come good and now is a dense creeper over the fence beside our gate.

And since a friend requested some photos of our garden in mid-summer, here are some more photos. Again, I have to ‘fess up that my husband is the gardener, not me, I put the mockers on plants. It amazes me how our flowers, bushes and trees bow and scrape to Bryan and grow like the clappers, while with me they just sneer, shrivel and turn up their toes!

I am also going to take a bit of a break from digital art and post some photographs of North Cyprus, because it’s such a lovely place, and also fish out some photos from my holiday in 2012, including scenery in Scotland and the upgrading/preservation of one of Manchester’s rail stations.

Basil, July 2014 — Basil plant – growing like the clappers, it was tiny when we planted it.

Blue bush, front garden, July 2014 — Bush with blue flowers which has somehow survived the three cats playing in it and knocking it around, as well as the four dogs trying to eat it. Must be a tough cookie!

Bougainvillea Fence — Bougainvillea on our front fence, plus flower garden below (fenced in to stop dogs eating the flowers).

Corner garden, July 2014 — Corner of our garden with bangalow palm – they are very graceful, grow tall and – best of all – sucker and spread giving very elegant shade.

Flower bed 1, July 2014 — Flower bed on right side of our garden.

Flower bed, July 2014 — White daisies – grew from one cutting.

Foxtails 1, July 2014 — Rat’s tails grasses on our external flower bed (or at least, that’s why I call them!)

Front flower bed, July 2014 — View of external flower bed looking east along the path.

Outside flower bed 1, July 2014 — Outside flower bed with bougainvilleas growing through fence.

Passion Flower Vine — Passion flower vine – it’s only been in a month but is spreading like the clappers.

Passion Flower, July 2014 — Passion Flower

Solanum, corner garden, July 2014 — Solanum bush in the corner of our garden – is covered in blue flowers.

Veldt daisies, Apothecary's Rose, July 2014 — Veldt daisies and our Apothecary’s Rose

Green bush, paddock — Finally, I took a photo of this one green bush standing alone in its green-ness in the middle of the neighbouring paddock where everything else is dried out in the summer heat. It stands out like a beacon to hope and courage – dare to be different even when the odds are against you!

Playing with Passion

June 16, 2014 The Crazy Crone art, creativity, digital art, garden, motivational art, passion, Passionflower Vine, PicMonkey, surreal art art, BeFunky, digital art, passion, photography, PicMonkey, Pixlr

Okay, relax because this is not an x-rated post! I have been playing with a photo of our first passion-flower on the vine we bought three weeks ago. We have a bare concrete path running to our small shed that runs along the fence between our apartment and the paddock next door. So we decided to cheer the area up with two bright red bougainvilleas and a passion-flower vine. We had one of these in our garden in Fremantle, Western Australia, years ago. Well, actually, we first planted a moon flower – these are gorgeous, fast-growing vines which, as dusk approaches, suddenly unwind their tight blossoms into huge, white, saucer-like flowers within seconds. Unfortunately this vine was rampant in WA’s climate so eventually we removed it and replaced it with a passion-flower which also has the most beautiful flowers. Sadly this too was rampant, and eventually we had to take it out and replaced with a wisteria, far slower-growing and easier to manage. So we know the passion-flower will cover our empty fence quickly and it’s already started shooting out in all directions.

My husband got one good shot of the first flower and today I’ve been playing with the image. I created a pale blue canvas in PicMonkey, then added some overlays in Pixlr. Then I blurred the edge of the passion-flower photo and added it as an overlay to the amended canvas. I got one image with the passion-flower clear in the centre. But when I was playing with the various levels of overlay, I got one that looked really dark and mysterious, so I added a second image. I added an overlay from the PicMonkey “Space” gizmo, and then decided to call the image “UFO” because it reminded me of being underneath a UFO coming into to land with all its lights on!

Here they are, four images of our gorgeous passion-flower: