Summer shots

10 Nov '06 5:36 am

I'm sure the NZers here will be curious about whose gardens are featured in your magazine ,Jack. There are many 'open' gardens to visit as one travels the country ,and they feature in our NZ magazines -'Titoki point' ,'The Ridges. ,Bev McConnells,and Papich's at Langs beach would probably be the most well known of the North island's.
I am leaving in a couple of hours for a trip to Waiheke island in the Auckland harbour ,with 25 members of my garden circle .We have 15 gardens to visit ,over three days ,and am very excited ,though stormy weather in the last couple of days has been a concern for someone whose feet like to stick to terra firma ! Like Moosey ,I have a new 'floaty dress'in shades of blue , but alas ,it's freezing outside !
Yes ,I would be interested in your view of proportions ,Jack .Is that what you mean by 'contrasting scale '? When viewing gardens ,one notices that some have 'got it right' but it is hard to verbalise how that happens.When you get time to write it will be interesting.
Dixie

10 Nov '06 6:26 am

What a fabulous cottage! Picture perfect itself Smile

Crikey dixie...I hope you have your floaty dress weighted down in the hem cos it is so wickedly windy here even the ducks in the pond are land-bound Wink

10 Nov '06 7:09 am

Dear Jack! Your famous dam is always the king of your beautiful photos! 1,8, 9, are photos-paintings! And I included this lovely photo with the pink Gaura and the terracota beautiful pot!

But , when I saw these two with the pond larger, I just started ..walking over there, I actually went far away on the other side of the pond, and I was lost ...in the woods! You are so lucky living so close to this kind of Nature, Jack! I bet , you walk in the woods often with your dear doggies! Smelling the wet leaves, listening to the birds, to the soft wind dancing with the leaves, feeling and listening to your own steps walking on the leaves... The sounds of Divine silence...What a blessing..

Your texts , as always , are in prfect harmony with my mind and soul! No comment...

10 Nov '06 9:18 am

I feel inspired to post photos! You've all given me courage! Hurrah!

Now if I just had some photos... that would be nice. Very Happy

I'll make a point of getting some this weekend. Weather permitting. (It's a bit yucky outside at the mo. Sun one minute, cloud and gloom the next.)

11 Nov '06 7:38 am

C'mon, Anna - get clicking! Tell you what - it's fun, particularly when you have a humble project (for example, weeding) to dress it up into a photographic documentary! It certainly gives you something to giggle about.

And Jack, once again your writing has me rivetted (correct spelling?) to the office chair, when I should be out there doing big things. Not sure if that is the nicest image, actually - but I so admire the way you know and love your plants, and the history of your garden. I read your symphonic sentence - and wondered about taking the parallel further. For example, what would a jazz inspired garden look like? All that improvisation... hee hee. I decided it would look good in a garden magazine interview, and possible that's where it would end!

jack, do you grow a rose called Madame Caroline Testout? She is a new one for me, and has taken my breath away on the orchard. My 'new' old roses are starting to cover the archways there - exciting times! I'm hopng that the truly rural rose care will be easy - fresh air and space and sun, and no temptation to plant anything else anywhere near. No spray? Nice...

Leaving with my head full of rosy thoughts,
Cheers

13 Nov '06 3:59 am

Saturday. I started writing a long introduction about a day which included a busy and exhausting morning meeting where I needed to say harsh things yet remain positive about an education system in transit (all following on the transformations in South Africa over the last twelve years). It became a treatise, so I scrapped it. Let’s just say that I was very pleased to leave my work and its cares behind and go on a long walk with the dogs on this perfect summer afternoon.

And so I present a photo essay: on my walk the words of a famous gardening poem came to mind, as they often do during this time of summer lushness. In the peace of the garden after the meeting it dominated my thoughts so much that it became the theme for the photos. Join me as I walk around the lakes. ( Note how you have made me think of them less and less as dams!)

Here is the poem – or rather the last verse of it – from The Garden by Andrew Marvell, c. 1650:

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness:
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other world, and other seas,
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.

13 Nov '06 4:11 am

Jack! I have already told you, and very seriously, that your photos are like a poem! I mean it! Because, they have the same inspirational, joyful effect on my whole being, when I see them!! Well, you can imagine I was walking with you!!...

You just did what I thought I would do , if I were you : you walked with your doggies to the other side of your...lake/pond! My mostly loved photos this time, are the nos 63, and 70!

Thank you for the experience!

P.S. : ...And the poem by Andrew Marvell, is just ...a marvell!

13 Nov '06 4:35 am

Damm! I was in the middle of posting pics and I seem to have reached my maximum quota and can't post any more. So I tried to cheat the system and register under another name on my other address, but got the same message! Help Eggy!

13 Nov '06 4:37 am

Testing testing testing

13 Nov '06 5:12 am

Trying to buck the system again...

And I've succeeded!

Hallo all - this is the real Jack Holloway finishing my post by using my other address to register anew!

HA! GO THE SPRINGBOKS! Wink

Summer shots

NZ Gardens

Photos-Paintings!

A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE

"Walking" with you...

A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE

GREEN THOUGHT SLIGHTLY TINGED WITH RED

Green thought?