Lazy gardening

I've been very lazy with my garden this year, but it seems to have forgiven me.

I love these aquilegia flowers that look like little stars. Hopefully they'll crop up in a painting soon!

This one has been devoured!

Botanical

I've got a banana passionfruit vine taking over my garden and I decided to draw some of its beautiful flowers to use in a new painting I want to do.

It has turned out to be a bit of a race against time - the flowers don't last long on the vine, and once picked they soon start to wilt and shrivel up. So you have to draw them pretty much straightaway.
I sat down and drew one of them yesterday:
Now I just have to wait for another flower to come out so that I can have another practice. And wait for the delicious banana passionfruit to ripen!

Secrets in the garden

I've been noticing lots of secret things hiding in people's gardens lately...

Like this fellow. He's definitely lurking.

I could've sworn this one was real

This is the Nickle-Nackle tree, world famous in Otaki.

So it was with delight that I noticed my neighbours had hidden this wee chap in the herb garden out the front of our house...

Sneaky!