Art in the Garden: A Faerie's Guide to Cottage Garden Colour
The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness has descended over my far flung corner of the world, dear wildflowers. And the cottage garden is a tangle of spent summer blooms and drooping seed heads, nodding gently in the breeze. It is wild and weedy, and all the plants are tinged with burnt orange and caramel now. Rosy pink camellia petals and golden oak leaves flutter to the ground, and the earth breathes a long, deep sigh before settling into her winter slumber.
As the high heat of summer gives way to cool breezes and chill mornings, this little garden goblin can finally get on with the busy work of the season. Weeding, pruning, digging up bulbs and pulling out all the spent summer annuals. It is so satisfying to tidy up the cottage garden, but even on these cool Autumn days, it can be a hot and sweaty job for a wildflower! Phewwf!
I have gathered the cosmos and zinnias I like best, and now I’ll move on to selecting my favourite dahlias of the season, so I’ll know which bulbs to keep for next year, and which ones to give away as gifts. I’m looking at you, Mum!
You may remember the episode where I began planning this new garden at Belladonna Cottage, and how I wanted a colour palette of plum and lavender, apricot, raspberry, and dragon fire orange. I made my selections from pictures in seed catalogues but, it is only now, after a summer spent in observation, that I can truly know the way each individual plant expresses itself, seeing their glorious display of shape and colour in context. The myriad hues and shades, when set against each other, blend and soften, or contrast and pop... and some, of course, clash rather unfortunately. And you can’t really know until you see it all come to life.
Pale pastel and whites flower, for example, lend a sweet, softening effect to their companions in the garden, so I’ll definitely be planting purity white cosmos again, along with whirling butterflies, creamy David Austin roses and white velvet salvias. The same goes for foliage colour, which is why I love to add in silvery saltbush, white sage and lamb’s ears.
I now know, roughly how tall each flower grows, how leafy and sprawling they can be, how large the blooms are, and in particular, the exact shade of their petals. After all, it’s really just another artwork, but this one is made with flowers, instead of paint and paper. I don’t know about you, but I’m really happy with how it all turned out, and I can’t wait to try again next season, with my shortlist of showstoppers.
It’s truly incredible how many seeds are produced from a single plant, which began as a tiny seed itself, just 6 or 7 months earlier. I’m almost certain that Mr. Rose and I could start a whole flower farm from this summer’s cut flower patch alone.
I’m not sure we’ll find a place for all of these beautiful babies come spring, so I might pop a limited number of mixed seed packets up on my online store for Australian garden faeries to enjoy... they’re far too pretty to sit in my potting shed in the dark, and I’d much rather imagine them blooming in cottage gardens across the country, delighting bees and butterflies and inspiring a new generation of green thumbs.
If you’d like to see this episode in full, head on over to ‘The Rambling Rose’…
Designing a Rose Goddess Garden
Planting a garden and watching it come to life over the years must be one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It brings me so much joy to work hand in hand with mother nature, creating something of beauty and magic, a living artwork with my own two hands. Being out in the garden is incredibly healing, sun on my skin, earth between my fingers and toes. It allows me to enter that flow state, where all my fears and anxieties recede, my chattering mind goes quiet, and I feel in a peaceful state of ebb and flow, effortlessly dissolving into the rythym of nature. My heartbeat seems to slow to that of the pace of earth itself, and insights flow to me.
I’ve recently added a film to my vlog ‘The Rambling Rose’ where I show how I created a rose garden in honour of one of my favourite goddesses. You might recall that in my ‘Sowing A Secret Garden’ episode, I introduced you to the different zones in my ever evolving cottage garden, and how I promised to plant a brand new garden bed with you, centered around this stunning goddess bird bath?
When I spotted her on my local buy, swap, sell group, I knew instantly, that she was the one. Faeries love magical garden decor, mirrors, water features, wind chimes and such, and I felt they would be adore this bird bath. I thought, she would make the perfect centrepiece for a rose garden, one that would delight any romantic soul or, sweet little nanna at heart. And, of course, with the hot Australian summer on the way, it would hopefully become a beloved oasis for native birds, bees and other beneficial insects.
But at first, I couldn’t quite decide which goddess she most resembled... and which one I most wanted to honour with this garden. So... let’s start planting, and wait for a sign from the faeries. And, once all that hard work is done, we’ll head on up to my art loft to paint another page of my new illustrated book ‘Wild Faerie Magick’. Finally, a few weeks later, we’ll return to the rose goddess garden for the final reveal.
Watch the full episode here…
Tiny House Garden Project: Chicken Cottage Makeover
In my latest vlog over at ‘The Rambling Rose’, I shared how I gave my chicken coop a cottage garden makeover and figured out what herbs and flowers are best suited to my chookos. I even got to work with some power tools – yes, faeries use power tools! I share a few insights into building a tiny home, living off grid, and starting a cottage garden. And so, I thought it might be nice to share a little snippet here on my blog too…
When I found this little block of land back in 2019, my heart was filled with romantic dreams of creating an off-grid tiny home, with an overflowing veggie garden, an outdoor tub, meandering animals, and flowers everywhere. I thought I’d be self-sufficient, plastic free and living like a reclusive, forest witch in no time. But, dear wildflowers, I had no idea just how hard it would be to make that dream come true.
I shivered through the first three winters, after realising that my solar battery would not see me through the cold and dark and snow, trudging out to start the generator in my gumboots and dressing gown, faerie umbrella in hand, crawling under the house to reset the battery, brushing spiders and cobwebs from my hair. There have been so many challenges, blood, sweat and tears, and a whole lot of mud and mistakes.
But the garden teaches me so many things, and one of the most important is patience, and learning to adapt to your conditions, problem solving, and... when you make a mistake, you can always try again next season.
On one of my forest walks recently, I was drawn to a little creek and considered that, when a rock falls in its way, the river simply flows around it. When a tree comes down after a thunderstorm, it is as if nature just shrugs and simply sends some mushrooms and moss to make it their new home. I felt like the forest faeries were whispering some wisdom to me – mistakes are just opportunities to try a different approach.
My chicken coop has seen better days, and just like me, my two chickens have been doing it tough in their tiny home this winter. Now, as the days get brighter, I thought it was time to treat them to a Spring surprise, and build them a beautiful new home with a cottage garden of their very own. I put together a lovely green and white ‘cottage style’ chicken coop, made the nesting boxes cosy with wood shavings and herbs from the garden, and potted up some flowers to place around the coop. I also put in a little stone path leading up to the coop, and, in a future episode, want to build a ‘Hobbit style’ chicken run with wicker swinging gate and climbing vines. I honestly think I could live in a little green and white cottage surrounded by garden flowers. Hmm... I kinda do!
It looks like my girls are already loving their new home, and I’m so pleased with the result too! I feel much better knowing that they will be safe and warm through winter, and cool in summer here under the leaves of a peach tree. I can totally imagine little faeries sitting on the poppies and blessing my chickens too! Can you?
Watch the full episode here:
Garden Quiche with Potato, Kale & Rosemary
In the latest episode of my cottage witchy vlog ‘The Rambling Rose’, I share this recipe for a simple Garden Quiche, made with seasonal herbs and greens harvested from my very own veggie garden. I also use eggs from my two beautiful chickens, Hollyhock and Foxglove, who have been laying again – another wonderful sign that spring is just around the corner. In the episode, we also gather flowers such as daffodils, jonquils and snowdrops that herald the Return of the Light, or Imbolc on the pagan Wheel of the Year, and use them as inspiration to paint a few pages of my new book 'Wild Faerie Magick'. With this Garden Quiche we enjoy a simple brunch and a cup of tea in honour of the goddess Brigid. Here’s the recipe…
Ingredients
8-9 free range, happy eggs
2 sheets of vegan puff pastry
1 tbsp of plant-based butter
a splash of almond milk
50g of almond feta
a small handful of kale leaves
a sprig of rosemary, stem removed
1 potato, sliced thinly
salt & pepper, to taste
Method
Preheat oven to 200°C and grease a pie dish with the butter.
Press pastry into the pie dish and around edge to form a crust, trimming excess. Poke holes with a fork and press around the edges for a decorative effect.
Whisk together 6 eggs, milk, salt and pepper and pour on top of pasty in the pie dish.
Spread potato gently on top of the egg mixture and then crumble the almond feta on top. Strip the stems from the kale, wash the leaves and chop roughly, then sprinkle on top along with the rosemary. Crack the remaining eggs on top and gently break the yoke.
Brush the pastry edges with a little extra egg mixture and bake for 25-30 minutes until pastry is golden brown. Enjoy!