Books and Flowers

We picked you some flowers from Bertha's garden. We have been so delighted that every week a new jewel has appeared. Bertha lived here for most of her long life and her garden is a gift she has left for us to enjoy. We have had Snowdrops, Aconites, Bluebells, Tulips, Forget-me-not, Lilac and the blossom snow from the Cherry trees was breath-taking.
We are gradually bringing in our own belongings and flowers inside too making it feel a little more like home every week.
 The beautiful boy has a quiet corner for homework..
 Books, the substance of a home, are quickly filling what few shelves we have available...
 And here are flowers and a book for you! At last a giveaway! Conran Octopus sent me a copy of this feast of a book all about Orla Kiely - both autobiographical and a visual delight - page after page of her delicious designs, sources and all in all an inspirational peek into the work and life of one of my favourite ladies of design.
 I could look at it for hour upon hour, her use of colour and the deceptive simplicity in her work is, in the truest sense, awe inspiring.
 So, for this giveaway - finally kicking off the year in May!!! Tell me your favourite flower and the reason why. I can't wait to hear! For me it is, of course Lavender as I have said before, the scent of my beloved Grandma on warm summer afternoons.
I shall be back before June to choose a winner so take some time to think about it!
Meanwhile work is becoming rather over-whelming. The first events of the year have been and gone and there is much excitement around two Embroidery Workshops I have been invited to run in the centre of Norwich. If you are interested in receiving details drop me an email (link in my profile) and I shall ask for you to receive the mailing when it is printed.
And there has been a vintage haberdashery bonanza! I shall be selling some of the hundreds of packs of rainbow coloured bias binding somewhere soon, let me know if you would like to know more.
We are getting there. Slowly. In our own way. t.xxx

Comments

Hazel said…
OOOh I'd love to enter. My favourite flower would have to be the Hyacinth. I love its smell and its many different shades. Just a perfect boost of spring after a cold winter. x
Kimberley said…
Please count me in to the giveaway...my favourite flower is very hard to choose. I love them all! I trained as a florist when I left school a while ago now(!) and the smell when walking in to the shop first thing in the morning will stay with me for ever. My absolute favourite though are Lily of the valley. They remind me of my lovely mum x
Sandies' Patch said…
Well Hellooo! Glad you are back!

Looks like you are settling in nicely, there's never enough book space though!

Please enter me in your giveaway, my favourite flower has to be the Rose. I first fell in love with it in my Gandma's garden. There was a Albertine rose (I think), the colour and perfume was gorgeous!

I'm eagerly awaiting my rambler rose 'Fleur De June' to flower, it has buds on already in profusion and the perfume is heavenly.
I like all flowers really, especially Lavender and Clematis with the Roses.

Have a great weekend.

Sandie xx
Planet Penny said…
My favourite flower? gosh that's hard, but I suppose I always come back to roses, the smellier the better, there are so many memories tied up with so many different roses. Bertha's garden looks like it's really turning up trumps for you. Lots of luck and love for you and the BB in your new (and hopefully nearly finished) home x
OP SHOP MAMA said…
I love the splendid IRIS most of all.. such a variety of colours and so grand. I now have a daughter called Iris actually!
Lily of the Valley also reminds me of my Mum.. and hydrangeas are right near the top of list.. and peonies.. and zinnias!!

Thanks for the giveaway opportunity!
Frances said…
it's grand to see the photos showing how you are creating such a beautiful home. I also like the way you have described Bertha's garden as a gift to you and that Beautiful Boy.

Orla Keily's designs are brilliant, in that very sophisticated distillation of her botanical inspiration.

I don't think that I can choose a favorite flower, because I look forward to each bloom that crosses my path as each year progresses. You may recall that I am a gardenless city dweller who relies on beautiful Central Park and city flower shops for my floral inspiration. Right now the shops are full of lilacs and peonies and they are amazing...but it was only weeks ago that I was admiring tulips and daffodils, forsythia and flowering cherry, pear, apple and dogwood trees.

They each give us a delicious bit of a recurring feast!

xo
Ivy Black said…
Gorgeous photos, it all looks beautiful.
My favourite flower is the rose. It reminds me of the scent of my grandma's garden and how we used to make rose petal perfume when I was little.
xx
Pomona said…
I am glad that you are settling in - the cushions look lovely, and the garden sounds wonderful.

My favourite flower is also lavender - I grow lots and lots in my garden, dry it and make lavender bags, and use lavender oil all the time. And jasmine is my second favourite.

Pomona x
Unknown said…
It is so wonderful to see you back posting - and in great demand too.

At the moment I can't decide on my favourite - Lavender is quite prominent amongst my favourites - but I'll give it more thought and pop back.
Shell said…
My favourite flower is pulmonaria. My gran used to have them in her garden when I was little so they remind me of my grans rockery. I love the spotty leaves, the colour of the flowers and the way they look sort of papery
KC'sCourt! said…
Sweet Pea - so sweet and delicate
Julie xxxx
Teena Vallerine said…
Oh I'm loving this! Hyacinths! I forgot the Hyacinths! So wonderful that so many of you relate your favourite flower to the memory of a loved one. Such resonance x
Unknown said…
The flowers look gorgeous! I really love all those floral cushions on the sofa! They look amazing!
Good to hear from you, glad you are settling in.........fav flower? that's not easy........probably Sweet Pea, so sweet. so pretty, so easy to grow with a lovely scent and you can have fresh flowers every day throughout the Summer....
Anonymous said…
Beautiful flowers ,nice to hear you are settling in.
My favourite flower is a peony , i had these in my wedding bouquet and always remind me of my big day.
It is my 4th wedding anniversary on 19th May and have recently planted a peony in my garden to celebrate.
Look forward to reading more of your posts - would love to take a peek at your cottage garden!
Gilly Tee said…
My favourite is a rose as my maiden name is french for rose bush. I would love to know more on the workshops in Norwich so look for a e-mail.
Gillx
Digital Misfit said…
I love the gerbera daisy. The impossibly bold colors and fleshy stems always make me smile. You just cannot look at bunch of gerberas and not be happy!
Geraldine said…
My favourite flower is the Hyacinth. Ever since my little boy Oliver saw one at the checkout in Homebase. He was 3 and said what is that smell.I said Hyacinth and he said "it was the most beautiful smell in the whole wide world"
Ruth said…
I love bluebells and was so happy when we moved into our house to find that I get loads come up every spring. As they are in my garden, I love picking a few to have indoors.

Glad to see that you are starting to get settled in.

xx
Unknown said…
What a fabulous book - thank you so much for a chance of owning it.

I thought long and hard about my favourite flower - I love all flowers and like to do flower arranging - but my favourite flowers I find are the 'humble' English ones - with happy memories attached. Buttercups - did you ever play with them as a child and put a buttercup under someone's chin to see if they liked butter? And daisies - sitting under a tree in the shade making daisy chains for bracelets and necklaces. The simple joys of playing - without 'toys'.

My favourite flower has to be the 'Forget me not' for many years now. It's just a humble little spring flower that self seeds everywhere - which my husband calls a weed. But not to me. My Forget me nots, were grown from seeds from Australian friend's garden. Sadly she passed a number of years ago, but she lives on spreading her lovely blue flowers everywhere in my garden - and they last for ages - especially in 'Maxine's flower bed' right outside my window.

FORGET ME NOT.

Good luck everyone
penelope10 said…
It would have to be lavender. I made many sachets and potpourris after my daughter was born, and to this day, the scent is still there.
michelle kirk said…
my favourite flower is daffodils, for me they just scream everything about spring finally arriving
Gillian said…
What a great giveaway! My favourite flower is definitely Singapore Orchid - had a trailing array of these in white in my wedding bouquet! G
Gorgeous Things said…
oooooh can I enter? Easy peasy --- my favourite flower is the peony, beautiful, big, blousy blooms in gorgeous pinky colours, and smells divine - which is why I chose them for my huge bride's bouquet, almost exactly 20 years ago..... <<>> what a happy day! Thanks for making me remember!
Oh well done - it really does look like home now!
Difficult to choose, and it is tempting to pick one with a delicious scent, but as I've got a streaming cold at the moment and can't smell anything, I'm going to plump for poppies. I now live in the garden flat that used to belong to my grandparents, and like you feel lucky to have inherited well established garden. I've made lots of changes in the 14 years that I've been here, but I still have the big voluptuous poppies that my grandad planted 20 years or so ago. AND I love drawing the seed heads, so they have to be my favorite x
Greedy Nan said…
I thought I knew my favourite flower was a daisy but seeing what everyone else is saying, it's becoming really hard to keep to it but as it was my grandmother's name it's quite special and I'm still going to go for that. Please enter me in the giveaway.
Judi said…
I think my favorite flower is the Peace Rose. An elderly neighbor grew one when I was just a little girl and when she was in her yard pruning and tending the roses I would run to her yard, pull the rose to me and bury my face in it, literally! Sniffing hard I would inhale the scent until I was delirious with the smell. Then she and I would go inside for "muslin tea" in the special china teacup she reserved just for me.

To this day that rose and its smell brings that memory roaring back. A very happy snapshot of my childhood.
potterjotter said…
I have just found your blog and would love to be entered for the giveaway - I love love love Orla Kiely. Favourite flower ? Lilly of the Valley - I read somewhere that in the language of flowers, it stands for 'the return of happiness'. Can't argue with that!
trashmaster46 said…
Mine is the crocus, as it's the first true flower to bloom where I live. Although nasturtiums are quickly becoming the household favorite, as my husband has been discovering how good they taste!
Teena Vallerine said…
HA! That made me laugh so much! I love cut flowers in the house and could not possibly live with a man who was eating them from the vases :)))
Sunflower Fairy said…
Hi Teena

For me it has to be the sunflower every time.

Such beautiful blooms that always turn their heads to the sun regardless of the conditions in which they find themselves.

A metaphore for life I feel.

Wishing you and beautiful boy a beautiful, sunshiny day.
Chicken Jo said…
Hmm a tough call but I think it has to be fireworks of Aliums as they burst through in the spring and look like purple lollipops! I love a real old cottage garden and it sounds like Bertha has gifted you a wonderful one. Welcome back!
michele said…
Its wonderful to "see" more of you these days. I love the new look of your home (and garden) and can't wait to see more of how things progress with your new life in Norwich. Flowers? oooooooohhh. It's so hard to choose! Crocuses, Lily of the Valley, Peonies, Roses, Pansies, Tuberose, Tulips, but my all-time favorite is the Sweet Pea. I love the pretty papery flowers and the sweet scent in a glass mason jar. they grow easily and abundantly when they a're in season, and there are so many varieties with such interesting names!
Patchwork Linda said…
I,ve had sleepless night pondering this and still can't decide but I love roses,freesia,sweet peas,lilac so I think it must be anything with perfume but then again I love peonies for their big blousey flowers.Sorry to be so undecided.Hope I can still be included in the draw.
A Thrifty Mrs said…
That garden sounds fantastic.
I'd love to enter. My favourite flower is the simple and chic tulip. Any type, any colour, I adore them. My grandfather, with whom I lived for a great deal of my childhood, called me tulip and I Mr Thrifty and I had them as the only flowers at our wedding.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I'm so glad to hear things are getting more settled for you now. The garden sounds a real delight. I've been thinking over my favourite flower - I love lilacs, roses, peonies, poppies - all fulsome and gorgeous, but I think in the end, I have to choose the daisy. Because it pops up on the grass no matter what, and cheers up many a dull verge or park lawn. Because you can make daisy chains. Because it was my school badge. Because I love the effect of radiating petals, and doodle them often. Because my mum chose my middle name of 'Marguerite', the ox-eye daisy. Because my husband loves to see them on the lawn, and hates to mow them.
Anonymous said…
Lovely post Teena,what a lucky girl you are having such wonderful flowers in your garden. My favourite flower has to be the Lupin because I love cottagey gardens and these are always found there....xx
Wylie said…
I love all flowers, but have to say that I think iris is my favorite. I have a group of iris in the raised bed outside my kitchen, and just love to glance out and see their beautiful purple faces. I would LOVE to win this Orly Kiely book!
You have a lovely blog :D! When I red the name I thought, joehoe another pink-lover ;)! We're gonna follow you!
My favourite is lilac; they have such an intoxicating scent that is almost addictive. I have three bushes in my garden and virtually everyday since they've been flowering I've been nipping out to smell them.
kitkabbit said…
My favorite flower is the wild violet! I love finding them peeping their heads up through the leaves. Their purple is glorious. I do have some cute other violets like Freckles, but the plain spring violet is my fave. i even candied and froze them in the past for my september wedding cake!

look how cute freckles is!
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/56926/
silverpebble said…
Oh I would love a chance to win that exquisite book Teena. It's tricky to choose my favourite flower but it would have to be something like th Astrantia. it's little pincushion-like muted pink and green flowers are unassuming but so beautiful. It's well worth peering at their beautiful structure.

I very much hope to see you in Holt very soon. Would love a reprise of our evening at Byford's.
dooniebabe said…
I love daffodils, the end of the winter at last!!
Anonymous said…
Bluebells, because they are blue and smell of woods.
prettyshabby said…
Hello T,
I think its wonderful to move into a new house and the garden unfolds itself infront of you each season like a pop-up book full of surprises!

I have too many favourite flowers to pick just one so I will pick one that I couldn't be without in a garden which is the common Grape Hyacinth, Muscari.
When we couldn't find a home to move to having sold ours twice over, as a bit of desperate measure and on a bit of a whim, I visited a clairvoyant. Bizarrely, she described to a T where our current house was and how it was waiting for us and said there was a carpet of blue flowers there.
Thinking literally, we though of an actual wool carpet! but the first spring there was a mass of Muscari in the front garden which everyone described as a being like carpet of blue flowers.
I love it because it's an old fashioned, simple flower often overlooked or classed as an invasive weed, but which reminds me of home.
x
Candy Pop said…
I love it all...... Sigh. :)
Clare said…
I love lupins! They might be a bit old-fashioned but I like their tall, almost geometric pointyness standing ib a clump, each of them different in height but each perfect in their own way. Does that make me strange?
The garden sounds a real delight. I've been thinking over my favorite flowers - lilacs, roses, peonies, poppies - all fulsome and gorgeous, but I think in the end, I have to choose the daisy.
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The hyacinth is unquestionably my favourite flower.