The Flowerpot Pen

Once Upon a Chair

This is the second post from my new zine ‘Grow!’. Meet ‘Once Upon a Chair‘ and the creative brains behind it, Liz.

Once Upon a Chair

*Taken from Grow! Winter 2024, 2nd edition.

Liz has been a creative person from a young age, she has used a variety of mediums, painting with acrylics, oils, sign writing, then teaching herself fabric based arts and upholstery. Her sense of curiosity often lead the way.

The items of furniture she works with come from a variety of sources: op shops, ‘finds’, marketplaces, as with the fabrics she uses to cover them with.

These fabrics can also be sourced from shops and websites of other artists. As much of the original fabric as possible is kept to be used again on other projects.

Collaborating with other artists and supporting their work is a high priority.

When designing the finished product Liz takes inspiration from the shapes and style of the piece, “a round, cylinder shaped stool became a strawberry sponge cake, a circular mid century chair became a Koi pond!” she said.

Looking to the future, Liz went on to say “with a high sense of curiosity, there will be many new and different experiences.”

Liz has work displayed and for sale at Glyph Gallery, Port Fairy. 38 Bank St, Port Fairy, 3284. Her Instagram is

@once_upon_a_chair where you will find plenty of images of her amazing work!

Til next time!

Innerbloom Gardening Therapy

In my last blog post I announced I will be sharing articles from my zine, ‘Grow!’, in this format. The idea being to share the information as far as possible.

So here is the first article in the ‘Under the Spotlight- Gardening’ section from the Autumn, 2024 edition.

Innerbloom Gardening Therapy:

Kim has had a diverse working background and has qualifications in both counselling and horticulture; the perfect combination to transform from a gardener to a Therapeutic Horticulture practitioner.

Her business, Innerbloom Gardening Therapy, offers companionship gardening, workshops, educational sessions for schools and kindergartens, and she is running the ‘Grow Community’ program at the Camperdown Community Garden.

Therapeutic Horticulture is the practice of utilising plants and garden based activities to enhance health and wellbeing for people from all walks of life.

Therapeutic Horticulture can help people in a variety of ways: increasing confidence, stress and anxiety reduction, mental health and wellbeing support, and increasing overall health to name a few.

Asked what her inspiration is Kim replied she is “constantly inspired by nature”. Kim finds trees particularly inspiring and used the Sequoias planted in the Otway Ranges as an example. “Trees offer protection and nurturing” she said.

Her business journey has taught her to focus on the bigger plan by “not sweating the small stuff” and it’s given her greater knowledge of the business world, including having confidence in networking and building relationships with other people in the field.

Her advice for anyone wanting to start a small business is to have a passion for what you are doing.

The Japanese philosophy of ‘Ikigai’ which roughly translates as ‘a reason to live’ is something she believes can be applied to one’s work. Simply put, “love what you do”.

Innerbloom Gardening Therapy is putting the emerging field of Therapeutic Horticulture on the map in South West Victoria. We hope it grows and grows!

Kim can be contacted on:

Info@innerbloom.com.au or 0409 401 529

Also FB and instagram.

Til next time!

Grow!

My focus has been diverted lately, from posting thoughts and info on this platform to putting information and interviews in print form.

I have a long held fascination with the medium of ‘zines’. In my youth they were an underground way of sharing music and alternative news.

I had thought they had died out but was pleasantly surprised to learn they are still around.

Front cover on a new zine, ‘Grow!’ — My zine, ‘Grow!’

It didn’t take me long to decide to make my own.

Ta da! Here is my zine, ‘Grow!’.

As you can see, the focus is gardening and art in the SouthWest area of the state I live in, Victoria.

I chose the focus on the southwest to limit my information input.

The idea is to provide information and inspiration to people interested in gardens and the arts (personally I think gardens are art) to inspire their own personal growth by showing what’s happening and what’s possible.

The printed version will only be available locally at the moment, so I thought I would share the interviews I do with gardeners and artists here in this format.

In the first edition I introduced a clever and inspiring woman starting up a Therapeutic Horticulture business. I will be writing that article up first, then I will write up an interview with another clever and inspiring woman who is creating art in the form of beautifully upholstered furniture and other items.

Once upon a Chair

I’m looking forward to enhancing my zine experience and sharing these amazing stories more widely.

Keep an eye out, my interview with Kim from Innerbloom Gardening Therapy is available soon.

Til next time!

Tree Dahlia

I love these plants, they tower over the garden majestically. Tree Dahlia is an apt name, they can grow as tall as a small tree.

It’s been a good season for them here in Southwest Victoria, it’s been cold but we’ve had no frosts or major wind events. The last few years I’ve lost most of the flowers due to these things.

A clump of flowering tree dahlia — A lovely show

I only have two colours, the ubiquitous lilac and a lovely single white which I’m still waiting for. There are a few different pink colours, and a choice of single or double petals. This just describes how many petals the flowers have, single is self explanatory, the ones pictured are singles. Double just means there are more layers of petals around around the centre.

The flowers hang above our heads in clusters making us have to crane our necks back to look up at them adding to their ‘imperiousness’.

They are a magical delight.

Tree Dahlia flowers looking down on us — Looking up.

Once the flowers have finished over Autumn and early winter the leaves will start to die and the tall stems will start to fade. At this point you can cut them to just above ground level, just above a ‘joint’ and give pieces away to all your friends and family.

Cut the pieces into lengths with three or four joints (you will easily see these as the stems look very much like bamboo. They’re not related at all though)

You can either lay the pieces down flat and cover them lightly with dirt, or stand them up with at least one of the joints underground.

They need to be put in a fairly sheltered position due to their height, mainly to protect from wind, but they are otherwise quite hardy. I rarely fertilise and I haven’t dug up and separated the clump for a few years. I might try that this year, see how I go.

I hope you get to see these beauties at some point.

Til next time!

Bulbs

I finally got around to planting the bulbs I received the other day. Go me!

There are two big questions I always get asked about planting bulbs, namely, ‘which way is up?’ And ‘how far down do they go?’

Bulbs, and often their cousins (?), corms, are fairly easy to distinguish between their ‘up’ side and their ‘down’ side but sometimes they are not.

The pictures I have provided are not the bulbs I planted because I didn’t think about this post until I planted them. D’oh! Rather, they are bulbs I found sitting in my garden.

You will notice they have their roots showing, this is always the best way to tell which is the bottom. Which really just makes sense.

Bulbs with text indicating top and bottom — Bluebell bulbs

(Please ignore my bad editing skills)

Jonquil bulb with text indicating top and bottom — Jonquil bulb

Generally on a bulb there will be a base ‘plate’ where the roots appear and often there is a ‘point’ or ‘tip’ which you can see or feel when you gently rub the bulb.

If you still can’t work out top and bottom, don’t worry! Bulbs and corms are incredible works of nature so if you lay them on their ‘sides’ they will grow up the right way! Planting upside down isn’t recommended, but they will still grow!

Now to the next question, how deep to plant? The general rule of thumb is to plant twice as deep as the bulb is long and the same distance apart. This is just a generalisation but it’s fairly standard. If you can’t find specific information, just do that.

One last thing. You might have noticed my helper’s snout in a photo. Never, ever let your dog, cat, child, eat a bulb. Some are ok but lots are very toxic, such as the very common daffodil bulb. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Til next time!

Packages Arriving.

It’s very exciting when a package full of plants and bulbs finally gets to you!

Half the time I order plants then forget what I ordered. I knew I had a red Aquilegia, a chocolate coloured Hollyhock, and some bulbs. But I couldn’t remember which bulbs they were 🤔

Well, wonder no more! They are Allium ‘Purple Rain’ (one of my fave Prince songs), Glory of the Sun (Leucocoryne ixiodes), and Peacock Iris (Moraea aristata).

Opened parcel showing plants and bulbs bought online. — Surprise!

The tricky part is to plant them quickly. These ones will have to wait a few days as I’m going on a short vaycay, but never fear, they will get in to the ground!

Til next time!

Autumn

Autumn has well and truly snuck up on us now. Daylight savings has ended so we can look forward to snuggly nights tucked up inside.

A garden path surrounded by wet shrubs — Up the garden path

We’ve finally got a bit of rain here in South West Victoria, hopefully we get just the right amount, not too much as they have been getting further north of here.

The gentle mists are starting to come in of a morning as well, they serve to keep the grass green.

Autumn is a good time to plant, the soil is still warm and there are still plenty of sunny days. I was meant to get a few beds dug to expand my garden, but that hasn’t happened as of writing this today. Never mind, it will happen if it’s going to.

Drops of rain from a shrub’s leaves — Dripping rain

Another thing to think of are collection points for water. We all have containers of some description sitting about that can fill with the water falling from the sky. It’s a good idea to check them sometimes in case critters of any description get water logged, fall in, and drown 😦

On that sad note, I’ll finish and say,

Til next time!

Bee Food

Gardeners have different ways of thinking and doing. One gardener’s weed infested yard is another’s pollinator’s heaven.

I’m the first to admit I’m a lazy gardener so I fall deeply in the latter category.

A lawn filled with Cats Ear weeds — Cat’s Ear

This is my yard. I refuse to mow the lawn, that’s my husband’s job, but if it’s not done I don’t really care.

I love my field of Cats Ear (Hypocaeris radiate), it’s full of bees and butterflies. And that’s the way I like it.

Closer shot of cats ear weeds — Cat’s Ear closer

Til next time!

Therapeutic Horticulture

What is Therapeutic Horticulture? Who is Therapeutic Horticulture for? They’re the two main questions I’ve been asked when speaking to people about my professional focus over 2023.

In a nutshell, Therapeutic Horticulture (or TH) is using horticultural practices to achieve therapeutic outcomes, and TH is for everyone.

TH can be as simple as keeping houseplants on the windowsill, or as complex as having a vegetable garden, or volunteering in a community garden.

Over 2024 as my TH business, Gardening for Body and Mind, expands I’ll be sharing some of my TH activities.

A couple of benefits achieved through TH are a sense of achievement, and a feeling of being relaxed; there are studies that show this to be true. So in this post I will feature one of my personal favourite activities: flower arrangement (not specifically a horticultural practice, but it still involves the scents, colours, textures of natural elements which make up a large portion of what makes TH work) Seeing I’m on holiday, this is an appropriately calm task that will provide me with both those benefits.

Mantelpiece with a floral arrangement and cards — Floral arrangement, Lily and Hydrangeas

I arranged these flowers on NYE and a few days later they need to be updated. Changing the water, re-cutting the stems, and replacing dead flowers will refresh it.

Deconstructed arrangement ready for renewal — Old and new flowers

I used the Lily again, replaced some hydrangeas, and added some Salvia flowers (I’m not sure of the species name). I will also be using a glass frog at the base to hold the Lily up straighter.

Deconstructed arrangement with Lily now in a frog — Lily in a frog

The finished result goes back on the mantelpiece to be admired for a few more days. I could have cut the lily stem a bit shorter to make the arrangement more compact, but overall I am pleased with the result.

In this simple act of reconstructing a floral arrangement I’ve performed a TH activity, it is something that is possible for most people; the scents of the flowers are good for your soul.

Til next time!

Christmas Eve Eve

It’s the eve of Christmas Eve, that makes it Christmas Eve Eve in my book.

It’s a time for a bit of calm reflection before the start of whichever emotions you will be dealing with on Christmas Day, both positive and negative.

I’m reflecting on all the things I’ve done this year, a year full of intense personal events running in the background of some big changes.

Leaping quite far out of my comfort zone this year, I’ve taken steps to start a business based on therapeutic horticulture principles; Conferences, a business course, pitching my business idea for funding (!!!), laying foundations for a big year next year, and plenty of networking (in itself a massive leap out of my comfort zone)

Close up photo of lilies — Burgundy Liliums

At the bottom of all this activity is a desire to share the world of flowers and gardening to all and sundry. If I can spark a love of the natural world in just a few people, I will consider it a job well done.

I will be posting again next week, probably a bit about those gorgeous Liliums flowering here at the moment.

So thank you to all who read these posts, I sincerely hope you all have a peaceful Christmas.

Til next time!