Thursday, July 2, 2009

Watering Can


Watering Can
Originally uploaded by linfrye
Daily Practice
Journal


My dear friend, Lisa (http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoom-in-tight/) kindly allowed me to use her photograph for this sketch. I love her photographs and she never fails to inspire me with her keen eye and wonderful photography!

I'll admit I didn't achieve any looseness here - as I was focused on the textures and the varying wood tones .. but I loved the feel of her photo and the sense it gave me of a gardener who has left her garden only for a moment! Could have been me! LOL

After visiting Italy, I have fallen in love with geraniums - especially red geraniums. These bright flowers and ivy-shaped, variously hued green leaves seem to appear on every balcony, in every pot, on tables --! Everywhere!

They're relatively easy to grow and do well in most soils as long as the soil drains well. Outdoors, they'll flower until frost, but cut off the spent blooms to encourage additional flowers. They're simple to propagate by cuttings - so if you want to have geraniums for next year, clip a few cuttings (make sure you have several nodes with leaves removed), and dip the end with the nodes in a root encourager like Roottone, and place in a good potting soil. Keep the soil moist and place the cuttings out of direct sun until roots are developed. You can watch this plant grow all winter!

I got curious about the sheer numbers of this plant in Italy. According to several sources, red geraniums symbolize friendliness, comfort and health -- hmmmm ... sure fits the spirit of the folks I met in that country!

Lin Frye
North Carolina

2 comments:

  1. Lovely contrasts in textures between the wood, the teapot, and the plant. Geraniums have always been a favorite of mine, too. What a bright and happy painting!

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  2. Wow, Lin, that was cool, and very informative! Lovely complement to your painting...and now I want to root geraniums!

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