One of those I look forward the most is the Amelanchier. This year it is glorious. The five petalled flowers are just loving this warm dry weather that we are enjoying now. It is a mighty shrub but hard to photograph in its entirety, so here is a close up. As I am sitting here I can not see the plant but the petals are floating past on the wind.
I painted a small sketch last year, below, now sold.
This year I have painted it at my bed room window in the early morning ( if you have read the previous posts you probably recognise the Winifred Nicholson window theme...).
The viburnum is another favourite is out and I can see it from the window by the computer but to appreciate the scent better to be right by it!
On the subject of scent I got a lovely surprise today when (finally) trimming back last years flower stalks from my old english lavender (large, late flowering, pale lavender variety). The scent was overwhelming.
I am now sitting typing this imbibing the gorgeous aroma of the clippings and re reading a fabulous poem by Pablo_Neruda which came to mind. It is about the scent of a Peumo Tree, do go to this link for a charming website about Chilean plants. As usual with his poems, I don't really understand this but the feeling evoked by a the scent of a plant is something I can relate to.
Peumo Tree
Pablo Neruda
I broke a glossy woodland leaf: a sweet
aroma of cut edges
brushed me like a deep wing that flew
from the earth, from afar, from never.
Peumo, then I saw your foliage, your minute,
curly verdure, cover its earthly trunk
and your fragrant breadth with its impulses.
I thought how you're my entire land: my flag
must have a peumo's aroma when it unfurls,
a smell of frontiers that suddenly
enter you with the entire country in their current.
Pure peumo, fragrance of years and hair
in the wind, in the rain, beneath the mountain's
curvature with the sound of water running
down to our roots, O love, O wild time
whose perfume can be born, issuing
from a leaf and filling us until we flood
the earth, like old buried pitchers!
This year I have painted it at my bed room window in the early morning ( if you have read the previous posts you probably recognise the Winifred Nicholson window theme...).
The viburnum is another favourite is out and I can see it from the window by the computer but to appreciate the scent better to be right by it!
A very quick sketch of the viburnum a couple of weeks ago:
On the subject of scent I got a lovely surprise today when (finally) trimming back last years flower stalks from my old english lavender (large, late flowering, pale lavender variety). The scent was overwhelming.
Peumo Tree
Pablo Neruda
I broke a glossy woodland leaf: a sweet
aroma of cut edges
brushed me like a deep wing that flew
from the earth, from afar, from never.
Peumo, then I saw your foliage, your minute,
curly verdure, cover its earthly trunk
and your fragrant breadth with its impulses.
I thought how you're my entire land: my flag
must have a peumo's aroma when it unfurls,
a smell of frontiers that suddenly
enter you with the entire country in their current.
Pure peumo, fragrance of years and hair
in the wind, in the rain, beneath the mountain's
curvature with the sound of water running
down to our roots, O love, O wild time
whose perfume can be born, issuing
from a leaf and filling us until we flood
the earth, like old buried pitchers!
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