Friday, April 5, 2019

dahlias at dusk










Last night as Bren was filling and rolling the haloumi and salad roti wraps for dinner, I looked out the window and saw the golden glow on the flower garden. Jazzy had already had a shower and gotten into her pyjamas but Pepper was still dressed (and covered with texta drawings). I asked her to grab a pair of secateurs and to follow me outside.

The breeze was still warm from the day as we walked up and down the rows snipping and chatting and snapping. We were spoiled for choice and quickly picked an armful.

After almost 10 years of blogging I know that the fewer photos I take of a scene the better and the quicker when it comes to editing and choosing, but still the light was so perfect that I couldn't help myself. Between 6.50 and 7.04pm I took 34 photos. How fine it is to live in the digital age.

I am savouring these moments of floral abundance. I am trying to imprint their headiness on my soul. I walk the rows often running my fingers over their soft petals and bouncing them off my palms. I spend minutes watching the bees collecting pollen. I love seeing the flower petal confetti covering the floor. I hope that the few who still haven't flowered will put on a last minute show. I dead-head them to encourage more growth. I pick them at every opportunity. And I adore them and tell them so often.

These past few days I have noticed that some of the stems are starting to be thinner and not able to hold up their heavy headed blooms. I have seen the dahlia faces open up with their centres blown. I have been trying my hardest not to feel sad about these signs of the end of the season but instead to admire their new phase.

You know what? I wish I could give you this bunch of flowers for your weekend. I love the thought of you holding them in your arms, turning them over to look at each one, taking them home and into your kitchen, filling up your favourite vase with water and them arranging them just so. And then as they catch your eye over the weekend you'd be reminded of how grateful I am for your company. How much it means to me that you come here each week and read my words. How my stories have meant something to you. How you've seen my girls grow over the seasons. How your comments make me think and feel and wonder.  How even though we've never met you still feel like my friend.

Thank you!!

It just occurred to me that I don't think I've ever asked you what your favourite flower is. I'd love to know.

I hope you have a beautiful weekend my friends.
See you next Friday.

Love, Kate x


49 comments:

  1. Dear Kate,

    I enjoy reading your blog each weekand look c oirward in anticipation to it on Fridays.

    I just caught the imaginary bouquet of flowers you sent and will arrange them in my imaginary vase, as soon as I finish tbis reply, so that I can think of you as I look at them. Thankyou. They are gorgeous. Any flower given to me is beautiful - especially the grubby handed ones I used to get from my children many years ago. Thanks for the memories.

    Regards, Robyn

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    1. I love that and couldn't agree with you more, a given posy is the best posy of all. xx

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  2. Hi Kate, I used to live in Victoria and grew dahlias, so lovely and showy, but my favourite flower was and still is the daffodil. All those golden heads nodding in the spring breeze to cheer you up after winter. I too enjoy your blog and look forward to reading it. Your photos inspire me thank you so much Kerry

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    1. Thanks so much Kerry, I love the golden daffodils too, such a treat after the gloomy winters. x

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  3. Hola Kate, gracias por ese precioso ramo de flores, me parece maravilloso, como todas las flores, me gustan todas!!!! ...son un regalo para la vista y alimento para el alma,las flores desde la mas sencilla hasta la mas sofisticada , todas, son una creación perfecta de la naturaleza, me cuesta elegir una... Hasta el próximo viernes, feliz semana!

    Traduccido por Google:

    Hello Kate, thank you for that beautiful bouquet of flowers, I find it wonderful, like all flowers, I like them all !!!! ... they are a gift for the eyes and food for the soul, flowers from the simplest to the most sophisticated, all are a perfect creation of nature, I find it hard to choose one ... Until next Friday, happy week!

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    1. I love that so much Karmen and I think I'm the same xx

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  4. Thank you so much for the dahlias and the aster! I would love to have such a bouquet right now (it snowed yesterday in switzerland, crushing the tulips and daffodils!). I come to read your blog every friday and to me it means the start of the week end, the things that will come in a few months and a kind of peace.

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    1. Oh no, your poor flowers. I hope that a week later more have come to take their places. Have a beautiful weekend. x

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  5. Thank you Kate for that lovely bunch of flowers.
    I don't know what my favourite flower is, I love most of them and especially ones that are picked and given with love. I don't think I can pick a favourite it would be kind of like picking a favourite child.
    Lately though I am drawn to blue flowers in the garden.
    I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
    cheers kate

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  6. Your constant stream of pictures of your dahlia's made me realize that I need dahlia's in my garden too. So I ordered some to plant for next summer and autumn. Thank you for the gorgeous happy pictures!

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  7. Always love your blogs Kate and look forward to them each Friday.... my favourite flowers are Hyacinths not just for their beauty but also the fragrance...I actually love all flowers... so a big thank-you for the virtual bouquet :-)

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  8. Although I love your photos of your wonderful dahlias I've never been very successful growing them. Here in the south of England my soil is very chalky and they just don't like it. However, I do grow sweet peas and they are my all-time favourite. I love the colours, from the palest pinks, mauves, lilacs, magentas and purples. The smell is just heavenly and I love the cut-and-come-again attitude that they have.

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    1. Oh yes sweet peas are one of my favourites too, just beautiful xx

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  9. Hi Kate! It is so amazing to be able to enjoy the photos of your lovely summer blooms through our cold, dreary winter in the northern hemisphere! I feel like I can live vicariously through your summer and though I don't have a blog perhaps just thinking of our summer flowers can do the same for you when your winter comes. My favorite flower is sunflowers, I fell in love with them when I first drove through fields of sunflowers on my first ever trip to France. From then on, they always remind me of southern France (my absolute favorite place in the world) and I finally started my own sunflower patch last summer. Now I have my little sunflower seedlings sprouting in the house alongside the tomatoes, waiting to be planted after the last frost. Thank you for the lovely photos! Sarah

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    1. I love the thought of your sunflowers and tomatoes waiting patiently to go into the ground. I hope they grow big and strong and beautiful. x

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  10. I really love narcissus. And daffodils. And roses and peonies and dahlias. Oh, and sweet peas and zinnias. How can anyone have a favorite??

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  11. I meant lilacs (daffodils was redundant)

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    1. It's true, they're all my favourites until the next variety opens its beautiful face. x

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  12. Thank you, your flowers are beautiful. Lovely to see so much colour we had snow in Shropshire yesterday! My favourite flower has to be a rose, the pink ones are my absolute favourite especially when they have a beautiful perfume too.

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    1. I don't know all that much about roses and their varieties but I absolutely adore them. I really should do some research and put in a row or two. x

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  13. Lovely flowers thank you! I'll put them on my kitchen window cill! Fave flowers are primroses, the wild greeny-yellow ones but close second favourite are daffs as they are so exactly what you need in a British February! The second photo down is beautiful, don't know if you ever compete in flower/veg shows but that's a winner for the photo comp! xxx

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    1. Oh thank you so much Kate, that's such a gorgeous thing to say. x

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  14. Dear Kate, thank you for that wonderful bunch of flowers...I think I will have to grow some of these beauties in my garden this year! Over the years I feel so connected to your side and sight of the world!
    Simone

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    1. I hope you do grow some in your garden this season, they'll bring you so much joy. x

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  15. Lilacs. We have a beautiful lilac festival here in May. We joke that smelling the lilac gives one a little nose-gasm. Hah!

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  16. Those are beautiful thoughts. My favorite flower is the rose.

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  17. It is fragrant roses for me. I love having them in the house, but if I pick them then i can't admire them in the garden.

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  18. lilacs. so totally lilacs. :)

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  19. Love your Friday posts and I can see why you wanted to head outside to that beautiful light....I love light too and always point out to my children flat light and beautiful light when you face one way or the other. Your flower beds have been a beautiful addition to your farm and blogging. Regards Kathy A, Brisbane

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  20. What beautiful photos dahlias are one of my favorite flowers. Just Beautiful

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  21. Lilacs are my most favorite flowers! We moved a few years ago and they don't grow where we live now and I dearly miss them each spring. I also really love sunflowers, tulips and daisies, which, fortunately, can grow here.

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  22. Oh, and cherry blossoms and flaming azalea bushes!

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  23. First, thank you for your beautiful words. I feel touched that you seem to genuinely care. Don't know how to say that without feeling ridiculous .
    As for flowers,I love them all. Really, I do. Irises for my grandmother and roses for their smell. I love the tulips for coming up in the spring when I really really want so see something bloom. Damian'for their ridiculous blooms. Daisies for their simplicity.

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  24. My sister texted me a photo of a bunch of flowers for my birthday, as a joke. I straightway sent her a picture of a empty vase, saying how lovely they looked in my vase. We both laughed, 2 states apart.

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  25. Lovely flowers, so pretty with their different sizes and colours. Thankyou for sharing your photos Kate. These remind me of my parents florist & garden nursery, customers would choose as we cut dahlias fresh for them. I love daffodils as we see them early in the UK, announcing spring on its way. Cx

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  26. Kate - for me - blog posts and images and words like this are what send me into natural orbit! It doesn't get better than this does it? I mean - flamboyant flowers, a lovely girl picking them and the low sun gilding the whole with that translucent light. These are beautiful! The colours of red with purple and a pop of complementary yellow are just intoxicating! Your blooms are amazingly beautiful and I'd love to stand chest high amongst your flowers with the bees and breeze around. Heaven on earth.
    I aspire to grow these types of flowers on my recently acquired allotment in Wales. We've spent back-breaking yet joyful hours clearing 40 years of brambles and manmade rubbish to finally have for this summer a piece of soil in which to plant. It's all I can do to wait to plan what to put where height-wise. To sit in high summer and admire anything like you have will be fantastic! I love your blog and so am putting a link to it on my blog side bar - Alison

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  27. I would happily have viewed all 34 photos! The light is so beautiful, as is your little girl and all those stunning flowers. I am planting flowers on my allotment this year, mainly dahlias, but hoping to add other flowers over time, for cutting and bringing into the house. Another patch will be cleared for a wild flower garden just for the bees and butterflies.

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  28. My favorite flower? Lilac and Dianthus. The lilac (the season never lasts long enough) scent makes me think of my great grandmother. I love the variety dianthus. There's something about the raggedy edge of some of them that makes me think of "beauty in the rough" about them.

    Thank you again for keeping your blog going! I look forward to it each weekend. :)

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  29. we are entering spring here (albeit the weather is kicking and screaming about it) My favorites, the daffodils just shake off the cold and snow and shout "hello spring" Although my goal of a field full is still a ways off, each year they spread and even in the cold I can look out and enjoy them for weeks. I get made fun of for mowing around them into summer, but it is well worth it.

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  30. I will never tire of your beautiful photos! And those flowers...they are all stunning! My favorite flowers are Peonies and tulips.

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  31. Hi Kate
    lovely pictures and your sweet flower girl!!
    My favorite flower:sunflower

    many greetings from Germany

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  32. Of course I read this post a week ago, admired your beautiful golden hour photos, got all teary-eyed about your wish of sharing the gorgeous bunch of flowers with us (especially that every time I look at your photos I wish that I could get some flowers from you :*), I started writing the comment saying that although I rarely comment I hope you know by now that I'm thinking of you and your family and that I'm grateful for your sharing glimpses into your life and all those amazing photos... and then I forgot to click "publish".
    As for my favourite flowers, it's a hard choice, but I'd say daffodils, peonies, tulips and freesias are those that I both love and can get here (as I don't have a garden), dahlias I love more and more especially looking at all your photos but I haven't managed to find them in our local flower shops so far(maybe this summer) and I also love all those wild flowers like hepaticas, wood anemones or pale wood violets.

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Thanks so much for stopping by...

I do read every single comment you leave and appreciate it very much, but I should let you know that I can be a wee bit on the useless side when replying to comments, that's just me, everyday life sometimes gets in the way....so I'll apologise now, just in case.

Kate XX

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