IMPRESSIONIST VIEWS

Sue Webber was the first journalist who, when writing about my garden in 1996 for the Australian Country Style magazine, said that it was like a living Monet painting with the pastel blue and mauve dotted by splashes of crimson from the poppies. At no time is the similarity to impressionist painting truer than on a misty morning. In the view below you see the winding brick path leading to the front door of Das Helwig Haus B&B. Perfume from the white star jasmine sprawling over an old stump pervades the damp air. Dark blue cornflowers mingle with lighter blue ‘Love in the Mist’ and pink snapdragons demand to be noticed, while further away red poppies dot the greenery and spears from red hot pokers thrust upward against the rounded foliage of shrubs.

Star jasmine beside brick path.

During this season of the year I sometimes wake to find my view enclosed by a misty ground fog. It is magical to wander in my garden at that time, because I can imagine myself anywhere in the northern Hemisphere or New Zealand due to the plants that I have established here at Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt. Over the years so many of my guests have told me, “This garden  reminds me of my mother’s garden in England or New Zealand or Holland.” What they are saying, it that particular plants growing together give them this feeling of nostalgia. It is the plants like foxgloves and forget-me-nots that they don’t see in most Queensland gardens.

The red Flanders poppies were a weed of the wheat fields of Europe. They flourish in cultivated or disturbed soil. The seed is small and hard, able to withstand changing wet and dry weather conditions without rotting. It may remain dormant in fallow soil or grassland for many years until that ground it cultivated, at which time it will burst forth to delight the eye of the beholder. I never need to plant the poppies within my garden as they self-sow their seed and germinate in various locations each year. The seedling is easily recognised and removed as a weed if growing in an inappropriate position.

Misted spider web

My garden plants itself with many of the old favourites like love-in-the-mist with its dainty blue, white or pale pink flowers within a fern like foliage. Unlike modern hybrid seed, the old cottage garden annuals seed profusely with fertile seed. Our decomposed granite soil contains no clay, making it friable. I’ve added mulches which enables the soil to remain moist thus aiding the germination of these seeds. Truly, removing crowded flower seedlings is my greatest weeding task.

Love in the mist with poppies.

As a country child I was sent away to boarding school for my high school education, at great cost to my parents. Apart from the standard curriculum the school offered additional classes in optional subjects. I asked my parents to be allowed to study art, but they saw this creative pursuit as no more than a hobby, and refused my request. They considered it necessary that I should learn the skills of ballroom dancing and tennis to fit me for the country social round.

Always a gardener, I turned my creative talent into painting with live material. It wasn’t until we moved to Glen Aplin that I found a bare canvas on which to transpose my art form.

Smoke bush

I have chosen a variety of leaf textures, shapes and colours, spreading or upright forms when distributing these shrubs and trees throughout my garden. Daffodils and other bulbs bloom during late winter beneath the deciduous trees and as these bulbs cease their display and dry off, the opportunistic annuals seize the moment to emerge.

The smoke bush Cotinus coggygria has plum coloured leaves in the spring which contrast darkly against the many shades of green, to frame this view. The tiny flowers appear on large, much-branched panicles giving the shrub a smoky appearance.

As always, when walking with my camera, I am drawn to photograph the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies. In the mist, our home Das Helwig Haus B&B , is almost obscured by the surrounding greenery. Moisture lies heavy upon the poppy petals, as indeed it must have done many times in the Flanders fields during World War One.

Poppies shrouded by mist.