Garden Blogger's Bloom Day: January

Once again it's time for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, brought to us by every garden blogger's friend, Carol at May Dreams Garden. Now, given that we here in Scotts Bay are back in the Fro-zone (a chuckle for anyone who loved The Incredibles as much as I did!) there's perishing little to show off in terms of blooms outdoors. And while we still have plenty of flower festivities happening indoors, I showed them all to you in December's edition. So whatever could I use for blooms in January?


How about a little of my indoor blooms that last all year round? We have quite a bit of interesting floral-motif artwork and such throughout the house, especially in my office, since I spend so much time in there. But this leather sunflower scupture, which is about 3 feet tall, blooms on the wall in our living room. A local leatherworker created this for me, and he does freestanding leather flowers as well as pictures and sculptures like this.


Suzanne Craig is a very talented gardener and artist living near Mabou, in Cape Breton. She does photos and other items using her unique printing method, but what I really like is her switchplates and socket plates. This one is of seaweed, but I also have ones with violets, poppies, and other flowers, in various places around the house.


A young woman who took the Horticulture program at Kingstech made this sculpture of copper echinaceas for me a couple of years ago. Sometimes I think I might take the copper cleaner to them, or at least to the petals, but haven't done so yet. Pretty unique, aren't they?


Allan Banks is a daylily grower here in Nova Scotia, and does these wonderful ceramic tiles of some of the daylily cultivars in his garden. He also makes jellies and vinegars using daylily flowers, but I haven't tried those yet.


While I take a lot of photos and get some of them blown up and framed, I also enjoy other people's work, both photography and painting. The blue poppy painting was custom done for me, while the gladiola photo and painting are fundraisers from Marg's Glad Garden, which I've written about in several magazines, including Reader's Digest. Oh, and there are those wonderful beeswax flowers, too.


This is a wonderful collage of real flowers, placed on a flatbed scanner and used to create a 'painting'. It was done by a woman in Prince Edward Island, but she doesn't seem to still be in business. That's a pity, because her work is really beautiful, and I'd hoped to add a few more to my collection.


I don't grow gladiolas, but every year I buy the fundraiser painting or photo from Marg's Glad garden when I go to see Murray and the garden. Usually there are many happy hummingbirds zipping around the garden, and they make ME happy. The other two pictures in this shot are from a science trip made with the Canadian Coast Guard ships Hudson and Alfred Needler in October of 2005; I took many of the photos, (at least, those on ship or from the zodiac, not the underwater photos) and one of the digital wizards on the trip made up posters for all of us.


Okay, I realize that these aren't flowers, as such. They are, though, fabric flowers as far as I'm concerned, because they're bursting with colour and joy. They're the work of a very talented fibre artist in Bear River, Nova Scotia, Zoe Knorek-Onysko of Oddacity Designs. Her eye for colour and pattern and joy shows up in everything she does, whether its her twice-dyed silk scarves, cosmic cat pillows (like these two), tea cosies, purses, or dresses, jackets and other clothing. I always enjoy visiting her studio, although I don't get there very often, and invariably something comes home with me.

So that will have to do for this bloom day! I'll look forward to seeing what others have blooming this month.