One thing I really notice about bringing our kids up in an urban environment is the lack of flowers you can pick. Growing up on the bush outskirts of Melbourne we always had flowering plants somewhere in our huge yard and we picked them as we pleased. In retrospect, possibly not as my mum pleased though.
On our walks around our local area I feel like I’m constantly saying to the kids “don’t pick those flowers” or “they belong to the person who has grown them” or “leave them there so everyone gets to enjoy them.” Every now and then we sneak a cheeky daisy where the flowering is so prolific that no one is likely to miss it, but that’s about it.
So when we spend time at my parent’s place on the Gippsland Lakes, it’s as though they’ve been let loose in a veritable flowering garden of Eden. And while I do subscribe to the theory of leaving beautiful things be for everyone to enjoy, there’s nothing like gathering a big bunch of flowers from the garden, feeling the stickiness of stems and sap, the velvet touch of petals against your fingers and inhaling the scent all to yourself.
After a recent gathering spree we dissected some flowers . Well, not so much dissected as simply reduced them to their constituent parts. It’s remarkable just how many tiny bits and pieces make up a seemingly simple flower.
The inspiration to pull our flowers apart came from this post to which a lovely friend recently linked me after tipping, correctly, that I’d love it.
Another flowery craft that harks back to when my mother was a whippersnapper, is this gorgeous plate of fresh blooms.
Sophia made that one and it lasted with all the flowers in pristine condition for four days next to our bed. Such a beautiful thing to do for guests who are staying.
You simply lay cotton wool balls on a plate, spray them (generously but not so much that they are saturated) with water and then layer your petals, or indeed whole flowers, on top.
And yes, as you can see, you can draw a cheeky face on a rose bud to make your plate that much friendlier.
Other beloved Spring activities are running through sprinklers…
and playing EXCITING ball games.
And yes, thanks for asking, I am actually thinking of a career in digital graphic design after such a sterling effort on Olive’s little top there. The more I botched it the more it made me giggle and so the more I did. I think the scalloping is an especially subtle touch don’t you?
And here’s the patch we got the daisies from. I call this photo “I am smiling, mum”.
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