Much Pink

Last month when I did my Yellow round-up, I said, "It will be interesting to see if I can find any pink in the garden at the end of April." I don't know if it is interesting, but I found way more pink than I was expecting!

Let's deal with the scrappy sewing first, so you can skip the flowers if you are not interested. This month I made five pairs of Scrappy Sprouts leaves:

and six of Ivani's Hearts:

I will link this post to the So Scrappy RSC link-up when it is available on the weekend.

Here's the SoScrappy Saturday link-up.

 

In the garden I found pink roses:

Hakea "Burrendong Beauty":

Pink leaves on this ajuga:

Two pink salvias. First Salvia leucantha "Velour Pink":

And then my favourite, the enormous Salvia involucrata which is just beginning to flower:

 Tiny thryptomene:

First camellia flowers of the year!

So delicate looking.

Not quite so delicate, this Billbergia:

The abutilons are flowering again, after being given a severe prune some months back:

And last of all for this post, I found the first cyclamen flower of the year about to open:

I wonder what next month's colour will be? 

(Blogger seems to have decided to stop telling me when people comment. I am trying to sort out where that setting is hiding in the new Blogger. But if I don't reply to your comment, please don't take it personally. I may just not have discovered your comment yet.)

Autumn Colour and Some Slow Sewing

I took this photo of the "October Glory" Lipstick maple a couple of weeks ago:

Beautiful colour! It really should have been renamed "April Glory" for the southern hemisphere. But all the leaves have fallen off now, so I'm glad I got a shot while it looked so good.

Here's my ginkgo that same day:

It doesn't look much different today.

The largest crepe myrtle has lost some leaves without me getting a shot of it at its best, so here's the second largest one today:

The tupelo I bought when at a quilting retreat 3 years ago (that feels like a very long time ago, so much has happened since) hasn't grown a lot, but at least it is giving me a bit of colour this year:

 The liquidambar is red at the base, but is losing a lot of leaves before they turn red:

Last month Pamela posted about a Ukrainian cross-stitch bookmark she was beginning, which is a free pattern from Cliffside Stitches. She finished it quickly, and then used it as a decorative panel on a bag.  I decided to make it as well, although I haven't decided yet what I will turn it into when it is done.

Here it was a couple of days ago:

And this is how it looks tonight:

Cross-stitch is a very calming activity, and I'm enjoying spending 15-30 minutes each day immersing myself in it.

The Garden in April

I started photographing the April flowers this morning, then finished late in the day after a walk near Lal Lal Falls.

Morning dahlia:

Late afternoon dahlia in a different part of the garden:

Not great photo of a canna, but just as a record for myself as I think I have forgotten them in previous months:

Rose:

Salvia, with a few roses round the edges:

Penstemon:

Last of the propeller plant flowers:

Two different, but apparently almost the same, leucadendrons:

This melaleuca that I have never found the tag for, but which Dee identified last month as most likely Melaleuca coccinea:

Thank you, Dee!

The 5th crepe myrtle has developed buds on one branch:

But as its leaves are already turning red, I don't think there will be any flowers on this one this year.

Eremophila:

 

Part of the garden across the front of the house, with lavender, salvias and treasure flowers visible:

Then it was lunchtime, and after that we took at walk at Lal Lal Falls, where there was precisely zero water:

This is the view from the top of the falls, which you can compare with a shot from the same point 5 years ago here.

Shot of the reservoir as seen from the walking trail:

Back to the garden. I have to include this one sad flower:

It is the very last of this year's sweet pea flowers. I've never seen one hang on till autumn before. The new crop for later this year is already coming up.

The saffron crocuses are appearing, one or two each day:

Thryptomene:

Rosemary:

Hollyhocks, foxgloves and cosmos coming to the end of their flowering period:

I'll finish with this pretty nerine hybrid:

There are other flowers around the garden. Lots of pelargoniums. The abutilons are just starting, the Viburnum tinus is flowering, there are flowers on blue chalksticks and echeverias. Some of the hebes have flowers. But this post is long enough I think!

Touches of Pink

I'm old enough to remember when "Think pink" referred to the commercial phone book. A bit of googling tells me that the Pink Pages were replaced by the Yellow Pages in 1975. That was a while ago.

Some newer pink things around here today.

Echinacea:

Cosmos:

Hollyhocks:

 

Hearts and sprouts in progress in my sewing room:

Linked to this week's Rainbow Scrap Challenge link-up here.

In other news, Mum's nursing home re-opened for visitors today. Hooray! Now you have to complete a covid RAT before entering (and get a negative result, of course). I will have to allow extra time for visits from now on - today I got to Mum's room 40 minutes after I arrived at the home.

Getting Together

A week ago Mum's nursing home closed the doors to visitors because there were some residents who were unwell. Not with covid, with gastro. Each day they sent out reports about how the residents were recovering, and no more were getting sick, but the home still remained closed to visitors.  It was particularly upsetting because my niece who lives interstate was coming here for the first time in nearly a year, arriving on Friday afternoon and leaving today. I had planned to take her to visit her grandmother on Friday. But with the home remaining closed it looked like Mum was going to miss out on seeing her granddaughter.

Fortunately some sense prevailed, and this morning this happened:

That is the biggest smile I have seen on my mother for two years. Her face just lit up when she saw her granddaughter. She was so happy!

It was extra hard when it was time to leave though. There is still no news on when visits will be allowed again. It feels crazy because no-one in my mother's section, or even on the same floor, was sick. You might notice in the photo that we had to meet in the library, we were not allowed in Mum's room. I'm not sure what difference that made, but I didn't care, just so long as Mum got the chance to see a grandchild she hasn't seen for so long.

Such an emotional morning.

Back in the sewing room I have now assembled half the blocks from the Quilt-Addicts Evolution quilt kit:

Plus I have been going through my pink scraps, preparing to make some hearts and leaf blocks for the RSC. No blocks made yet.