Photos

This is what I see from my kitchen window.

I include a photo from my garden (or, sometimes, from a garden I’ve recently visited) at the end of every post I send. That’s what you see populating The Hard Prune homepage. I take all of the photos myself, and while I’m not a great photographer (yet), I’m trying.

I’ve been renovating the garden around my home for the past seven years, filling it with perennials, polinator-friendly flowers, and welcoming spaces for wildlife. I’ve grown geums, black-eyed susans and sunflowers from seed; planted comfrey, asters, wild garlic and echinops lifted (with permission!) from other gardens; deposited hundreds of tulip and alium bulbs; scattered poppy and wildflower seeds; turned dozens of bins of compost; regenerated shrub roses and religiously pruned hydrangeas; pricked my fingers on brambles, quince, and berberis; made uneasy truces with snails; shared my berries with a fat pigeon; let oregano take over a bed for the sake of the bees that love its purple flowers; kept the birdbath full for the blackbirds; and killed more unfortunate nursery-grown plants than I care to admit.

One of my greatest joys is watching ‘my’ plants come into bloom, which is nearly a year-round event in England, where there are even flowers in January! I take photos of plants as they flower to share that joy with you, and also to remind us that, no matter what we humans get up to, the natural world continues to travel its cycles and share its beauty.