Helen Lehndorf

Category: floral

  • golden sunflowers inside

    I didn’t have much luck with sunflowers last summer – I planted a whole packet in the corn bed but only three came all the way up and one of those got blown over and snapped in a storm.

    Still, the two that made it were glorious in the way that sunflowers are.

    There’s nothing like a sunflower to be a measure of spring/summer/autumn…green and growing up, up, up all through spring and most of summer….then finally the flower head opens and never fails to impress – such a heavy head, such a strong stalk…then you know autumn is here when the petals fall and the seeds start to dry on the head.

    Sunflower’s point-of-view…chasing that sun:

    A bee visits:

    I love Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Sunflower Sutra’ (I nearly chose this excerpt to go at the front of my book, but then I changed my mind at the last minute and felt the other one summed up the book more) – if you care to, you can read the whole thing HERE, there are also great clips on youtube of Allen Ginsberg reading the poem, otherwise here is my favourite part of the poem, which I repeat to myself like a mantra in challenging times:

    ‘We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not our dread

    bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we’re all

    beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we’re blessed

    by our own seed & golden hairy naked

    accomplishment.’

  • fly away home

    I was sitting at the table and Willoughby said: ‘What’s that black spot on your skirt, Mum?’

    It was a green ladybird (I think) – dark, pearlescent green. I’ve never seen a green ladybird before. I looked it up on the ever-wise internet and found that ladybirds can be “yellow, green, orange, grey, white and brown, but are most commonly red. There is even a breed of ladybird which is black with coloured spots.”

    I got her to model for a couple of photographs and then I went and released her back outside.

    When you wear a lot of floral, you attract all kinds…

     

  • the birthday cloth

    I enjoy ironing. I think if you like to sew, you have to like to iron because ironing is such an key part of sewing.

    I even have a poem about ironing in my book, called ‘Sunday Night’.

    It doesn’t mean all my clothes are perfectly ironed, because I am a haphazard ironer. I only do it when I have a spare hour, which isn’t often.

    The other day was a lovely sunny spring day, perfect for a bit of laundry – I got my vintage tablecloths out of storage – thinking ahead to summer meals on our porch. I gave them a wash, dried them in the sun and then spent a happy while ironing them.

    One of my favourite cloths is one I picked up at an opshop, ‘The Birthday Cloth’:

    It has all the months of the year around the outside, with that month’s birth-flower and birth-stone. Here are a few of my favourites:

    As well as the vintagey (50s? 60s?) flowers, I love how quaint and twee it is. A cloth just for birthdays, which women must have laid on the table to serve tea and birthday cake to their friends or family.

    If you like vintage textiles, there is a great New Zealand blog called Glory Box here – where they examine all manner of fascinating stuff around textiles and textile history.

    I think it is important to USE the vintage textiles (and anything else!) you have – don’t worry about spills and wear. I firmly believe there is no point owning beautiful things just to store them. If they get ruined, ah well. It’s a good lesson in not getting attached to arbitrary things…nothing is permanent, nothing lasts forever.

    I’ve used the birthday cloth a few times for friend’s birthdays. It makes people smile.

    I like imagining all the birthdays that might have happened around this tablecloth.

     

     

  • grow your own way

    In autumn I planted a whole lot of bulbs: ranunculus, freesias, gladioli…and the other day the first of my ranunculus flowered.

    I bought all white bulbs, as I’d planned to have all white flowers in pots on the porch for added cooling effect, come summer.

    As you can, see not all of the bulbs came up white.

    Hello, bright pink interloper.

    The same thing happened with the dahlias I planted. The packet said ‘white’ and they flowered bright red.

    I don’t really care – in fact it makes me like them even more somehow. I always do like rebels and non-conformists best.

    Also, why should I get to dictate what ends up in my garden? I share the space with all manner of flora and fauna.

    White or not, they are very pretty, right?