The Iceni Botanical Artists are doing a Group project to paint a year of Fullers Mill Garden (Flora and Fauna), one of Perennial’s gardens which won the RHS “Garden of the Year” in 2021.
Each participating IBA member has decided which plants/fauna etc. to depict and we are all busy beavering away on our choices. My particular choices are 11 special Snowdrops, Harlequin Glory Bower, Star Magnolia, and several garden vistas to include grey wagtails, rabbits, grey squirrel, otter, roach/rudd and American signal crayfish. The proposed end date for completion of the project is 1st January 2024.
I have composed a Snowdrop calendar so that I do not miss any—January to March 2023 will be a busy field-trip time, so I hope the weather will be kind.
I have just completed today (4 November 2022) the Clerodendrum trichotomum Purple Blaze (Harlequin Glory Bower), which is an extra for me because I visited the gardens to do field work for my first snowdrop which flowers earliest from September-October Galanthus reginae-olgae (Queen Olga Snowdrop), and was asked by Annie Delbridge if I would paint the Harlequin also. She promptly plucked a small branch for me to use as resource and the finished work is below (Artist Code 2208).
When the Queen Olga snowdrop begins to show, only the flowers come up, and the leaves start to appear once the plants begin to seed. So I have painted the snowdrops in flower so far, and am still awaiting for the leaves to appear (Artist Code 2209)!
