Early morning garden rituals
Creating space
Hello my fellow creatives and keen gardeners,
Some snaps from the garden this morning and a few words about a new morning ritual I’ve started. Having reached middle age and my kids are grown up and I work for myself - it was easy to slip into the early morning tea in bed routine and luxuriating in the warmth of clean laundry, there are few things more pleasing than line dried sheets. Anyway, this suddenly felt too much like retirement which is too soon and I like to be productive first thing, this is when my mind functions best, so I decided to walk down to the garden shortly after 7am, with a cup of tea. I’ll spend around 20 mins just sitting and listening to the birds, trying to make friends with a little robin through the act of bribe by mealworms, I’m not there yet, he waits till I’ve gone into the studio before he comes and pecks them all up from the table. It’s so peaceful, I know my family are in the house and I will not be disturbed- this knowledge is bliss and is as relaxing as the gorgeous birdsong!
This morning, after a very busy weekend packing orders from my art and ceramics business, I decided that I would paint later, but I would go to my favourite coffee shop first thing and edit my garden pics and write my newsletters (I have two). It’s a bit tricky as my keyboard on my iPad has decided to die, still, there are worse problems to have…
The garden has long been the fuel for my creativity, any garden, not just the one I have now. Spending time in my garden will always clear my mind and fill it in equal measure, it’s like a filter, all the crap fades away and I’m left with the good stuff. I ponder over when winter returns, what will I do, maybe I’ll carry on, light the log burner in the shed and make coffee down here. I like that idea but the reality is I hate the cold, anyway, I’ll see.
On garden news, the mr and I are still trying to decide on the long flower bed- are we doing it or not… and I’m now planting out my annuals, I’ve got my cosmos, larkspur and some scabious in already, I need to plant out the dried flowers next. Slightly miffed by the deer that has munched its way through one of my new roses that I’m trying to grow up the apple tree, that’s nature for you. The dahlias that I’d potted up were crawling with ants so I had to repot them again and they’re up at the house. It must be my year to fail at this, I’ve grown dahlias for as long as I can remember and I’ve always had a great success rate with them. This year I got all casual with it and it shows! Gardening- you get out what you put in!
The view above is looking towards the woodland garden. I’ve got bamboo growing in here which was left by the previous owners, not something I would of chosen but it’s coming in handy as I’m cutting it now for my garden supports that I’ll use to build my dahlia frame (if they ever get that far).
I’m growing a lot of dried flowers this year for Lilly my daughter who’s been taking over the floristry side of the business, she’s a little offshoot- Boho Bunches. Lilly is also an artist, she studied fashion and textiles before doing 3D art, then floristry. She has that creative spark- it’s a blessing and a curse. A creative life is a wonderful thing and I find it works best without restrictions, interruptions and with a stash of cash, the later has always been a tricky one as the business life of a creative means one minute there’s money and then the next there isn’t. It’s not the same for everyone but it’s certainly the same for every creative I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. But I choose this life over the corporate world or the 9-5 working for someone else. You learn to get good at managing stuff. I think my kids have grown up more grounded from this way of living. They understand the value of money and how things shouldn’t be upgraded or thrown away if they work. They’ve learned what it is to live sustainably and not be wasteful.
On other news, I’m currently creating a membership which will be hosted through my Emma Connolly Designs substack I think. It’s a weekly tutorial on either clay or painting and where I will carry on posting my creative business/life musings. I’m exploring the idea of podcasting too. If this sounds like something you’d like to get involved with then I’ll pop the link below to my Emma Connolly Designs substack. It will be £10 pm for everyone that joins before the end of June, after which it will increase to £15 I’ll post more information over there so you can have a proper read before you sign up. My aim is to build a community of likeminded people and share all my years of knowledge running multiple creative businesses and my skills as a potter and artist. I’m in my studio working every week anyway so I thought I should really be filming what I’m doing and chatting to you. It’s an unedited insight into my creative practice and process, it’s not polished, it’s filmed as is and there will most definitely be swearing. I’ll build it as we go, so I can cater to what interests you, rather than me blasting out a load of content that’s of no use to you. If all this sounds like something you’d enjoy then please take a look.
Best get back to it. Till next time.
Emma x