More Garden Paintings from New Zealand

More Garden Paintings

 

Here are my two latest garden paintings, they will form a series eventually.

 

 

They are made from wild roadside verges which provide food for

many of our insects and birds as well, while looking at them I am

struck by how often the small things which we miss are so important.

 

 

A patch of weeds like this can be teeming with life which

goes by barely noticed.  Hovering around here were blue dragonflies, bumble

bees and some little blue butterflies.

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blogspot

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

Settler's Cottage in New Zealand

The Settler's Cottage at Mahana

 

Last week we visited the Settler's cottage at Mahana near Upper Moutere in the South Island.

The cottage was built in 1859 for an English couple, George and Cornelia Harvey, it was built for them in eleven days.  It seemed to be a typical sod cottage but I was struck by how large it is, it had several rooms downstairs and even a garage on the side for the family buggy.

 

 

 

 

Originally it only had two rooms downstairs, the kitchen dining area and the master bedroom.  An attic area was later used as additional sleeping quarters. The other rooms and the garage were added later by a new owner

 

 

 

 

The walls were made from a mixture of local clay, grasses and water - they are about 48 to 61cms thick. By the begining of the First World War the cottage was in the hands of  the Bensemann family, who belonged to the German settlement of Sarau or Upper Moutere.

 

 

 

 

The cottage is now maintained by The Somerset Farm Settler's Cottage Trust, they have done

a wonderful job of re-thatching and setting up the displays.  The following photograph

shows some of the surrounding land and just what a hot and dry Summer we have had.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blogspot

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Red and Pink Sunflowers

Red and Pink Sunflowers in My Garden

 

I photographed my sunflowers which are the only plants thriving in the long hot Summer

which we have had on the Kapiti Coast.  The soil is extremely dry and we are having

to use washing water to keep the garden alive.

 

 

The bees seem to love them, this pink one is just covered with a dusting of pollen

and you can see the bumble been busy collecting it.

 

 

I have also grown some dwarf varieties which are mixed colours - this

one is a lovely deep yellow with orange tinges.

 

 

They also attract the butterflies, we get mostly monarchs and sometimes a yellow

admiral.

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015