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heatherewing.bsky.social
Heather
@heatherewing.bsky.social
300 followers 190 following 280 posts
Gardening by the sea, slow living, macramé and mindful crafting, watching the birds.
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heatherewing.bsky.social
I've got alstroemeria, roses, salvias, hydrangea, verbena bonariensis, seaside daisies and nerines, but the star of the show is the acidanthera. It's been going for weeks! 🌱
An acidanthera bloom viewed from underneath. It's got 6 long, pointed petals that are white with deep purple in the centre of the flower. In the background are the tall, narrow sword-like leaves. Vibrant purple Callicarpa berries and a large hydrangea head are in the background against a wooden garden fence.
November 2, 2025 at 7:20 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
The bird life in my garden is even better than I'd hoped it would be when I moved 6mths ago.
While this little charm of goldfinches was having breakfast there were also blue tits, great tits, a pair of wrens, a robin, young blackbird & the wood pigeon waiting to hoover up the crumbs. So happy! 🪶
A group of 6 goldfinches feasting on sunflower hearts from a hanging feeder. Four are on the perches while the other two are clinging to the hanging pole. There are plants, a wooden fence and two more bird feeders hanging in the background.
October 30, 2025 at 6:52 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Foxy found a cosy corner of my garden to curl up in the sunshine today. 🌱🦊
A fox curled up in the sunshine, surrounded by foliage. There are a couple of verbena bonariensis flower heads in the foreground.
October 9, 2025 at 4:25 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Snap - different location but more seaside cirrus!
Cirrus clouds over Portsmouth Harbour at low tide. In the foreground there's a boat sitting on the beach below the high water line along with a muddle of chain and anchors. In the background, two decommissioned Royal Navy ships sit on the hulks moorings, waiting to eventually be towed away to be scrapped.
June 26, 2025 at 7:58 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Well, that was useful, thanks #GardenersWorld - turns out I have a Patty's Plum! That's another plant identified! 🌱
A Patty's Plum papaver. Faded purple petals with deep pink and purple markings inside.
June 26, 2025 at 7:49 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
One for #rosewednesday...
I have no idea of the name of this rose - it came with the garden. Any suggestions gratefully received! I just love the colour of it.
#bloomscrolling #flowers #roses 🌱
A beautiful half-furled rose. It's about the size of a tennis ball, maybe a tiny bit bigger, and shades of salmon pink, peach and apricot The rose is in the centre of the frame. Out of focus in the background at the top there's a pink hydrangea and on the bottom third there are light and dark green rose leaves
June 25, 2025 at 7:39 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
For #sundayyellow, this buttery alstroemeria. It's a 2nd generation propagation from a bunch of them from a friend's garden exactly 5 years ago. One stem had a tiny bit of root, which I planted & it took & grew quickly. I propagated these from that plant when I began my house move prep last year. 🌱
Alstroemeria flowers in shades of buttery yellow. The upper petals have little marks in a pinky-bronze colour, the size and shape of grains of rice.
June 22, 2025 at 8:55 AM
heatherewing.bsky.social
What? Just restin' my enormous floof on your fence.

🪶 #birds #woodpigeon #garden
A plumped up woodpigeon squatting on a wooden fence. His belly is covering his toes to keep them warm. He's looking straight down his pale orange beak into the camera lens which is giving him a bit of a mad look.
May 23, 2025 at 6:55 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
The unfurling... Today's #smalljoy was watching this peony unfurl. Bowl of Beauty, I think. Six weeks ago I found it buried under a mass of 3-cornered leeks, hybrid bluebells, a dead rose and so. much. bindweed. strangling everything. It's absolutely loaded with buds!
🌱 #bloomscrolling #gardening
A collage of 6 photos showing the stages of a peony flower opening. The variety is Bowl of Beauty and it started as a spherical bud this morning, gently unfurling through the day, opening to a hot pink bowl of petals surrounding a mass of pale peachy cream petals in the middle.
May 20, 2025 at 8:25 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Thank you! I thought it was going to be a dark purple one but I was thrilled to see it this morning.
Here's the wide angle!
#gardenshour
May 19, 2025 at 8:39 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Had a brilliant discovery today. I've only been in this house for a couple of months and every day there's a new surprise. This iris looks almost black in the sunshine and when you get close up it's just stunning. 🌱

#gardenshour #bloomscrolling
A bearded iris so deep purple that it looks black in the sunshine, but when you look deep into the flower the light behind the petals shows the purple veining with a paler colour in between. The beard is fully purple.
May 19, 2025 at 8:25 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Totally agree with this! I love their scrappy chaos, too. And the juveniles in their balaclavas! One of my favourite photos from the end of last summer of that year's babies. 🪶
A row of juvenile starlings sitting on a red brick wall. They have their dark, flecked adult plumage up to their necks and pale brown baby plumage on their heads which makes it look like they're wearing birdy balaclavas.
May 15, 2025 at 6:12 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
🌱 The #roses have entered the chat.
There are quite a few in this garden and if they all turn out to be as beautiful as this one, I'll be very happy indeed! Anyone have any ideas of what its name might be?

#rosewednesday #bloomscrolling #gardening
A beautiful salmon-pink rose, its outer petals tipped with a slightly deeper pink. It's just ast the bud stage and starting to unfurl. The background is dark green rose foliage.
May 14, 2025 at 1:31 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Exactly that. Mine are currently quite tightly packed in pots as I moved them from my old garden. I lifted and potted them up last August in preparation and I've had the best flowering year! I'll plant them in their new position later this year. 🌱
Iris rhizomes growing on the surface of a pot with green, sword-like leaves growing from them.
May 13, 2025 at 7:18 AM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Finally cracked getting these beardy beauts to flower. 💜 Planting on the surface so the tubers can bake in the sun is absolutely the key to producing flowers the following year.
🌱 #gardening #bloomscrolling #beardediris
An iridescent purple bearded iris in the foreground with a flame orange azalea in the background. It's like someone's painted really fine glitter on the purple petals so they just shimmer in the sunlight, and there's nothing muted about the purple. If you had purple felt tip in a child's art pack, it would be this colour! The beards are egg-yolk yellow with just a little white underneath.
May 12, 2025 at 4:41 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Apart from a bit of deadheading & weeding one corner, I haven't really done anything to the front garden since I moved in at the start of Feb. Things just keep appearing! This wk: hot pink gladioli-types, inky dark aquilegia, abutilon (& greenfly - send in the🐞) this stunning bearded iris. 🌱
A collage of close ups of 4 colourful flowers. Clockwise from top left: inky deep purple aquilegia flowers really looking like a granny's bonnet here! A bearded iris velvety maroon petals drooping down, with a yellow beard, and the upright petals are a pale version of the maroon, as if the intense colour has been muted with white paint mixed in. A yellow abutilon flower - can't tell whether it's unfurling or fading. And hot fuschia pink gladioli type flowers.
May 9, 2025 at 2:20 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
I think I might have the same one, Sam. Yours is absolutely stunning! Mine's a bit squashed by an ancient fuschia but it's a keeper. Do you by any chance know what it's called? Discovering all sorts of beauties in this garden & trying to put names to them! 🌱
The big, blousy blooms of an orangey-red flame azalea.
May 9, 2025 at 1:34 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
They make great ornamentals. I left some rainbow Swiss chard in a planter over winter once and they got really tall & dramatic stems. Had some fun with a few photos, then discovered it was a real bugger to get out of the ground - the roots were huge! 🌱
A toy pirate figure with a hook and a telescope, wedged in the branches of a swiss chard plant that has run to seed over winter. The photo is taken looking up into the green leaves against a blue spring sky, and the stem of the plant is pinks and white and a thick wavy shape - like you might imagine Jack's beanstalk to be.
April 29, 2025 at 5:36 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
I'll see your raisins and raise you a beakful of mealworms! (Soaked to rehydrate because otherwise they just disintegrate and result in a highly unamused bird.)
April 25, 2025 at 8:30 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
A few from my 🌱 garden this afternoon. The camelia was blooming when I moved in at the beginning of Feb & still going! The 4th azalea to flower, a rhodie warming up and a cheery bellis bought 1/2 price as bedding 3yrs ago!
#gardenersworld #flowersonfriday #gardening #bloomscrolling
A pale pink open-faced camelia flower in the centre of the frame with sun and blue sky behind. A hot pink azalea flower - the first to open on this shrub. The furled petals on the buds in front of the open flower are about an inch long. Rhododendron buds waiting to open. They're deep pinkish-red against a background of zingy green leaves and the fading flowers of a lilac-coloured azalea. A white bellis flower - it's like a daisy on steroids. Same family, but where a normal daisy has a single layer of petals, this little bellis has about 10 and the petals are tube-like, so it gives it a little pom-pom effect around the egg-yolk-yellow centre. There's a bronze-coloured heuchera in the background.
April 25, 2025 at 8:20 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Feels like Friday & #GardenersWorld ought to be on. Will just have to make do with this azalea. 🌱 It's been blooming like this for nearly 2 weeks!
#gardening #bloomscrolling #flowersonfriday (almost).
An azalea shrub in dappled shade, laden with masses of lilac-coloured flowers. It's a shade over 5ft tall and it's covered top to toe.
April 17, 2025 at 5:12 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Today's #smalljoy: a speckled wood #butterfly resting on the tip of a monkey puzzle tree branch just by the kitchen door.
🌱🦋
A speckled wood butterfly - brown with pale cream and yellow spots on its wings - rests on the tip of a small spiky branch. The background is a turquoise ceramic planter.
April 15, 2025 at 12:57 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
This azalea looked on its last legs & I was about to bin it. Although it had very few leaves there were some buds & I thought I'd wait & give it one last chance to shine. SO glad I did! Off to buy some ericaceous compost & azalea food to give it some TLC! 🌱 #gardening #bloomscrolling #flowers #pink
A close up of deep cerise-coloured azalea flowers. They have five pointed petals in a pentagonal star shape with even deeper coloured feathery stamens.
April 14, 2025 at 3:48 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Sun halo right now!

#ukweather #loveukweather #weatherwatcher #theviewfrommygarden
A sun halo in the sky over the UK south coast. Formed when light is refracted by high altitude ice crystals.
April 12, 2025 at 1:40 PM
heatherewing.bsky.social
Brunnera Jack Frost is looking superb this year.
🌱 #FlowersonFriday #bloomscrolling
A delicate spray of pale blue flowers against the variegated leaves of the brunnera plant in pretty dappled shade.
April 11, 2025 at 6:54 PM