These beautiful Hellebores are growing in our garden and always delight me with their fragile beauty.
The flowers are easy to miss as they bow their pretty heads and this means that they are not a good cut flower either but they are real treasures in the garden.
They usually drop a lot of seeds and so each year there are more to enjoy.
The colours are very delicate and the petals are like paper so they give the impression that they are painted.
Thanks for the comments on my eaucalptus flowers.
I was surprised to learn that some of you were unaware of these amazing flowers. I will look in some of my books for projects that feature them. The flowers vary from white, through yellows, oranges, pinks and reds. Some are tiny and almost invisible while others are bright and showy.
The trees offer nectar & shelter for birds and often provide homes for small animals, such as possums as well.
In addition they brighten up our landscape.
I made this some time ago and it stays on the shelf in my sewing room. the stem and one leaf are stitched onto brown wool felt.
The upper leaf is worked as a detached element on calico using gumnut silk threads.
The caps on the top of the flowers are worked using green felt and silk threads.
The flowers are made using red silk threads bound together, similar to making a tassel, and these were inserted in the caps and then stitched to the stem.
I added some fabric stiffener to the ends of the flowers to keep them in place.
Although this is such a simple piece I am very pleased with it.
The variety of flowering eucalypts is extensive and always interesting. They attract nectar loving birds and provide colour in the garden. Many of the trees have interesting leaves and bark. They are messy, dropping leaves throughout the year and often losing rather large limbs after strong winds. Many of them shed long sheets of bark on a very hot day in an attempt to provide themselves with mulch to keep their roots cool. A very efficient idea.
