Shoe Garden

Shoe Garden, at the Children's Garden, Canton Garden Center, Stadium Park, Canton, Ohio

Wild Yorkshire

Wild Yorkshire

I just have to share this with my fellow bloggers, since so many of you are gardeners. Have you ever had the urge to keep a garden journal, and record your gardening delights with pen, ink, and/or watercolor? If so, you need to know about Richard Bell.

I have been an avid reader of his Wild West Yorkshire Nature Diary, which is now in its tenth year of recounting daily life and nature observations in Yorkshire, England. He records his ramblings around his village, his potterings in his garden, and his jaunts up peak and down path in Yorkshire. He never seems to be without his pen and brush, and during the day, if he has 10-15 minutes to spare, the result is a delightful moment of his life recorded in ink and watercolor, and shared with us. If you couldn't get enough of Jame's Herriott's books (e.g., All Creatures Great and Small), you can subscribe via RSS to Richard Bell's Nature Diary for a daily dose of Yorkshire.

I just ordered my copy of his latest book, Drawing on Reserves, and it was everything I had hoped for. Gardeners will love his book Rough Patch, "a sketchbook from the wilder side of his garden." If you're like me, you'll read it, and then want to start keeping a Nature Diary yourself --even if you've never sketched before! If so, Drawing on Reserves, will tell you how, in wonderfully down-to-earth terms.

His little books are beautifully done and they are surprisingly inexpensive (less than £5 or $10, in most cases), even if you order from abroad. He responds quickly and the books get here (in Ohio) within a week. Just wanted to pass this on... Enjoy!

Pod

The Children's Garden

Yesterday I visited the Children's Garden at Monument Park in Canton, Ohio. On summer mornings since May, children have come to this delightful, whimsical outdoor setting to hear stories, plant seeds, study bugs, and make flower-faeries. Contributing to the whimsy are the stunning metal scultpures created by Iron Orchid of Navarre, Ohio.

A walkway around the garden is lined with the following words:

Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, waterbugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade, waterlilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pinecones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries, and hornets; any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education. -- Luther Burbank