Tag: phil o kane

If you’d like to know more about Thursday garden guest time – click here

For the moment, garden guest #7 is Phil O’Kane alias Iced-coffee. A photographer of genius, a blogger of personality and a decent man who, if he could help – he would. That’s a pretty good start in life where I come from.

Apart from that, the reasons I like Phil are pretty plain to see. Pardon my wry sense of humour, but a ‘leaf’ through his photo archives pretty much say it all. My admiration for ones finest traits aside, gardens more often show an extremely different persona.

To the manor born, girls and boys, when the musics over turn out the lights… I give you Phil. Enjoy 🙂

So when Peter asked on twitter for guest posts about gardens I thought I would volunteer. I’m not sure why really, I don’t even have a garden, and have done very little gardening in my time, though I am always interesting in finding new things to write about. And yes, there will be a few photographs included too, naturally.

On the list of ‘most clichéd photographs’ there are a lot of flowers. I have tried not to go overboard on the flower photographs, though occasionally I say “screw clichés”.

My parents have never had much of a garden, but rather two patches of grass in front of the house with a path that runs up the middle leading to the front door. This didn’t give me much opportunity to experiment with seeds and soil. Mum would often say, “Go help your father in the garden,” but he didn’t want me using the hedge clippers or lawn mower anyway, and there wasn’t much else to do. And we didn’t have plants to speak of. The only times I can recall digging up the garden was to bury the hamsters. I loved those hamsters… except the last two, they were evil biters.

This picture doesn’t do it justice of how it used to look, always well kept. Recently though, it has been dug up and changed a bit, and not cut in a while.

My Granny on the other hand had a large garden in her old house (which is still in the family), though it was just grass; a football pitch, tennis court, rugby, wrestling and general running ground; a good space when there are a lot of kids. She did have a small patch of soil with various flowers though.

Since moving house a few years ago, she has kept the same idea, only on a smaller scale; grass, flowers, eating area, oh and that massive monkey tree. She has an area of flowers, and can occasionally be found tending to them:

I do love nature, though it isn’t very often that I immerse myself in it.

Currently floating between rented accommodation, I don’t expect much of a garden, if anything that resembles one. A little bit of space at the back of the house is considered a bonus. My current abode includes all of this space.

My house-mates had great plans for it when we moved in in September: a canopy, get rid of the large weeds clinging to the wall, white-wash the wall, some plants, flowers, vegetables even. To be honest, I offered to help, though it hasn’t happened yet, and I doubt it will. It aint my house and I will probably only be here for the next year, so I’m not that concerned. We do have friendly snails though…

My friends in Rhode Island, a State with many many trees and woodland, have an awesome garden and their father loves to take great care of it. Whilst there in the last few years I spent many an hour wondering around with my camera. I wasn’t able to catch any of the wild turkeys on camera though I did spot a deer and crept as closely as I could before it scarpered – yes this is actually in their garden.

I am a fan of cities and city life, I don’t expect to have much of a garden, nor the time or desire to put into one for a few years. Though as I mature, I begin to see myself with lots of garden. Maybe in a house in the country. Maybe. My parents are considering moving in the next couple of years to the country, buying a plot of land and building their own (mostly my dad’s idea obviously) – geothermal heating, a large garden for the dog (the dog we haven’t got yet); the whole works.

Maybe then I will grow my own garden, but until that day comes I will continue to take the photographs.

Oh and I won’t let it get like this:

Thanks

Phil