Daffodils Archives

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Barb — 5 Comments

Early Spring Flowers – Nature Study and Art Project

Our Pansy Study and Early Spring Flowers Challenge

What a splendid time to be out in the garden! Our neighborhood is coming alive with spring blossoms and the birds are flocking to our feeders in record numbers. We have an abundance of house finches this year and they vary in color from light pink to purple to almost orange. Amazing display of creation!

The early spring bulbs are all up and many are blooming. The daffodils and the grape hyacinth are blazing with color. The forsythia is starting to blossom and the lavender has new flowers for our bees to buzz in. The tulips and iris are all up but just showing lots of green leaves so far.

We arranged dozens of flowers in the house and our kitchen table is so cheerful and happy. I got out all my vases and dusted them off for the season. I seem to collect pretty vases and I love it even more when they don’t match exactly. Even my hubby had a smile on his face when he spied the colorful flowers on the table.

So our pansy study consisted mostly of admiring them and recreating them in artwork since we have studied them closely in the past. Mr. B and I had pansy art time on a rainy afternoon. There really is no better way to make yourself examine a subject better than to apply your attention to an art project. Slowing down to discover the shapes, form, and patterns makes a big impression.

Mr. B always chooses to work with markers if given the choice but I am still working on feeling comfortable with acrylics. I think these pansy creations are going to be framed and hung in my bathroom vanity area. I have a small collection of floral artwork done by children there already so it will be a perfect fit.

I played around with the acrylics and a small canvas panel I had from Michaels. I tried not to take myself too seriously and just have fun. Art therapy….even for moms.

So now we are officially finished with the More Nature Study Book 2 – Winter 2012 challenges and we will be going over a few of the suggested Charlotte Mason Exam Questions that are included in the ebook. The thing about Charlotte Mason style questions is that they ask the child to tell back in some way what they know about a topic and never to find out what they don’t know. I do not grade these assignments and look at them as a way for Mr. B to review what we learned and enjoy a little more time together discussing things that are fresh in our minds. I recommend you give it a try if you have the More Nature Study ebook and see how it goes.

Don’t forget to send me your Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival entries directly since the carnival website is not working.
harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com

As a reminder, we will be starting the new More Nature Study Book 3 – Spring Splendor series on March 23, 2012. Just in time for the first days of spring! I look forward to another season of nature study with all of you.

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Barb — 8 Comments

Early Spring Bulb Study: Watercolor Time

I started dreaming of spring bulbs blossoming way back in the fall. Although I didn’t feel like getting out and digging the holes and actually planting them, I knew that if we did there would be a springtime show of color.

Well here it comes!

Here is our Early Spring Flower entry for the last challenge of the Winter Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges.

Our fall planted daffodils are adding splashes of yellow to our front yard. You might remember we did a complete remodel of our landscaping last summer/fall and we are just now starting to see the new plants getting green again. It is amazing to look out my front window and see how things are shaping up.

We have had lots of vases inside filled with daffodils….the new ones have rather large blooms.We can all clearly identify all the parts because of previously studying daffodils, including dissecting them. They are still an amazing flower to observe and to marvel at when you think that they come from a dried up old bulb you stick in the ground months ahead of time. They seem to know just when to start growing.

Don’t you think they are even lovely from the back?

We have jonquils blooming in the yard as well which smell heavenly.

Another watercolor nature journal today….this one was fun because I used paint splotches at the end to sort of fill in the page. I would love to know from my readers whether my nature journal entries encourage you or discourage you from doing some of your own pages. Leave me a comment or send me an email….

I have enjoyed seeing your early spring flowers this week and it has recharged me to get going on the next series of spring challenges tomorrow. If you are still experiencing lots of snow and cold temperatures….be encouraged by those of us who are through to the other side of winter already.

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Barb — 4 Comments

Our Early Spring Flowers: Winter Series #10

Today is the warmest day we have had so far this year. It is the kind of day that calls you outside to sit and observe the growing things around you.

I answered the call and sat in the backyard in the sun and soaked in the warmth from the sun, the sounds of birds from every direction, the smells of the garden which were mostly alyssum and lavender, and the colors of the plants, trees, and sky. A hummingbird even buzzed very close to my head just because I imagine he was curious to get a closer look at me.

I have been trying to notice the early spring flowers in our yard and I made note of how others in my life have been noting the blossoms as well. We completed this tour of the garden as part of our Winter Series Challenge #10.

Mr. A came inside yesterday to get me because he noticed that my tulips are blooming on the sunny side of the house. He didn’t know there were tulips planted there so he was surprised. My husband had picked up a inexpensive bag of bulbs from Home Depot and planted them here where we have some daffodils and jonquils already. What a burst of color!

Amanda commented on how sweet the jonquils smelled in the vase on the back of the kitchen sink. I love the way I forget where all my bulbs are hiding and it surprises me when they pop up and bloom in unexpected places. These are in the middle of Mr. A’s strawberry bed.

Many people I talked to this weekend were talking about the show of daffodils everywhere this week. If you haven’t done a study of the daffodil using the Handbook of Nature Study, I highly recommend it. We completed our study in 2008 and you can read about it HERE.

Mr. A was worried he would cut the grape hyacinths down when he mowed the lawn. Someone planted these bulbs a very long time ago and every year I enjoy them popping up in the front lawn. The purple of the hyacinths and the yellow of the dandelion makes a beautiful picture.

These bulbs are living in containers on my back deck. Every year I enjoy their blooms and then plant annuals over the top once they die back. I think these are daffodils and tulips.

The bulbs here that have sprouted up are not spring blooming but they are day lilies that will bloom later in the summer. I love the way the green leaves are curling around the rabbit and you can see my primroses in the background.

This day lily has a wonderful shape as it grows and I love the way the light was illuminating the edges. You can see my road runner yard art that my husband made me a few years ago in the background. He was inspired by a road runner we saw on a trip.

One last spot with bulbs to share this time. This bed of tulips I planted two falls ago and it is a complete bed of shades of purple. I am anxiously awaiting its blooms. There is a petunia blooming in the foreground.

Planting spring bulbs is something that comes with a promise. You make the effort to plant and you receive a gift back in the spring with blooming flowers with colors to refresh you after a long winter’s nap. Our think our Creator knew we would need something to look forward to during those cold winter days.

I have to note that I saw California poppies and lupine blooming alongside the freeway today. it is my absolute favorite color combination at this time of year…orange, purple, and green. It is a feast for the eyes.

I look forward to reading everyone else’s entries with their early spring flowers.

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Barb — 5 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge-Winter Series #10 Early Spring Bulbs

Outdoor Hour Challenge
Winter Series Ebook
Early Spring Flowers

“The tulips blossom early, because they have food stored in the bulbs the year before, ready to use early in the spring….These observations may be made upon tulips in school gardens or bouquets.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 554

Inside Preparation Work:
This challenge is to learn a few things about spring flowers and then observe some up close.

Suggested sections in the Handbook of Nature Study:

The Crocus: pages 547-549 (make sure to note that it has corms, not bulbs)
The Daffodils and their Relatives: pages 549-552
The Tulip: pages 552-555

If you can look at real bulbs and observe and sketch them in your nature journal, take time to discuss and compare a bulb to a seed.

Outdoor Hour Time:
Spend your outdoor hour time this week looking for signs of spring bulbs or flowers. If you planted some bulbs in the fall, take a look for any new growth. You may have neighbors that have bulbs sprouting and blooming or there may be some at a near-by park. Many flower nurseries will have blossoming bulbs you can purchase and observe as well.

Follow Up Time:
Use a few of the suggestions from the Handbook of Nature Study (pages 548, 551, and 555) to study your spring flowering bulbs. You can record your observations on the notebook page from the Winter Nature Study ebook, a blank notebook page from the blog sidebar, or in your own nature journal.

Journal Suggestions:

Sketch the shape of your flower and record the number of petals.
Look for the different flower parts: stigma, petal, sepal, anther, stem, leaves. (See page 548, 551, and 554 of the Handbook for diagrams.)
Observe the flower’s colors.
Describe the stem’s shape and compare it to other flowers.
Study and sketch a flower bulb.
Watercolor drawings can be made of any of your early spring flowers.

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Barb — 9 Comments

The Daffodils and Violets are Starting to Bloom!

“When the flowerstalk first appears, it comes up like a sheathed sword, pointing toward the zenith, green, veined lengthwise, and with a noticeable thickening at each edge. As the petals grow, the sheath begins to round out; the stiff stem at the base of the sheath bends at right angles.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 550-551

We have daffodils. They started blooming yesterday on the sunny, warm south side of our house. I planted a new bed of daffodils in the fall but they are still just all greenness…..there is the promise of bright yellow blooms soon.

“It is interesting to note the flowers which have impinged upon the imagination of the poets; the violet more than most flowers has been loved by them, and they have sung in varied strains of its fragrance and loveliness.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 476

We also have a bed of violets blooming and when the sun hits the blossoms it smells so sweet and good.

I brought in a handful and decided that the stems are just too short for any vases I could find so I thought this glass butterfly dish would cradle the blossoms just so.

Lovely indeed.

Posted on March 21, 2008 by Barb — Leave a comment

Daffodils In Depth for Outdoor Hour #5

Outdoor Hour Challenge #5 Making a List

Our focus is garden flowers and we marked our table of contents for flowers we think we will study over the next few weeks. Last week we did pansies and this week we are learning about daffodils. We read the section in the Handbook of Nature Study and then headed outdoors to our garden “laboratory”.

We had our 10-15 minutes outdoors today looking for daffodils or jonquils. We have several varieties blooming right now so it was perfect timing. Here are a few photos.

We read in the Handbook of Nature Study about the parts of the daffodil so when we went outside we made sure to look closely to see each part. Here is the sheath.

Here is the seedcase when we opened it up with a knife.

Okay, so now we were wondering why you grow daffodils from a bulb and not from seeds. We went to the internet and found the answer.

Here is what I found on the internet: The seeds are ripe when they literally rattle in the seedpod or the pod is about to burst open on its own. They should be black then. Hybridizers grow daffodils from seed to try to produce new varieties. The problem with it is it takes a really long time to get a blooming size bulb from seed. Typical is maybe five years! Most people buy and plant bulbs because they like results (flowers) sooner than that.

Here is the bouquet I was given at the end of our study today. It is in our special daffodil vase that my middle son gave to me as a gift many years ago. I love it.

So that was our very enjoyable Outdoor Hour challenge for this week. We learned more about a flower we have grown in our garden for decades. I love nature study and so does my son.

Tag: Daffodils