A splash of White

Not much gardening has been happening over the past couple of weeks - raking up leaves, tending to the compost heap, neatening edges, nothing exciting.

I've got no Shasta daisies in my garden this year, but I've always had a patch somewhere. What happened? (Note to self: get some more Shasta’s). As a child I always admired the Shasta Daisies in my father’s garden. What I remember most was the dazzling brightness of the white blooms that always offset the bright colours of the dahlias, larkspur, gazanias, arctotis and zinnias that grew so prolifically under the African sun.

The simple white flowers with yellow button centres are a symbol of purity and are perfect for cutting. Easy to grow, they are a favourite for beginner flower gardeners and are effective when planted in small groups.

Crab Spiders seem to favour Shasta's as their favourite while ambush-hunting their prey in flowers. These tiny spiders take on the colour of the flower they're sitting on and it's wonderful to come across a pure white or bright yellow little specimen on your flowers.

A white crab spider catching a butterfly on some Shasta daisies

Yellow crab spider

Until recently, Shasta Daisies were considered members of the Chrysanthemum family. But the daisies’ lack of fragrance and hairless stems caused them to be recently reclassified to Leucanthemum, the Sunflower family.

These Daisies like rich, fast draining soil, ample water and lots of sunshine. However, they are hardy and will tolerate poor soil conditions and partial shade. Work some old animal manure or compost into the soil to help promote abundant blooms. Picking often and cutting off dead flowers will extend their bloom period.

So do yourself a favour and get some of these easy-growing, sun-loving daisies for your garden and you'll always have an abundance of butterflies and ready-to-pick flowers for the vase.

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Shasta Daisies at my pond a couple of seasons ago. Every summer I SO looked forward to when my Shasta's would appear again. With their splashes of white they brighten up any corner of the garden and the more you pick them (they look lovely in a simple glass vase!), the more prolific they get.

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"If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive."

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Nature and your well-being

Research reveals that environments can increase or reduce our stress, which in turn impacts our bodies. What you are seeing, hearing or experiencing at any moment is changing not only your mood, but how your nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are working.

Previous scientific studies have shown that exposure to nature can both increase self-control and also improve our valuations of the future. With much of the world's population now living in urban environments access to natural environments is out of reach for many.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-11-nature-affects-decisions.html#jCp

Previous scientific studies have shown that exposure to nature can both increase self-control and also improve our valuations of the future. With much of the world's population now living in urban environments access to natural environments is out of reach for many.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-11-nature-affects-decisions.html#jCp

The stress of an unpleasant environment can cause you to feel anxious, or sad, or helpless. This in turn elevates your blood pressure, heart rate, and muscle tension and suppresses your immune system. A pleasing environment reverses that.

“Nature deprivation,” a lack of time in the natural world, largely due to hours spent in front of TV or computer screens, has been associated, unsurprisingly, with depression. More unexpected are studies by Weinstein and others that associate screen time with loss of empathy and lack of altruism.

Scientific studies have shown that exposure to nature can both increase self-control and also improve our evaluations of the future. But with much of the world's population now living in urban environments, access to natural environments is out of reach for many. 

Being in nature, or even viewing scenes of nature, reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings. Exposure to nature not only makes you feel better emotionally, it contributes to your physical well-being, reducing blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and the production of stress hormones. It may even reduce mortality.

Nature restores mental functioning in the same way that food and water restore bodies. The business of everyday life -- dodging traffic, making decisions and judgement calls, interacting with strangers -- is depleting, and what man-made environments take away from us, nature gives back.

Natural environments promote calmness and well-being in part because they expose people to low levels of stress. These stressful experiences are tame in comparison with the trials and tribulations that most of us associate with stress -- workplace drama, traffic jams, and wailing children on international plane trips. Humans thrive with some stimulation, but we're incapable of coping with extreme stressors, which push us from the comfortable realm of eustress (good stress) to the danger zone of distress (bad stress).

Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens in Roodepoort, Gauteng, South Africa.

But not all is hopeless! Get out of your apartment or house as often as you can and visit parks and nature reserves, the beach or your local Botanical Gardens. Nature is sometimes only as far as a short walk or short drive.

Take your dog for a walk, even if it's just down the road you live in. If you're close to the beach, make the effort, your dog will love you for it!

Hug a tree, your dog always does! and

talk to any plants you may pass (albeit softly, or passers-by might think you're a bit looney!) and pick some flowers or a stalk of grass, feel the texture, inhale its aroma.

Take note of the birds and the bees - there's a whole community of small life going on around you! Take your camera with you when you go walking and capture some special moments.

Start a collection of 'natural' items - stones, pebbles, rocks, crystals, pieces of bark, shells. Touch them often and feel the energy revitalise you.

Surround yourself with nature inside your home - pick or buy fresh flowers and have them in every room

Get out into the garden more. If you do not have the space for a garden, buy a pot plant or two and keep them in the room where you spend most of your time. Seeing them often will remind you to tend to them and reconnect with nature.

Take up a hobby that gets you outdoors as much as possible - maybe a garden club or bird watching. Not only will it help you to reconnect with nature, but you'll also be meeting some great like-minded people!

There are many more ways for you to reconnect with nature, but my favourite is taking off my shoes and socks and sinking my bare feet into the grass or soft ground. One of my favourite quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us to slow down and notice nature, “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”

The next time you walk out your front door, feel your feet connecting with the earth, step by step.

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Simple living - what does it mean?

Is the measure of a simple life how small your home is? Whether or not you have a yard? Whether or not you have money?

Living a simple life doesn't mean giving up all or any of your luxuries. It doesn't mean you have to live like a pauper and not enjoy art, books and travel or living in a beautiful, big home.

It doesn't mean living in a small, cramped space. It doesn't mean that, if you have money, you must give it all away in order to "live the simple life."

Living simply is a state of mind. To me, living a simple life simply means not having UNNESSARY, not-beautiful or not-useful stuff in my life. It means cutting out useless, time-consuming activities that serve no purpose.

It doesn't mean doing nothing. It could even mean taking on extra activities, like planting your own vegetable garden, free of hormones, insecticides and pesticides and reducing your carbon footprint on our planet. Living simply means living with purpose, on purpose and being passionate about life.

Any time that is not spent on loving what you're doing is wasted and unnecessarily complicates life and counter-acts simple living.

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Be kind to everything that lives

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Just a little reminder...

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He has blue eyes!

Over the weeks, since my last report on the Indian Ringneck that has moved into my garden, we have progressed in bounds and leaps in our friendship. He has become quite at home, coming when we call him for food and calmly staying put on his perch or the bird feeder when we approach. Here are just a few more photographs of this beautiful chap. (And to my utter amazement, he has the most beautiful blue eyes!)

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