Brides are like blossoms in the garden of love . . .

Welcome, my dear e-visitor


[This is the sister blog to Michele the Celebrant]

How lucky am I that I can share the beauty of the Heart Garden with so many special couples and their guests! How lucky we all are that the internet connects us so easily with so many parts of the world. 

Bride Rikki in the Heart Garden

Well, the Winter day was warm and Spring-like when Rikki married Ben On August 10 . . .

And then in September, when Spring actually arrived, more brides appeared like beautiful blossoms.

After seeing the Heart Garden on the internet, Rosanna and Fabrizio flew from Italy to marry in the Heart Garden in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory in the morning of 2 September 2013. They spent a couple of days in Canberra, then flew back home to Italy.

Dee married Anthony in a small ceremony in the afternoon of 2 September, before flying to Bali with her new husband Anthony for a wedding and celebration on the beach in Bali.

Stephanie from Sydney married David on 6 September when he flew from Paris for their wedding. They plan to live in Canada.

On a sunny but cool Friday, local bride Jenna married Nathaniel on 20 September. And then on a warm sunny Friday, Georgina married Kirk on September 27.

Bride Rosanna

The path to the garden gate in early September

Rosanna, now married to Fabrizio, leaves the Heart Garden by the driveway -
an avenue of flowering plum trees

Dee and Anthony, soon to enter the Heart Garden for their wedding ceremony

Dee and Anthony at the Heart Garden gate

The arrival for Stephanie and David's wedding

Bride Stephanie

Are brides like flowers . . . or are flowers like brides?

Bride Jenna

The path from the entrance gate into the garden

Bride Georgina arrives

Georgina - happily married

Newlyweds Georgina and Kirk leave the Heart Garden.
It's the end of September. The plum trees are now in leaf.

During September 2103, the Heart Garden has been truly blessed by all the beautiful bride blossoms who have filled the garden with their happiness.

With glorious 'Star Wars' magnolia, a selfie by the Heart Gardener, who remembers being a very happy bride herself many years ago, in a grand church with huge vases of beautiful flowers from her own grandmother's memorable, magical garden.

Superb summer lilies and Heart Garden happiness . . .

Hello my welcome e-visitor

This summer has suited many of our lilies. There's been plenty of rain. I've given them plenty of food. Mostly though, we haven't had strong winds to knock them around. Here's a photo of me in my role of civil marriage celebrant, task completed, champagne in hand, standing smiling by the magnificent lilies our son and his family gave us for Christmas.

In Australia, we call these white fragrant beauties 'Christmas lilies"

The crinum lilies are coming into flower now, with their soft pink petals, and exuding their gentle scent.

The spicy exotic perfume of the ginger lily will soon be filling the garden.

The whole Heart Garden has been just so lovely in this spring just gone and in the summer we are nearly through. (In Australia, we have summer officially from December 1 to the end of February.)
I got such a surprise to count the small private weddings here since Spring began on September 1.
Nineteen weddings so far!
Twelve were in the Spring, seven in Summer.

Vicky and Jorge were married
in the spring Heart Garden 12 October 2012

And seven Heart Garden weddings were in the Summer.

Newlyweds Sarah and Alex embrace
4 January 2013

And all the weddings were so happy and successful, each one unique and special. And just one more to go before the Autumn weddings begin. I get to share the joy of so many couples as they begin their married life together. I surely have the best job in the world!

Krysty walks into the garden for her marriage with Jesse
on 1 February 2013

Kyrsty signs my register

Winter has its own delights while Spring is still a promise . . .

Hello my dear e-visitor. You are so welcome.

The wattles are coming into bloom. It must be nearly Spring!

Many members of the narcissus family, like the glorious daffodil above, are now at their best, taking the season seamlessly from late Winter to early Spring. 

As usual, our winter-flowering apricot was spectacular this year. It began to flower right on cue on the long weekend in early June and as usual, visitors to the Heart Garden with traditional mental associations of ‘blossom’ and ‘Spring’, remarked that the blossoms were ‘very early this year’.

What’s so wonderful about prunus mume ‘The Geisha’ is that she’s meant to look warm, pink and cheerful on chilly winter days. She’s now starting to produce her Spring leaves. In the photo above, taken August 1, the blossoms are fading but the King Parrot is looking resplendent! 

To the left is a photo of a King Parrot and a Crimson Rosella, both waiting their turn at the seed tray. Below right is a couple of white cockatoos.

All our Spring flowering blossoms are actually still in bud. I anticipate a burst of flowering pear blossom in the first week of September, along with the arrival of all the flowering plums which turn our driveway into a spectacular pink tunnel.

 

As always, we notice more birds in the winter garden when food is scarce elsewhere. Word soon gets around when I fill the seed tray and birds arrive en masse. Families of parrots, rosellas, galahs, cockatoos, crested pigeons, plus many honey-eaters, supping from the camellias, and all sorts of birds having baths -they're all welcome here, except for the cockies. Cockatoos are magnificent birds but very destructive. Their place is in the bush or open plains, not suburbia.

There was a wedding in the Heart Garden a couple of weeks ago and the groom’s aunt was loving the garden. She took many photos and showed me one like the photo on the left.

‘What’s this flower?’ she asked. She thought it very beautiful. An unusual camellia perhaps? ‘It’s a cabbage’ I replied and everyone laughed. A more complimentary name is 'Ornamental Kale'.

Camellia reticulata 'Howard Asper'

As always my beautiful garden brings me great joy and freely shares its bounty of beauty with anyone who comes to visit. Plentiful patches of colour from blossoms, polyanthus, violas and ornamental leaves, plus wafts of perfume from sarcococcus, daphne, wintersweet, woodbine and the large narcissus family will gladden the heart and inspire a warm smile of contentment, even on the bleakest wintry days.