Taking A Closer Look.....
The Lilacs are Finally blooming in my RL garden, Dear Readers, even though they are a looooong way from blooming in my Mini ones! And so while they are putting on their annual show (admittedly very very minor here in my yard) I am taking the opportunity to have a close examination of exactly how all the pieces come together! The blossom on this plant is the only one this year. It was a harsh winter here and many of the plants are showing a sparse bloom, especially when compared with last year which was so abundant! And besides that, this plant was only newly planted here, having endured for several years in a spot it did not like, (it was too wet). I moved it a couple of summers ago, and now it is finally showing some growth! It is a sprout of the plant that was next to my old Home which had been there for almost two hundred years! It has the very pale lilac blossoms. And the second lilac in my garden was here when I moved in, and it too has struggled, and also suffered much damage a couple of years ago in an ice storm. But it too, is surviving. It has a few small and scanty blossoms...
They are the deeper purple that I love so much....
and I am trying to copy in my minis.....
(I need to make the unopened buds a redder hue...)
And I am happy to report that I have managed to complete
one more blossom for a total of seven!
Plus I have assembled the florets for the eighth one,
although they are still not painted.
And while I have standardized my method (for the moment)
to grouping the florets into clusters of four before attaching them to the stem....
I have noticed upon closer inspection that the RL blossoms
often have many more florets in their bunches.....
As you can see here on that same bush
a few days before they opened....
And you can also see that there are two blossoms
sprouted from the tip of the branch,
while the leaves are sprouted from buds farther down the branch!
Believe me, I was glad to see any blossoms at all on this bush this year!
And while we are taking a closer look at the lilacs,
I wanted to show you the ones where I work...
I couldn't get very good pictures
because it was windy with a storm coming...
poor light and plants in motion....
But it shows the scale of the much older shrubs
which I am modeling my mini versions on.
And these shrubs also have taken a beating over the past few winters.
There are many broken stems and more dead wood than usual.
And here you can see where the new branches
have sprouted from the old broken stump...
Showing how over the years the shape of these "trunks"
become quite irregular and have awkward "joints"
between the stems and the trunks...
And bulky, knotty places along the stems
that seem to be unexplainable....
Twisted and covered in lichens.....
Irregular, broken, bent....
certainly not flowing in a smooth continuum from large to small....
And just as surely telling a tale of endurance...!
And so I flatter myself, Dear Readers, that Upon closer Inspection,
My mini shrubs too can tell a tale of survival....
and that my Despairing comment of last week,
that I would console myself that no-one would be looking
too closely to see how inaccurate my "joins" were.....
can be revised!
Because the Truth of the matter is that
I Would know that they were not good enough
even if no-one ever saw them!
And truly, with only a little more glue and paint work....
(a task that was already on the list of things to do!)
great improvements in the accuracy
of my mini shrubs can easily be attained!
I am now consoled that they are not so far
from the originals as I had thought!
(And I hope that now you, Dear Readers,
can recover from any shock my comment caused!)
Even though they are far far far from done,
and already hopelessly out of season,
I am making progress...
The second one has all the branches added now,
and I even added the glue to the tips of all the branches!
It is now ready for the first layer of painting the branches.....
Here you can sort of see the unpainted one
with the painted one in the background...
And another shot with the two of them for comparison....
Yes, I have adjusted my expectations of making them identical,
and am watching the process of growth and change
that can happen in just one year!
And believe me,
I am getting a little bit anxious about the Leaves!
I am going to have to start working out the method
for making them sooner rather than later!
But for now, Dear Readers,
I will Leave you with a picture of the seventh blossom....
because Upon Closer Inspection I think
In a small way,
they are pretty close to being perfect!
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