While I have plumbers, builders & electricians banging and crashing in my bathroom it is really hard to think creative. So not to loose the time frivolously (gardening or working!!) I am reading. Linnaues - The compleat naturalist by Wilfred Blunt (2001. New Jersey, United States. Princeton University Press) is one of those books that is keeping me occupied. Some of the quotes in it form Linnaeus himself are priceless: "Flower petals contribute nothing to generation, serving only as bridal bed which the great creator has so gloriously prepared, adorned with such precious bed curtains, and perfumed with so many sweet scents in order that the bridegroom & bride may therein celebrate their prenuptial with great solemnity. When the bed has thus been made ready, then is the time for the bridegroom to embrace his beloved bride and surrender himself to her" (Blunt pg 33) 
Scilla peruviana What a great description of sex in the garden. So by sticking our nose into a flower and smelling 'her scent', we are actually smelling a flower on "heat". If the plant is self pollinating, then we are actually performing a sexual act with the flower, something to think about next time your nose dives into the flower. The following book also had some great quotes in it: Herbarium Amoris - Floral Romance by Edvard Koinberg (2009. Koln (Cologne), Germany. Taschen.) This book was a series of botanical photographs by Koinberg, presented as the 12 calendar months that Linnaeus had devised. The plants that Koinberg had photographed were in the area where Linnaeus had lived most of his life. "As the reproductive organs of all animals smell and stink when in rut, so those of flowers and plants also give forth an aroma, each of them different; but most are so delicately perfumed, in some of them so refreshing, that we feel that our noses have inhaled the sweetest of nectar." originally from Sponsalia Plantarum 1746. "In springtime when the delightful Sun comes closer to our Zenith, it awakens life in all living things that have lain low, quelled, in the cold winter. Behold, how all the birds that have been silent in the winter begin to sing and chirp; Behold, how all the insects come out of their hiding places where they have lain half-dead in the winter;, Behold, how all the plants and trees that were withered in the winter stir, rise up, and turn green; and humankind itself is given a new lease of life." Originally from Praeludia Sponsaliorum Plantarum, 1729. 
I am finding this in my own garden, through which I walk each day, to capture its magic on film and admire the way something that has looked dead for months, bursts into buds, then foliage Acer palmatum
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