These illustrations will be used in a “Spotter’s guide”, and appear across the base of an information panel.  Life on the edge is a project led by South Devon National Landscapes, and supported by partner organisations including the National Trust, Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust and the South West Coast Path Association.

Illustrating insects for an information board

I often illustrate landscapes full of insect species, and have completed a couple for South Devon National Landscape in the past.  This time they wanted a large expanse of sea and sky, so text could be overlaid.  Along the base, there is a panoply of flowers and the insects that the Life on the Edge project sets out to encourage and preserve.

South Devon National Landscape generic seascape with pollinators and flowers (detail of a larger illustration)

Illustrating insects: Beetles: Bloody-nosed beetle Timarcha tenebricosa

There are two beetles on the list of insects to illustrate.  I’m familiar with both of them, having painted them for Jersey Post’s “Beetles” stamp issue, back in 2016.

The first is the Bloody-nosed beetle.

This beetle is 20-23mm long, and can be seen April through September.  It lives in grassland, heath, hedges, and coastal habitats.  You may see it plodding across paths, it doesn’t hide away.

Jersey Post copyright 2016 Beetles Bloody-nosed beetle Timarcha tenebricosa

Bloody-nosed beetles eat bedstraws, from which you might see their larvae hanging.  They have blueish, domed elytra (wing cases), and these are fused, so they are flightless beetles.  The most surprising thing about these beetles is that they secrete a bright red liquid from their mouths which is a visual warning, tastes unpleasant and deters predators.

Bloody-nosed beetle Timarcha tenebricosa

Illustrating insects: Beetles: The Swollen-thighed beetle Oedemera nobilis

This is another familiar species.  It’s also called the False-oil beetle and the Thick-legged flower beetle  It’s 6-11mm long, and can be seen April through September.  I’ve seen it wandering about inside in Buttercups.  They favour grassland, and coastal areas.

Jersey Post copyright 2016 First day cover envelope Swollen-thigh beetle

They feed on pollen and nectar, and pollinate Blackberry, Ox-eye daisy, and Cow parsley.  A beautiful metallic green, they have a coppery sheen.  Males have distictive swollen femora, or thighs; the females do not.  The elytra don’t quite meet, so you can see the folded wings beneath them.

Swollen-thighed beetle Oedemera nobilis

Larvae are laid on the stems of thistles.  Their range is expanding, they are becoming common further north.

Illustrating insects: Flies: The Dark-edged bee fly Bombyllus major

The Dark-edged bee fly is the commonest of the four UK bee fly species.  They are up to 18mm long, and can be seen from March to May.  They live in a wide range of habitats; woodland, parkland, towns and gardens, grassland, heath, farmland and coastal areas.  I have seen them sunbathing on wildflowers, and visiting Catmint in my garden.

They eat spring flowers like Primrose and violets, using their long straight proboscis.

Bee flies look superficially like Bumble bees, but have much shorter antennae and far larger eyes.  They also have two wings, rather than four.  The transparent wings have dark markings on their leading edge, hence the name.  Their buzz is higher than that of a bee.

Dark-edged bee fly Bombylius major

These bee flies only take wing when it is 17 degrees C or above, and cannot afford to get wet, so they hide when it rains.  Males do a darting courtship and territorial dance at 2.5m  up.

Females cover their eggs in sand or grit for camoflauge, then flick them into the nests of solitary and ground-nesting bees.  Once hatched, the grubs feed off the larvae of the host bees.   They are expanding their range northwards, but are msotly found in the South, Midlands, and Wales.

Illustrating insects: Flies: The Dotted bee fly Bombyllus discolor

The second Bee-fly I was asked to draw is 8-12mm long (without proboscis) and can be seen March to April.  They are far less common than the Dark-edged bee fly, and are found in Devon between Prawle Point and Start Point.  I believe I saw one in a foxglove, in Pembrokeshire

The Dotted bee fly Bombyllus discolor in a foxglove.  Probably.

They are easy to spot thanks to the distinctive spots on their clear wings.  they behave just like a bee, darting between flowers, but have a higher buzz.

As with the Dark-edged bee fly, they have a rigid proboscis which they use to feed from flowers. Some mistake this for a sting, but it is simply their mouthpart.  Sometimes called “Flower thieves”, they can use this to stab the throats of flowers and steal the nectar.

The Dotted bee fly Bombyllus discolor

They parasitize the nests of mining bees, the Adrena genus, especially those of the Yellow-legged mining-bee Adrena flavipes.  Females disguise the eggs in a similar way to the Dark-edged mining bee, and drop them into the nests.  Once hatched, they eat all the pollen stored for the Adrena larvae, before going through a highly unusual first metamorphosis.  When then emerge, they have a rather bloodier appetite, and eat the Adrena larvae.  They then have a second metamorphosis (known as Hypermetamorphosis) before emerging as adults.

Illustrating insects: Flies: The Hornet Robberfly Asilus crabroniformis

This Robberfly is one of 28 Robberflies in the UK, but is easy to recognize because of its’ stripes and larger size.  It is up to 25mm long and can be seen from June to October.  It favours heathland and grassland.  It’s increasingly rare, between 1980 and 2000 its’ numbers plummeted by 21%, and it is now a priority species.

Hornet robber fly Asilus crabroniformis

The Hornet robberfly is a predator, catching insect prey on the wing and keeping hold of it with long spines on the front legs.  The “moustache” of hairs protects its’ mouthparts from struggling prey as it pierces them and drinks their fluids.  Although it favours dung beetles, it will also eat bees and grasshoppers.

Head of the Hornet robberfly showing protective hairs and piercing mouthpart

It is a wasp or hornet mimic, with yellow and black stripes.  It perches on dung or on prominent stones or sticks to keep an eye out for prey.

Larvae are laid in animal dung where they hatch and predate on the grubs of other species.

Chemicals fed to livestock, such as avermectins, have led to the species’ population decline.  The chemicals contaminate the dung and kill the larvae.

Illustrating insects: Bees: The Brown-banded Carder bee Bombus humilus

This bumble bee is one of three carder bee species in the UK, and has workers and males of 12mm, with a larger queen.  They are seen June to September, with queens emerging in May and June.  Preferred habitat is flower-rich grassland, and they are only found in southern coastal areas.

Brown-banded carder bee Bombus humilus

They feed on vetches, clover, knapweed, and mint.  Nests are built in tussocky grass and old rodent burrows, and have about 50 workers.

They have pale hair, with a more orange band on their abdomens, which pales on the edges.

Illustrating insects: Bees: The Long-horned bee Eucera longicornis

The Long-horned bee is up to 13mm long and needs unimproved coastal grassland to survive.  It can be seen May through July, with the males instantly recognisable thanks to their very long antennae.  Sandy cliffs near Prawle point are one of it’s last strongholds, and it’s one of the main target species for the Life on the Edge project.

Long-horned bee Eucera longicornis

Although its’ a solitary bee, it nests in colonies, and freqeuntley visits the Twin-leaved everlasting sweet-pea, which S. Devon National landscape are encouraging.

Illustrating insects: Bees: The Ivy bee Colletes hederae

Also known as the Ivy plasterer bee, this species is about 10-13mm long and is seen late in the year, between September and November.  It likes coastal habitats, towns, and playing fields, and is a newcomer to the UK, having first been recorded here in 2001.

As the name suggests, it feeds on the pollen of Ivy flowers.

Ivy bee illustration in progress

The Ivy bee is orange-brown with clear stripes on the abdomen.  They nest is south-facing sandy banks and are a solitary species.

Ivy bee Colletes hederae

Males sometimes partake in frenzied mating clusters where many individuals cluster and wrestle to get access to females as they emerge from their nests.  For more on this species, keep an eye out for my forthcoming blog on bees.

Illustrating insects: Moths: The Thrift clearwing moth Pyropteron muscaeforme

This moth has a 12-18mm wingspan, is a member of the clearwing or Sesiidae family, and flies in June and July.  It can be found in coastal habitats and sunken lanes leading to the sea.

Thrift clearwing moth Pyropteron muscaeforme on Thrift

As the name suggests, caterpillars feed on thrift, eating the stems and roots.  They overwinter as part-grown larvae.  Affected plants may have lots of brown frass in their leaf cushions, and appear browned.

The adults have 3 or 4 cream abdominal bands and vertical thoracic stripes.  Their forewings are scale-free, hence the name.

Illustrating insects: Grasshoppers and Crickets : The Great green bush cricket Tettigonia viridissima

the last insect I illustrated for the Spotter’s guide is the magnificent Great green bush-cricket.  This enormous insect is up to 70mm long, and can be seen from May to October.  It lives in woodland, grassland, and scrub, and is common across southern England and Wales.

Great green bush cricket Tettigonia viridissima

It eats plants, and other small insects.  Despite its’ size, it can be hard to spot thanks to it’s brilliant camoflague.  both sexes are green with a red stripe down the length of their body and have very long thin antennae.  They have long wings, and the female has a long down-turned ovipositor.

Males attract males by rubbing their forewings together.

Although they are harmless, if captured they are capable of delivering a sharp self-defensive nip!

Conclusion

Illustrating these invertebrates is an enormous treat.  And it’s important to remember the reason why these ones made the list.  They are insects who will benefit from the Life on the Edge project.  Land will be managed with them in mind, some plants encouraged while others are cleared.

As Buglife puts it, “Life on the Edge is aiming to save species; giving them a safer long-term future by expanding and reconnecting the traditional coastal landscapes on which they depend. Restoring wildflower-rich cliff tops and highway verges, carefully managing scrub mosaics, strategic hedgerow connections, and more wildlife-friendly parks, churchyards, school grounds and private gardens.”

The first Life on the Edge information board with my illustrations at the base

It’s a project I’m proud to be a part of.

Information for this blog came from The Wildlife Trusts, Butterfly Conservation, UK Moths, and Buglife.

The post Life on the Edge: illustrating insects on the South Devon coastline appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Composition

If possible, start by finding out what variety of fruit tree you’re looking at.  There are lots of experts out there, and some apple-specific websites such as Fruit i.d. and the national fruit collection.   There are subtle differences in colour, growth patterns, and size and shape of petals; as well as bigger variation between the apples each variety produces.

Blossom is often clustered at the tip of a branch, may grow off sideways from a stem, or is produced on lateral spurs.  This needs to be reflected in the drawing.  If there’s lots of variation, I’ll include two bunches of blossom.

Two views of blossom from the same tree

As always, slightly curve straight lines of twigs, and leave plenty of white space around your subject.

Specimens and blossom care

A major challenge of painting blossom is that the flowers are so ephemeral.  Buds unfurl, stamens expand, petals stretch outward and fall.  You can cosset your blossom to try and make it last longer.

If it’s a small sprig, you can put it with a little moist tissue in a sealed plastic bag in the fridge.

Keeping blossom in the dark somewhere cool, like a cellar or garden shed, also helps to delay the blossom burst.

On the other hand, you may have buds you want to come into flower.  Encourage them by putting them somewhere warm, in direct sun.  Placing your specimen under a bell jar or in a greenhouse will also speed things along.

Apple blossom growing from the tip of a branch and from a spur twig

Caring for blossom as you paint

Once you’re at your desk, drawing, it’s something of a race against time.  You can keep the room you’re working in really cold.  This makes the flowers unfurl slower, and buys you a couple more hours.  It’s not pleasant, though.

Draw fast.  I get the basic measurements done right away, using callipers or a ruler.  I always take lots of photos before lifting a pencil.

Make sure the cut end of the twig is wet.  I use plastic test tubes held in a desk clamp.  The specimen stays in water but isn’t resting on the side of a jam jar. It is is held still, in the position I chose to draw it in, and I can move the angle of the plant without touching the blossom.

Apple blossom specimen held in test tube with a desk clamp

It’s also vital to have more than one specimen. This means if something happens to the flower I’m working with, I can refer to another one for the missing information.

If my illustration takes more than a day, I store my specimens somewhere cool and dark overnight instead of leaving them out on the desk.

Colours

Apple blossom tends to be white, flushed with pink.  Within this, there are a multitude of nuances.  Some flowers have a general pale flush, others only show the pink on veins on the petals.  Most have far pinker buds than opened blossoms.

The buds are amazing.  In many cases, as they unfurl, you can see a sharp delineation between white and deep pink.  The pink is where the bud was exposed to sunlight, the white is the petal that was hidden.

Apple blossom buds unfurling, showing the stark difference between pink and white.

I tend to use various ratios of Opera Rose, Cobalt Blue, Permanent Magenta, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, and Winsor Violet to try and capture the pinks.

Some blossoms have intensely coloured buds, almost purple.

Purplish buds

Another challenge is that the hue of pink seems to alter massively depending on whether I look at in in daylight, artificial light, or direct sun.  Pinks also become more purple as the day progresses.

White petals can be outlined in pencil, or with a neutral grey.  I like a neutral mix of Alizarin Crimson mixed with Winsor Green (Yellow hue).  The veins, if not pink, tend to be a yellowish green, and are often indistinct.

Flower veins, changing from yellow-green near the centre, to pink

Shadows

Representing petal edges, and shadows on pale flowers is always tricky.  You need to show them, but it’s important to keep the flower white.  For more on this see my blog on painting white flowers.  Placing a darker leaf behind a blossom is one solution.

Blossom with leaves behind it.  No need to outline the petal edges.

Adding drop shadows, where a petal casts its’ shadow on the one below it, can look really effective.  Again, don’t overdo it.  A dilute Cobalt Blue mixed with Winsor Violet, or Cerulean Blue are all worth trying.

Detail showing blue shadows on a bud

Drop shadows help separate the two flowers and their petals

Anthers and stamens

Surprisingly, the pollen-producing stamens of the apple seem to change colour.  When newly opened, the anthers are a pale creamy yellow. (For more on the parts of a flower, check out my blog). Once mature, they turn a rich red, or even dark brown.  They can often be a wide variety of colours in one flower.  The filaments vary too, from a fresh yellow-green to a colour closer to Yellow Ochre.

Different coloured anthers in one flower.

Petal drop

Petals dropping is the toughest challenge of all.  You’ll be in the middle of illustrating the venation where a petal curls over itself and…poof!  The petal is gone.  I try to work with the fallen petal, but this is where the reference photos I took earlier come into their own.

None of my photos show this stressful moment, or even the desk at the end of a day where every single blossom has fallen to pieces.  I think I’m too busy panicking to get the camera out!  The pear below shows me working from two specimens.  Neither is the flower I initially drew.  It shed its’ petals a few hours earlier. I had to make do with under-studies.  It’s a familiar story.

The main thing is to stay calm.  And trust that the initial drawing shows the petal shape correctly.

Beautiful blossom

So yes, there are challenges.  But the spring-time beauty of apple blossom more than counter-balances this.

Capturing the fresh green of an uncurling leaf, the magenta flush of a bud, the nuances of a pale pink vein on a petal.  All of these are joyful.

There’s also the pleasure of trying to depict the twigs as accuratley as possible.  Are they grey or brown, or green?  Is lichen present?  Are there leaf scars?  Lenticels?  Is there a colour switch between the main twig and lateral branches?

Twig with leaf scars, buds, lenticels and lichen

The leaves are young, so the greens are fresh.  Illustrating tiny holes and leaf damage is a lot of fun too, as well as being true to life.

Leaf with damage

Conclusion

Whenever I illustrate from life, there are challenges.  These are often the same across the board.  Keeping flowers fresh is difficult whether you’re painting apple blossom or a sweet pea.  Colours change because of time of day, or because a plant has been picked.

Sweet peas also change colour once picked

Leaves and petals move, buds unfurl.  Specimens are alive, so they change. Some are more resilient than others, and over time you learn which ones are ok with being picked and which are not.  A periwinkle might last several days in a jar of water.  A hellebore or magnolia is hard-pressed to manage more than an hour or so.  I take photos.  I have lots of specimens to work with.  I’ve got better at drawing fast, before the plant wilts.  All of this helps.

Periwinkle are pretty robust once picked

But ultimately I like the fact that the plants I illustrate can be so challenging.  It’s a reminder to respect them as living, changing organisms.  And to relish their beauty, fleeting as it may be.

Another apple blossom variety

The post Illustrating apple blossom appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Creating a drawing for a colouring book

To be honest, these illustrations are probably the swiftest and easiest that I get ask to complete.

You start, as always, by researching your subject and coming up with a composition that works.  Next, draw up a pencil rough and submit it to your client.

Bridge over a stream pencil rough

In most cases, this gets approval.  Once approved, I draw over the pencil lines using an 0.1mm nib Uni pin pen, with fade resistant and waterproof ink.  When I rub out the underlying pencil lines, the ink doesn’t shift.

Because the drawings are atonal, simple lines without shade, they are very quick to complete.

When pen and ink illustrations need tonality, it takes hours as this is built up with thousands of tiny dots.

Apple and half completed for Fernway

The flip side of this is that every line has to be perfect.  There is no room for wobbles, and errors are pretty much impossible to fix (although white gouache paint has saved the day on a few occasions).

Art for Mindfulness: Winter wonderland

The biggest colouring-in project I’ve worked on was completing 62 illustrations for HarperCollins’ Art for Mindfulness: Winter wonderland.

Cover of Winter wonderland

The elephant in the room was snow.  Unless you want to do some really subtle work with a pale blue coloured pencil, there’s not a great deal of colour in snow.  But time and again I’d have my roughs returned with the hopeful comment, “can we add more snow”?

It was a challenge to come up with 62 wintery subjects.  I drew up mammals and birds from Europe and the Americas.  There were landscapes, snowy trees, cityscapes, and a few cosy illustrations of fireplaces and Christmas trees.

Squirrel from Winter wonderland

Michael Peres graciously allowed me to work closely from his gorgeous snowflake photos, and those are amongst my favourite pages of the book.

Snowflakes from Winter wonderland

HarperCollins needed one of the pages to be half coloured in, and chose a Robin in a snowy garden as the subject.  Deciding what to colour and what to leave as a line drawing was tricky.  It also made my realise coloured pencil is not my preferred medium!

Part coloured robin from Winter wonderland

Despite being published back in 2015, the book still seems to be selling well.  For more on this project, check out my blog.

HarperCollins test illustrations

I also completed some test images for colouring-in books which ended up not getting commissioned.  These were fun.

Hibiscus with bumble bee

As with the Winter wonderland, these needed to be half coloured-in, so it was back to the coloured pencil box.  There was also some talk of a cat colouring in book, but again, this didn’t materialize.

American lady butterfly on Margeurite daisies

Foraging with kids

Another book I illustrated with colouring-in illustrations is Foraging with Kids by Adele Nozedar.

These images are botanical illustrations, reduced to line drawings.  It sounds simple, but trying to represent blackberries and shiny conkers with pen and ink, atonally, is a challenge.

Horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum from Foraging with Kids by Adele Nozedar

Equally problematic was the puff-ball, such a big space with no details to break it up!  However, I enjoyed showing the cloud of spores by stippling the lines of the blades of grass behind it.

Giant puffball Calvatia gigantea

The conceit of the book appeals enormously.  Go out and forage for these wild foods with kids.  When you get home, get the children to colour-in the plates in the book, referring to what they gathered out of doors.

Raspberry Rubus idaeus from Foraging with Kids

I had already illustrated some of the featured species, so sometimes I’d simply trace the illustration using an ink pen.  There’s always room for improvement though, and I tend to make alterations as I draw.  You can see this in the dandelion below.

Dandelion Taxacum officinale watercolour and pen and ink from Foraging with Kids

For more on this project, read my blog.

Montserrat National Trust

The last client I’ve done lots of colouring-in drawings for is Montserrat National Trust and the UKOTCF.

Bush tea or Quickstick Gliricidia sepium

This is a lovely project.  My full colour watercolour illustrations of plants are also provided as line drawings for teachers and educators to use with their primary school classes.  It helps raise awareness of the unique ecosystems on the island, and gives the children an easy introduction to drawing their native flora.

Soursop Annona muricata

Not only have they provided these common edible and medicinal plants as colouring-in drawings, but they have done the same for the ten species of Montserrat grasses I’ve illustrated (for more on this see my blog).

Crab grass Digitaria ciliaris

I very much enjoyed working on these, possibly because I’m a bit obsessed with grasses, but also because I think they make great subjects for colouring-in.

Sour grass Digitaria insularis

Animals of Montserrat

There’s also a whole batch of animals of Montserrat, also for colouring-in.  It was such a treat to have lots of non European animals to research and draw!

Antillean crested hummingbird (male & female) Orthorhyncus cristatus

Montserrat ameiva (ground lizard) Pholidoscelis pluvianotatusn

Latest illustrations for HarperCollins

So what are these latest images?  Well, they’re all of butterflies.  Wing patterns are tricky at the best of times.  But trying to keep track of them as you flip from wing to wing and reduce areas of tonality to simpler shapes?  That was a massive challenge, but in such a good way.  I loved working on all three.

We left the wings blank on a couple of the blue butterflies.  That way people can try their hand at drawing, as well as adding colour.

Red admiral Vanessa atalanta & Spring azure Celastrina ladon

I like that the art editor added variety by asking for one of the images to show the top and underside of a butterfly, almost like a pinned museum specimen.

Painted lady top and underside Vanessa cardui

Conclusion

I am surprised at just how many of these line drawings I’ve completed, and for such a range of clients, both years ago and right up to the present day.  Creating pen and ink line drawings is something I really enjoy, so it’s great that there are clients out there who want to commission them!

It’s also worth remembering that fully tonal pen and ink illustrations, like those I’ve done for Fred Hageneder’s Living wisdom of Trees, can be great for colouring too.

Cherry Prunus avium

During lockdown I agreed with publishers to share some of my illustrations as colouring-in sheets.  It’s a resource that’s still available: Pinterest quarantine colouring in pages.  So if you want to get the coloured pencils out, be my guest!

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Family

Nasturtium are members of the Tropaeolaceae.  Members are succulent with alternate leaves and flowers borne singly on stems.  They’re climbing vines, originating in South America.  Other species seen in gardens include the clambering Flame nasturtium Tropaeolum speciosum, and the yellow flowered Canary creeper Tropaeolum peregrinum.  Both have lobed leaves, unlike T. majus.

Nasturtium flowers

Flowers are zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetrical) and have five petals.  They are between 2.5 and 6 cm across.  The upper two petals are similar, and differ in shape and size from the lower three.  These have distinctive fringes in the mouth of the corolla, possibly relating to pollinating and nectar guides.  They tend to be orange and yellow, although some are red or a dark crimson.

There is an immediately recognizable spur at the back of the flower which is where the nectar is stored.

Pollen is produced by 8 stamens.  There is one style with three stigma, and a three-celled ovary.

The calyx is made of five sepals which vary in size and shape like the petals.

Nasturtium seeds

Seeds are a three-celled schizocarp (for more on seed anatomy take a look at my blog).  These break into three succulent segments, each of which contains a seed.

Nasturtium seeds are really large, and germinate readily.  This makes them ideal for planting with young kids.

Leaves of the nasturtium

Instantly recognizable, nasturtium leaves are alternate, and round with a centrally attached stalk and radiating veins.  They are thin with smooth margins, and are waterproof, shining a beautiful silver when submerged in water.

Pollination

In their native South America, nasturtium are pollinated by hummingbirds as well as by insects.  This may explain the red (as well as yellow and orange) flowers, which are easier for birds to find than insects (for more on this fascinating topic, check out Miguel Rodriguez-Girones’ article in PLoS.

Here in the UK they’re pollinated by long-tongued bees such as the Common carder Bombus pascuorum and the Garden bumblebee Bombus hortensus.

Garden Bumblebee Bombus hortorum

Etymology

The Latin name was coined by Linneaus, amazing taxonomist and naturalist, when he introduced the plant to European gardens in the 18^th century.

He thought the helmet-shaped flowers and flat, shield-like leaves resembled trophies from Roman times. These were known as “Tropoeum”.  After a victory, legionaries would put these shields and helmets on poles for all to see.

The English name, nasturtium, derives from the Latin “nasus tortus” or “nose twister”.  The peppery flavour of the plant explains this.  It’s no coincidence that the Latin name for the equally fiery watercress is Nasturtium officinale.

The unrelated Watercress Nasturtium officinale

Other European countries, such as Spain, Italy, Germany and France, have common names based on “cappuccio”, the Latin for hood.  These relate to the flower shape.

Edibility

All parts of the plant are edible, with a fiery mustardy flavour.

In her book The Garden Forager (which I was lucky enough to illustrate), Adele Nozedar suggests adding the flowers to salads.  Or stuffing them with cream cheese and mint.  Or even with vanilla ice cream!  She also includes a recipe for Nasturtium-leaf soup from President Eisenhower, and tells how to pickle the seeds in white-wine vinegar.

Medicinal nasturtiums?

All of the nasturtium is rich in vitamin C, so the plant was used to prevent scurvy.  It was also used to prevent hair loss, as a paste of the fiery follicles was thought to stimulate the hair follicles.

Pests

Despite being easy to grow and hardy up ’til the first frost, nasturtium are beset with pests.

Aphid congregate at the apex of stalk and leaf.

Aphid (with rose leaves)

Cabbage white butterfly caterpillars (also known as Large white Pieris brassicae) devour the leaves, leading some gardeners to suggest planting nasturtium as a “trap crop” to deter pests from vegetables like kale and cabbage (Horticulture magazine) , while others argue that companion planting may actually attract more pests (The Spruce).

Compost bin with nasturtium growing in and over it

Conclusion

It’s common to have favourite plants and flowers, and no surprise that the nasturtium is one of mine.  With its’ grow-ability, draw-abilty, and edibility…what’s not to love?

https://youtu.be/XGeSNvRmhBM

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The first featured crop is Ginseng, Panax ginseng.

Ginseng: Description

Ginseng is a member of the Apiaceae, or carrot family.  It has three to six palmate leaves with serrated leaflets; each leaf has 3 to 5 leaflets.  Clusters of 30 to 50 small red flowers are borne on long peduncles, and produces bright red berries, with white kidney-shaped seeds.  The plant reaches up to 60cm in height.  However, it’s not the leaves, flowers, or berries that are the focus of ginseng use.  It is the root, which tends to be cylindrical and have 2 branches.

Leaf of ginseng plant

Ginseng: Distribution and History of use

The ginseng is native to temperate mountainous woodland zones in Korea, NE China, and the far east of Russia.  It is now cultivated in many other countries where growing conditions can be met; including Canada, Japan, and the USA.

The first written mention of ginseng is from 2,000 years ago, although there is evidence is was used as far back as 4,500 years ago (Journal of Ginseng research. March 2013).  It’s Latin name, Panax ginseng, contains the etymological root “Panax” meaning all-healing.  This is also the same root as the word for a cure-all, a panacea.

Ginseng: Preparation and cookery

Ginseng root can be used fresh or dried.  In its’ fresh form, raw ginseng, it is 75% water, so can’t be stored for long.  It is used in traditional Chinese and Korean recipes, often in soups.

There are two dry forms. White ginseng is sun-dried from raw, and thinly peeled.  It can be straight, curved, or semi-curved. Red ginseng is steamed before being dried, and can last up to 20 years.  This red ginseng makes up the majority of health food supplements and nutritional additives which are sold in many forms.  It can be eaten in teas, drinks, as tablets, in candy, as powder, and as extracts.

Ginseng: Medicinal uses

As a cure-all, the ailments treated with ginseng are wide-ranging.  They include kidney, liver, reproductive and cardiovascular ailments; as well as a tonic for general well being.  It’s also been claimed it is a cure for alopecia; and a preventative for flu, diabetes, and cancer.  In ancient China and Korea, it was used as a love potion, and more recently it has been used to treat erectile dysfunction (“Red ginseng for treating erectile dysfunction: a systematic review” British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 2008).  For more on the history of Ginseng use, click here.

Ginseng root contains antioxidants and vitamins (such as B1, B2, B3, B5, and B12).  Trace elements found in ginseng include zinc, copper, magnesium, calcium, iron, manganese, vanadium, potassium, sodium and phosphorus; along with volatile oil polysaccharides, pectins, and sterols. (Journal of Ginseng Research 2023).  They also contain ginsenocides which may be useful in combating disorders due to old age. ( “Panax ginseng and aging related disorders: A systematic review” de Oliveira Zanuso et al Experimental Gerontology 2022)

Ginseng root

There is little clinical proof of the medicinal benefits of ginseng use (“Panax ginseng”. MedlinePlus, 2024), although it may have some effect on general health and in reducing stress levels.  It can react unfavourably with other drugs such as anticoagulants like Warfarin, with diabetic medicines, and over 100 drugs are known to interact with it (Drugs.com).

 As with many established folk medicines, the fact that it has been in constant use for over 2,000 years carries some weight.

Ginseng berries

Ginseng: Commercial considerations

Four countries produce 99% of the world’s ginseng.  In 2013 this was 80,080 tons, with a value of $2,084 million.  Canada, the USA, and South Korea run second to South China where roughly half of the world’s ginseng is produced.

As the Journal of Ginseng Research puts it, over ten years ago, “Since the interests in alternative medicine and healthy food is increasing globally, the consumer market of ginseng…is expected to expand continuously.” (Journal of Ginseng research. March 2013)

Conclusion

Before illustrating this plant, I knew little about it.  I know you can get ginseng tea, and that it is important in Chinese and Korean traditional medicine.  The wide ranging cures and effects attributed to it amaze me, as does the commercial importance of this crop.  I am equally surprised by the appearance of the plant, with those stunning scarlet berries!

Botanical illustration is full of surprises, and doing the Ginseng illustration for the Crops Trust is another example of just that.  Keep an eye out for blogs on the other three crops illustrated; namely Pearl millet, the Date palm, and the Olive.

The post Crop Trust illustration: Ginseng appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Third page of the FSC guide to Socttish Urban plants

Why a guide to urban plants?

Plants are incredibly resilient, and many species have managed to carve out a niche despite all the tarmac and concrete in our towns and cities.  We often overlook these plants, or disregard them as “weeds”.  But there is an enormous amount of variety in the plants of urban spaces, and they’re well worth examining closer.

As the guide points out, “Although urban plants are easy to dismiss as ‘weeds’, they have many fascinating adaptations that are worthy of a second look. Some have a fast lifecycle, tolerating limited space, not much soil, and highly fluctuating temperatures and moisture. Others spread quickly through stolons and rhizomes to form large stands. Old walls have specialist plants all of their own, especially where there is soft lime mortar.” (FSC publications 2025)

Wall rue Asplenium ruta-muraria

What makes a plant an Urban species?

As the write up on FSC’s site states, “Since 2015 the Botanical Society of Scotland has been recording urban plants in Scotland, defined as settlements with at least 1000 inhabitants. Volunteer recorders have searched streets, car parks, golf courses, cemeteries, waste ground and many other places. Anything deliberately planted was excluded, but anything that had spread by itself was included.

Currently there are nearly 80,000 records, with over 1200 vascular plant species found so far. This guide covers the most common non-woody species among these records.” (FSC publications 2025)

FSC broke the urban plants featured into categories depending on their habitat and provenance.

Chinese bramble Rubus tricolor

Urban plants: Walls and Buildings

Every one of the species in this section grows on the churchyard wall opposite my house.  This makes life very much easier as I can get fresh material to work with both when drawing up roughs, and when adding colour.  It also shows something of the geographical spread of these plants.

Common polypody Polypodium vulgare

There are several similar species of Polypody fern in the UK, and I struggled to be certain which one I was drawing.  The BSBI produce “crib sheets”, pdfs comparing and contrasting similar species.  The one on Polypody ferns proved very useful.  There’s also a good video from the Botanical Society of the British Isles on these ferns if you’d like to learn more.

Wall lettuce Lactuca muralis grows at the base of the churchyard wall, and was just coming into flower.  I recognized it immediately, but had never stopped to i.d. it before.  One of the many things my job gives me is a reason to stop and look at plants differently and closer than before.

Wall lettuce Lactuca muralis

Growing on the wall in my garden is the Wall bellflower Campanula portenschlagiana.  In late May, the whole of the front garden wall is blue with it.  I was surprised to find there are two similar bell flower species.  Again, time was needed to untangle them and ensure I was illustrating the correct species.  Online resources such as the Botany in Scotland blog proved very helpful.

Wall or Dalmatian bellflower Campanula portenschlagiana

Urban plants of Scotland i.d. guide : Walls & buildings, and Garden escapes

Urban plants: Garden escapes

Many of the plants seen in urban settings are garden escapes.  This isn’t surprising.  However, it does mean lots of urban plants are quite blousy.  One example is the Opium poppy Papaver somniferum.

This is a plant I’ve been wanting to paint for a long time, but never had the opportunity.  I was surprised to find the commonest colour of the bloom is mauve, not a deep red.  Like many plants, the Opium poppy has glaucous, waxy leaves.  This means using lots of Cobalt Blue and even some white when it comes to colour mixing.

Opium poppy Papaver somniferum

Another garden escape is the Hybrid bluebell Hyacinthoides x massartiana.  This is a cross between the UK’s native bluebell, and the Spanish bluebell which is often grown in gardens from bulb.  Telling your Spanish bluebell from your native species, and figuring out whether or not you’re looking at a hybrid is mighty confusing.  I did a blog a few years back, trying to untangle them.

Hybrid bluebell Hyacinthoides x massartiana

It was interesting to see that the Welsh poppy Meconopsis cambrica appears in this section.  Where I live, on the border between England and Wales, the Welsh poppy is a wild flower, not a garden escape.

Welsh poppy Meconopsis cambrica

Urban plants: Pavements

The species in this habitat were also a bit tough to untangle as superficially Thale cress, Hairy bitter-cress, and Shepherd’s purse look alike.  It doesn’t take long with a botany bible like Stace’s New Flora of the British Isles and the gorgeous line drawings of Stella Ross-craig to be able to tell them apart with no trouble. Two of them grow, by chance, in pots in my garden.  Thale cress I had to look for a little harder.  It’s an important plant as it’s used as a model in genetics research.  The genome of Thale cress was the first plant genome to be sequenced.  A small weed with a big impact.

Thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana Hairy bittercress Cardamine hirsuta and Sherherds purse Capsella bursa-pastoris

Annual meadow grass was one of only 4 grass species on the whole list.  I can’t believe I’ve not illustrated it before, it’s very common and very pretty!  I started on these illustrations in the depth of winter, and as Annual meadow grass is the only UK grass species to flower year round, it made identification super-easy.  The crinkled leaf blade is another useful diagnostic.

Annual meadow grass Poa annua

Urban plants of Scotland i.d. guide : Pavements

Some of the pavement species are ones I’ve illustrated before.  This includes the Pineapple weed Matricaria discoidea, Broad-leaf Willow-herb Epilobium montanum, and Chickweed Stellaria media.  I know I always go on about it, but an illustrator gets paid for each illustration used, whether or not it already exists.  Hang onto your copyright, illustrators!  Re-use fees make the notoriously low-paid job of an illustrator (almost) a viable career.

Pineapple mayweed Matricaria discoidea

Urban plants: Grassy places & parkland

Some of the prettiest species featured in the guide grow in this ecological niche.  I’d completed all but one of the plants featured in this section for other jobs; it was a pleasure to re-assess them and make sure they still pass muster. One of my favourite wildflowers, Fox and Cubs Pilosella aurantiaca, makes an appearance.  After years of cajoling, I finally have a flourishing population of these flowers in my garden.

Orange hawkbit Fox and Cubs Pilosella aurantiaca

Likewise, with some careful neglect, I now have a healthy amount of Self heal Prunella vulgaris and White clover Trifolium repens growing in my lawn.  It makes me happy, helps protect the grass from drought, and is good for the pollinators.

Self heal Prunella vulgaris

The species in this section that I’d not yet painted is the common Daisy, Bellis perennis.  It’s odd, with the species I get asked to illustrate, sometimes the most ubiquitous plants fall through the cracks.  I’ve been illustrating plants for 25 years, and this is the first time I’ve been asked to illustrate a daisy.  It was a real joy to find the perfect specimen on the lawn and rectify the situation. The illustration takes the basal rosette of one plant and the flowering heads of another.  The benefits of illustrations instead of photography (for more about my feelings on this, check out my FAQ section, but be prepared for a balanced view.  Both are vital tools.).

Daisy Bellis perennis

Urban plants of Grassland and parks: In defence of Ragwort

I wish I’d been able to add the caterpillar of the Cinnibar moth Tyria javobaeae when I illustrated Common ragwort Jacobeae vulgaris.

Ragwort Jacobeae vulgaris or Senecio jacobaea

They’re black and yellow striped, and are really common on the plant.  I know there is a lot of anger towards Ragwort, as the plants can be toxic to livestock.  Sadly, this has been massively over-emphasized, and the mass clearance of this plant has had dreadful effects on the beautiful black and red Cinnibar moth.

Cinnibar moth Tyria jacobaeae

As the Botanic Gardens of Wales say, “Butterfly Conservation’s 2006 report on the state of Britain’s larger moths showed that the cinnabar had declined by 83%, classing it as ‘Vulnerable’.  While this dramatic change is likely due to many reasons, there is little doubt that misconception surrounding the toxicity of ragwort to livestock is a contributing factor to its decline. Farmers and landowners have been encouraged to eradicate the plant to minimise the risks of poisoning. However, ragwort poses little threat to livestock or humans unless considerable amounts are consumed daily, and the only real risk is posed when dried in hay, where it loses its acrid taste. As cinnabar caterpillars feed exclusively on ragwort and groundsel their slow eradication from our countryside poses a major threat to the survival of this species.”

Urban plants of Scotland i.d. guide : Grassy places and parklands pages

Conclusion

What surprised me as I worked on this guide, was just how many of the Urban plants noted in Scotland were equally common here in mid Wales, and down in London.  It’s a testament to the incredible adaptability of some of our plants.  They are filling niches that didn’t exist 150 years ago, and thriving.  Many more species can not make the transition, however, and become rarer and rarer as the urban sprawl continues to eat into the countryside.  Even more reason to care for the wild flower species we do still have, and to celebrate those that we get to see in our cities as well as in the countryside.  And to stop labelling them all as weeds, and trying to eradicate them from our pavements, walls, brownfield sites, and parkland.

Purple toadflax Linaria purpurea

The post Guide to Urban Plants of Scotland illustrations appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Roselyn seeds logo, (featuring my Common blue butterfly)

I have also created the artwork for their Wildlife Garden seed mix, and am working on designs for their Meadow cranesbill, Corn chamomile, Borage, and Sunflower packets.

Seed packet designs completed for Roselyn seeds

Design constraints

When working for packaging, there are always things to consider as well as the depiction of a flower species.  In this case, it’s the position of the hole at the packet top (so it can hang up on a display unit), logos relating to the credentials of the seeds, and the name of the seeds along with the Roselyn Seeds logo.

Logos which appear on the left side of the seed packets

Initial thumbnail roughs

The first thing to do is share ideas with the client.  I often submit these thumbnail sketches as pencil drawings, but because colour is so crucial to this design, I roughly added colour to the images, using photoshop.  There were about six options submitted, and once we agree on one or two, the process of fine-tuning the design can begin.

Initial colour thumbnail roughs

Working up roughs

We decided on elements of  two of the colour roughs.  The next step is to decide on a more precise composition, establishing where the flower heads should be, and how zoomed into the meadow the viewer should be.

Working on initial pencil roughs

After feedback on this stage, I worked up a more detailed pencil rough, showing all the elements in the correct position.  We also decide which pollinators to use in the illustration, and where to place them.  The blue circle on the drawing below dictates the position of a honey bee.

Detailed pencil rough

Final pencil rough and layout

Once this gets the go-ahead, it’s time to draw it up in detail and to overlay the design constraints on top of the drawing.  This ensures that the artwork won’t bump into logos or text, and that the logo can still be seen clearly.  The details of the foliage in the background is added.

Final rough in layout

I do this with an acetate overlay.  I use this same overlay for all the designs, hence the wording not being correct.  It’s good enough to prove there will be no stark colour contrasts between flowers and leaves in critical parts of the layout.

Adding the background

I work from background to foreground when I illustrate.  This helps ensure the areas of highest contrast are right at the front, which gives a sense of depth to the illustration.  For more on illustrating landscapes, see my blogs on illustrating a coastal hay meadow and illustrating a water meadow landscape.

The sky is added first.  This is a very watery mix of Cerulean blue and Cobalt blue.  I extend it half way over the meadow so there will be a smoother transition between sky and plants.

At the base of the sky, while the paint is still wet, I add a very pale green wash.  This does not cover the main flowers, but unites all the other elements at the base of the design.

Adding foliage

Next, I outline the leaves.  This is a basic re-draw of each blade of grass and leaf, using a variety of greens.  I add details like veins and accurate leaf margins.  I’ll also put in some suggestions of shadow to give the leaves depth.

Detail of the foliage

The flowers are left as white paper, for now, but will receive similar treatment in due course.  The reason for doing the leaves and grass first and the flowers later is simple.  The flowers are more exciting and fun!

Illustration with background completed and foliage plotted in

Adding the insects

Before getting into the details and darker tones of the leaves and flowers, I add the insects.  This ensures I don’t paint over them by mistake, and that I can calibrate the tonality of the landscape and be certain they’ll show up.

Adding the bee pollinators to the illustration

Each of the seed packets features one or more common pollinators.  For this wildflower mix, we could take our pick from any number of bees, beetles, wasps and butterflies.  This is the Red-tailed bumblebee.

Adding flowers: Yellows

Next, I take on the flowers.  I do this colour by colour.  If you only have yellows on your palette, you’re far less likely to mix some random muddy colour by adding red or blue by mistake.  I delineate each petal, and then the centre of the flowers.  For the white flowers, it’s only the central area of each inflorescence that gets colour added.

Once this is done, I add a more dilute yellow top wash to the marigolds.  The corn chamomile and corn marigolds are more or less finished.

Painting the yellow flowers

Adding flowers: pinks and reds

I repeat the process for the pink Corncockle flowers.  These only have colour at the edges of the petals, the centres are white.  They’re one of my favourite meadow flowers, so I was glad they featured.

Adding the pink flowers

You can see I’ve started adding the red poppies too.  Paint water is changed and the palette is given a wipe, even between painting colours as similar as reds and pinks.  I also add the poppy stamens, making sure they’re a purple hue rather than plain black.

Illustration with Pink, red and yellow flowers completed.

Again, once the poppies have been painted, it’s time to get fresh painting water and to clean the palette.

Adding flowers: Blues

The Cornflowers are such a lovely shade of blue.  It’s a surprisingly easy colour to mix.  Just Cobalt blue and Opera rose.  I have practise in painting these, having done the Cornflower seed packet illustration eatrlier.  It’s useful being able to cross reference your work.

Blue cornflowers are added

A pale diluted blue is added to the top of the cornflower petals, and the central florets are picked out in a darker blue.

Finishing touches, and reflection

To make the colours of the flowers more intense, I add further glazes or top washes.  More distant flowers are kept paler to try and give a sense of depth.

As we need to leave the background behind where the words appear clear enough to allow text to be legible, there’s no scope for adding much in the way of tonal depth to the leaves and grass.  The result is a flattening of the illustration which I’m not entirely happy with.

The flower colours are correct, but because of the lack on nuance in the leaves, the illustration appears both slightly washed out and simultaneously super saturated.

Completed illustration

Illustration with Layout guides

The acid test is to lay the acetate with the design elements over the top of the completed illustration.  It’s a moment of truth, and I am always very relieved when no crucial element is overlapped by bright colour, and no important flower is obliterated by text or logos.

Completed illustration with design overlay

I like many elements of this illustration.  I’m fond of the bumble bee and the poppies.  The composition works.  But the disconnect between the tonality and saturation of the flowers, and the less shadowed leaves feels a little jarring.  This will be reduced once the illustration appears on the seed packet, some of the intensity of colour gets washed out in the printing process.

Other seed packet designs

The seed packet below is for a wildflower garden mix.  It features an idealised garden, complete with pollinators, a bee hive, and a well-visited bird table. (Not to mention a ridiculously clean shed).  I like the way this image works on the packet label.

Wildflower garden seed mix

Below are some of the individual species’ seed packets.  I think they show how the colours are slightly less saturated as a result of the printing process.

The ones I’m currently working on include borage (one of my favourite flowers) and the sunflower.  These seed packet designs are an ongoing job, and one I’m enjoying.

Meadow buttercup and Cornflower seed packet designs

Ox-eye daisy and Red campion seed packet designs.

Roselyn seeds haven’t yet rolled out these designs across all of their products, but will do so soon.  In the meantime, feel free to order their (excellent) wildflower seeds.  And maybe have a go at illustrating them yourself?

The post Wildflower seed mix – Packet design appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Drawing plants you’ve never seen

I am often asked to illustrate species which I have never seen in the flesh.  It’s harder than drawing from life, but with photo and online reference it is possible.  For more on this see my blog on working from photo reference).

Many of the plants illustrated for the booklet were new to me, or fruits that I had never seen growing in situ.  One of the things I was keen to do whilst on the island was to find as many of these plants as I could, and compare them to my illustrations.  It’s nerve wracking, but important.  If there are big discrepancies then the illustrations need to be done again and improved.

Fruit trees: Soursop Annona muricata

It didn’t take long to recognize some of the plants I’d illustrated.  On a guided nature hike, I was shown the soursop fruit.

Soursop fruit

I recognized it from my illustration, which is always a good sign.  Having struggled with the pattern of the spines on the fruit’s skin, it was a relief to see that the geometry was similar to my illustration.  I couldn’t reach the fruit, but was glad when our guide told me that yes, the flesh was indeed a creamy white colour.

Detail: Fruit of the Soursop

The tree wasn’t in flower, so I have to hope that the photos I amassed and worked from were accurate.

Soursop leaves are gratifyingly similar to those I’d illustrated, and to many other leaves from the list.  Smooth, glossy, dark green with simple margins.

Soursop

Fruit trees: Guava Psidium guajava

I found my Guava tree in Elvis Gerald’s garden (click here for more on this extraordinary Caribbean garden).  I have seen and eaten guava before, but never noticed the tree it grows on.

Guava growing in Elvis’s garden

The fruit is the same colours as my illustration, if a touch rounder.  I didn’t cut open the fruit to see if the flesh is the same pink colour I showed, that would have been rude.

The distinctive lateral veins on the leaves are clear.  I intentionally toned them down a little when I added colour to my painting, I now wish I’d kept them starker.

My illustration of Guava

The blossom is a bit less convincing.  Although the basic colour and shape is right, in reality there are a lot more stamens than I included in my illustration.  The flower is passable, but not a good representation.

Guava flower

Trees: Trumpet bush Cecropia peltata

Another plant we were shown by our natural history guide was the Trumpet bush.  The leaves are the right shape, and the way they grow from the trunk feels right too.

Trumpet bush on the Dry Waterfall trail

What amazes me is the sheer size of each leaf.  They are enormous!  Luckily the scale doesn’t matter in my illustrations, but I am sure I have drawn them too small.

My illustration of the Trumpet bush

The other surprise is how very white the underside of each leaf is.  Yes, I illustrated the leaves as pale below.  But if I were to repeat the illustration I would make them closer to white than to pale green.

Underside of Trumpet bush leaf

Pung Coolie Momordica charantia

In the car park near our trail head, our guide Loydie pointed out the Pung coolie, growing in the grass.

This plant surprised me by being far smaller than I’d imagined.

The tendrils and pale yellow petals are the same, but I’d envisioned it as having flowers the size of courgette flowers, not these far smaller blossoms, only a few cm across.

Pung coolie or Bitter melon

It looks very similar to my illustration, irrelevant of size.  Saying that, the specimen I saw wasn’t bearing fruit, so I can only hope these are depicted correctly.

My illustration of Pung coolie

Blue vervain or porterweed Stachytarpheta jamaicensis

Driving back from the walk, I spied some spindly blue flowers.  I was really pleased to see them, all along the roadside verges were lots of Blue porterweed plants.

Photo of Blue porterweed

Flowers fell from the spikes almost as soon as I picked them, but they stayed long enough for me to realise the shapes I’d drawn were correct, even if the shade of blue I used was not quite purple enough.  I think my leaves should have been a touch smaller and a little shinier.

My illustration of Blue vervain

Aloe vera

This plant grows everywhere in Montserrat, along road sides, and more prolifically where it’s a bit drier.

I know the illustration is more or less ok because I have an Aloe vera in a pot here at home.  However, it’s good to see that the shade of green is pretty well matched to the wild plant.  As I didn’t see one in flower, I have to keep my fingers crossed that the inflorescence is correct.

My Aloe vera

Love vine

Driving up Jack Boy Hill, about a mile up the road, suddenly everything seems to be strewn with orange tangles of thread.

Love vine on an Acacia

I’m afraid I shouted out in joy when I realised I was driving past thick nests of Love vine.  This was particularly satisfying as I’d struggled to understand the nature of the plant and the colour scheme when illustrating it.

My illustration of Love vine

Seeing it grow, I realise it grows like Dodder Cuscata in the UK.  And looking closely, the colours on individual tendrils do indeed fade from light green through yellow to a rich orange.  This plant was my happiest comparison.

Resurrection fern Pleopeltis or Polypodium polypodioides

The last plant I saw growing that I remembered to take a photo of was the Resurrection fern.

This was on trees and tree trunks in the Mezoic wet forest areas.  The sori do indeed leave prominent marginal bumps on the leaves, and the central stem is almost as hairy as I showed it (but less purple).

Photo of Resurrection fern

What I got wrong is that on the plants I saw growing, very few had mature sori pointing upward.  This could have been chance, or perhaps it’s the way the plant grows.  I think the leaves I illustrated could have been a richer and shinier green.  Saying that, the plant is recognisable and that’s the acid test.

My illustration of the fern

Other plants I saw…and failed to photograph

Unfortunately, I failed to take photos of the Sensitive plant Mimosa pudica, West Indian Bay leaf Pimenta racemosa, or Lemongrass.  I ate leaves of the latter two in Elvis’s garden, so it’s not as if I didn’t have the chance to examine the plant where it grew.

Mimosa

My biggest regret is not taking photos of the very beautiful Bush tea or Quickstick Gliricidia sepium tree.  These were in full bloom, dotting the wooded hillside with delicate pink tree crowns.  I picked some of the flowers, and even had them in a jar on the table.  But I failed to draw them from life or to photograph them.

Bush tea tree

Ah well, I’ll just have to go back next year….

Conclusion

On the whole, I’m pleased with how closely my illustrations tally with the plants I saw growing in the wild in Montserrat.  Inevitably there’s some discrepancy of scale.  Luckily this doesn’t matter in drawings.  Colours are occasionally slightly different.  I didn’t get to see every plant I’ve illustrated, nor see every life stage of each plant.

What I really love is being able to touch the growing plants, rotate them, smell their leaves and flowers.  Yes, I can work from photographs and picture reference.  But the experience is much more exciting and far easier if you’re able to hold the plant in your hand as you paint.

The post Medicinal plants of Montserrat – Illustrations vs Reality appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Some months ago I worked on a diagram of an idealised garden which grew flowers, fruit, herbs, and vegetables all year round.  The most unusual thing about this job is that the garden was on the island of Montserrat, in the Caribbean.

As I drew up my pencil rough, including all the species listed as growing on this plot of land, I wondered how on earth anyone could ever be expected to have such a wide variety of plants in one garden.  Little did I know then, I was soon to see the garden in real life.

Annotated pencil rough of the Montserrat Garden plan

Elvis Gerald’s Garden

One of the many highlights of my recent work trip to Montserrat (take a look at my blog Montserrat – Working in Paradise for more) was visiting Elvis’s garden.

Elvis Gerald is a remarkable and extremely knowledgeable man.  Working in Montserrat’s Department of Agriculture, for RSPB, liaising with Montserrat National Trust and responsible for ensuring imported fruit and vegetables don’t carry harmful invasive species; he is also a very busy man.  Which is why it was all the more wonderful to meet him at his home and get a tour of his amazing garden plot.

Elvis Gerald’s garden with entomologist Wolfgang, Catherine Wensink, Jodey Peyton, and Rebecca Machin

Caribbean garden: Temperate orchard

The very first thing I clocked about Elvis’s garden was that it’s on a slope.  I had not even considered this when I was drawing it, and was wondering about the layout.  It made the whole enterprise even more remarkable.  The first area we saw was on a gentle gradient.  The same is not true of areas round the back of the house.

Apple and pear trees aren’t commonly grown in the Caribbean.  They are temperate fruit.  So imagine our surprise to see several varieties of apple, pear and even nectarines thriving.  Elvis shields the tree trunks from scalding by the sun with white paint, and mulches the base of the trees with shredded paper.

Mulching around apple trees with shredded paper

The fruits are protected from pests by being individually bagged, and tinsel and tin foil festoon the trees to dissuade hungry birds.

Pears protected in bags

Between the trees, Elvis grows peppers and chillis.  Pots of herbs and squash plants are dotted around.

Pepper growing in the orchard area.

Grass is allowed to grow to protect the soil, and carefully placed irrigation pipes provide water during drought.  In my diagram I put these in a corner, in reality irrigation tubes stretch the width of the plot.

Diagram of the garden in progress.  Irrigation systems in the bottom right.

Guava, Banana and Papaya

I was thrilled to see a Guava tree growing, complete with blossom.  Although I was pretty happy with the illustration of the guava fruit I did for one of my Montserratian medicinal fruits, I’d been anxious about the blossom.  The flower was not perfect, somewhat lacking in stamens, but it was close enough to earn a small sigh of relief.

Guava Psidium guajava photo and my illustration of blossom

Other tropical fruit trees grew alongside.  There were bananas and plantains.

Elvis’s banana palms, and my diagrammatic ones.

Lots of Papaya grew, with fruits still green.  The lobed leaves, and the way they grow out from the trunk is instantly recognizable.  These trees grow throughout the garden, often on very steep areas.  Some grew alongside pomegranates.

Papaya tree alongside my diagram

As suggested in my species list, there were also Dragon fruit, Figs, Mulberry, and Barbados cherry.

Native species growing in amongst include the Rainfall bush, Gumbo limbo, Noni, Broadleaf and Bay leaf.  The Bay was fascinating.  It’s far larger than our European Bay and has shiny, leathery leaves.  Although the smell is similar, it’s more nuanced.  Elvis uses the leaves for tea and to flavour porridge.

There is also a hedge of Pribby, an endemic species used for hedging.  I hope to do a brief blog on Pribby soon.

West Indian Bay leaf Pimenta racemosa

Cabbages

I love a beautiful cabbage as much as the next person, and have delighted in illustrating them in the past.

Savoy cabbage completed for Rodale Publishing’s “Vegetable Garden Problem Solver”

However, I was not expecting to see some of the most perfect cabbages I’ve ever encountered growing on a steep hill in Montserrat.  Elvis says slugs and snails are not a problem, so the cabbages thrive.  As do the lettuces, salad leaves, seedlings, and other low-lying plants.

Cabbage growing and diagrammatic cabbages

As with the diagram, amongst the cabbage beds, Elvis grows peppers and other plants.  This shields the earth from the hot drying sun, a concept my illustration has failed to capture.

Companion planting is part of Elvis’s armoury.  There are French marigolds and plenty of Tridax daisy Tridax procumbens.  This pretty little plant provides ground cover and is important for pollinators.

Pests

I was grateful that there was netting underfoot in amongst the sweet potatoes, squash and cabbages.  I assumed it was there to stop Elvis from sliding down the hillside as he gardened.  The slope below the house is quite extreme.

No.  It’s there to deter iguana.  These lizards grow to massive sizes, and are the bane of many gardeners on Montserrat.  Tinsel scares off the birds.  Netting shields vegetables from iguana.  Companion planting encourages natural predators of insect pests.  And these are only the pest deterrents I noticed!  I have no doubt that many more are also at play.

Herbs and Spices

Tucked amongst the trees and vegetables are lots of pots of herbs.  Chocolate mint, Cinnamon and Lemon basil, Coriander and Rosemary, thyme and tarragon.

Elvis also grows ginger and turmeric.  I’d not seen turmeric growing before, and was surprised to see how close to the surface the root is.  It reminded me of an iris.

Pots of herbs, Turmeric; and my diagram of coriander, thyme, and ginger growing in pots

Earlier in the day, Elvis has harvested some cucumbers, so we got him to pose outside his back door with one.

Elvis Gerald with home grown cucumber

Dry Garden

It came as something of a surprise when Elvis pointed out that he had a second garden too, further down the hill.  Luckily for us, he was willing to show us around there too.

This garden was flatter, and much drier.  It was rich in fig trees, avocado, and limes.  Montserrat used to be known for its’ lime juice, until scale insects wiped out many of the citrus orchards.  It was sad to see some evidence of these insects on Elvis’s trees, too, although the fruit looked healthy.

Lime

There were lots of sweet potatoes growing.  I was relieved that the unlikely purple trumpet-shaped flowers I’d found in research were indeed the right flowers for a Sweet potato plant.

Sweet potato flowers alongside diagram of the plants growing

Conclusion

We left Elvis’s gardens in awe.  That someone holding down several jobs and no small level of responsibility could also maintain two beautiful and productive gardens was almost alarming.  So much produce, year round.  Unencumbered by long European winters, and only fettered by droughts and animal pests, Elvis has created the sort of garden anyone would be jealous of.

It is also the only time in my life that I have seen reality being more organised and perfect than my idealised diagrams.  Elvis Gerald, I salute you.

Catherine Wensink (UKOTCF), Elvis Gerald, and ecologist Jodey Peyton

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Arriving

You arrive in Montserrat airport via a little plane from Antigua, skimming low over the volcanic island.  Catherine Wensink from the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum (UKOTCF) met me at the airport, with biologist and educator Rebecca Machin.

There was quite a team of us working on different aspects of Montserrat biodiversity; over the week I met ecologist Jodey Peyton, entomologist Wolfgang Rabitsch, and botanists Sophie Meeus and Quentin Groom.  We all got to liaise with government ministers as well as the Montserrat National Trust.

First impressions of Montserrat

Montserrat is vertiginous, a volcanic isle swathed in lush vegetation.  Roads are steep.  Mangoes drop their fruit to the ground where you can gather and eat them.  Stalls sell coconuts, bananas, and eggs.  Wild agouti and incredibly well-fed feral chickens, goats, and donkeys stray about.  The sun is hot and the breezes warm.  Short violent rain showers accompanied by wild winds pass swiftly and mostly happen at night.  Wild iguanas lie in the sun and zenaida doves waddle along the roadside.  The Souffrière hills, site of the volcano that erupted from 1997 – 2010, tower above the island.  The active volcanic peak is mostly swaddled in cloud.

The Souffrière hills – active volcano.  Photo taken from the exclusion zone.

The houses dot the hillside, painted absurdly pretty bright colours.  They’re interspersed with snack bars and tiny cafes.  People wave and honk their horns at each other in friendly salutation.

View of Look-out village from Jack Boy Hill

Visiting Elvis Gerald’s Garden

My first full day included a trip to garden I was very keen to see.  Having worked with Elvis Gerald on an idealised plan of his garden, it was a treat to see the spaces in real life, burgeoning with fruit, vegetables, and flowers.  I’ll write a separate blog about his gardens as they were truly impressive.

Visiting Elvis Gerald’s garden with Catherine Wensink, Jodey Peyton, and Rebecca Machin

Montserrat National Trust: Monty’s Messengers & Ambassadors

Much of the conservation work being done is supported by the Montserrat National Trust, a very active organisation headed by Sarita Francis.

As well as hosting my illustration workshops, they had a session on preserving herbarium specimens with Quentin and Sofie.

Sarita Francis OBE and me – presenting MNT with original illustrations

The MNT hold scientific conferences and run the Botanical Gardens, and are also very involved in promoting the importance of cherishing the biodiversity of the island; to visitors, residents, and especially to children.

Not only do they promote wildlife and nature on the island, they also have a gift shop which sells, amongst other things, tea towels and mugs featuring some of my Medicinal Plants of Montserrat illustrations.  I was delighted to receive a mug featuring my botanical illustration and a tote bag from Mrs. Francis.

Teaching at Montserrat National Trust

My contact is Chris Sealys, Conservation officer at MNT. Chris engages with local kids and young adults through Monty’s Messengers (for youngsters) and Monty’s Ambassadors.  Activities focus on teaching all aspects of natural history through fun activities, in the hope that prioritising the biodiversity of Montserrat will remain a life-long passion.

Monty’s messengers teaching workshop in the Botanic gardens’ pagoda

Monty’s messengers came and drew with me; I’d brought resin encapsulated insects to inspire them, but also offered them native flowers from the gardens.  They did some terrific work, despite never having used watercolours before and some being really quite young.

Rebecca took them on a biodiversity rainbow hunt, and was amazed and how much they knew about the plants in the gardens and their local uses.  Sadly, this is something we seem to have lost a long time ago in the UK.

Praying mantis and beetle illustrations by Monty’s messengers

Monty’s Ambassadors did some beautiful work too, really concentrating and working with flowers and the insects.  They were so engaged, enthusiastic, and polite.

Monty’s Ambassadors at work

All I have to do as a teacher is provide encouragement and a few pointers if they get stuck.  Seeing people enjoy drawing is such a thrill, their enthusiasm for combining art and the natural world gives me a lot of joy.

Detailed pencil drawing by one of Monty’s Ambassadors

Working alongside Chris was great, he sees that you can embrace nature even if you’re not academically strong, and understands how art should stand alongside exams and school work as another way of getting youngsters involved in promoting and committing to Montserrat’s natural world.  He brought these ideas to the meetings we had with the Montserrat Government, and no doubt inspired both the arts council and education minister.

Teaching at Montserrat National Trust: Adult session

On Sunday I got to teach adults for a longer session called Nature meets Artistry.  We worked with the native and ornamental species form the botanical gardens and some of the roadside flowers I’d picked.

Nature meets Artistry session

I never know what plants people will choose to draw, and not only did the beautiful Plumbago auriculata get chosen, but one student took on the overlooked native Tridax daisy, Tridax procumbens.

As with the younger artists, my students applied themselves whole-heartedly and produced some lovely work.  I really enjoy seeing people learn more about plants by drawing them, and this was no exception.

Students’ pencil and watercolour illustrations of Plumbago and the Tridax daisy

Meeting the Arts Council and the Department of Education

I spend most of my life in my studio, illustrating plants and animals in splendid isolation.  For me, working alongside the MNT and the scientists and UKOTCF was novel, and a treat.  Spending time with people who care about the same things you do; and will tell you when fruit bats are eating mangoes, or go up sheer rock faces questing for unusual plants, or get over-excited about seeing a Tarantula hawk wasp…it was refreshing and inspiring.

These were the people who I joined for meetings with Montserrat’s Arts Council and Education department.

Logo of Montserrat’s Art Council

As well as not usually working in a team, I have very little experience of official meetings.  Although I felt a little intimidated, it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to share some of the benefits I feel come from drawing wildlife and plants.

Seeing Chris, Sarita, Catherine and Rebecca encouraging links between the government, education, arts council and Montserrat National Trust; and promoting the biodiversity of Montserrat was fascinating.  I hope the meetings will bear fruit.

Wildlife Walk

One of the fascinating things we did when I wasn’t teaching was to join Loydie on a nature walk up the Dry Waterfall Trail.   Loydie is one of the excellent and highly knowledgeable guides working with Scribers Adventures.  These trails are well maintained by the MNT; within moments you feel enveloped in the jungle but the route was easy to negotiate.

Loydie explaining epiphytic plants and vines to us on Dry Waterfall trail

We learnt an enormous amount about the trees, ferns, birds, and insects all around us.  We even saw the endemic Montserrat oriole amongst foliage, and saw wild heliconia in bloom.

Tour of the exclusion zone

After visiting Montserrat Volcanic observatory, a state of the art monitoring site keeping an eye on the still-active volcano, we joined the fabulous Norman Cassell of Namcas Tours for a visit to Montserrat’s exclusion zone.

After the volcano erupted in 1995, it continued to throw ash and pyroclastic flows across wide expanses of the island.  Areas smothered included most of Montserrat’s agricultural land, its main port, the capital city of Plymouth, and the airport.

Half buried, view of the Secondary school Norman attended, in Plymouth’s exclusion zone

Norman brought his friendly enthusiasm, an immense knowledge, and memories of growing up as well as living through the eruptions to our tour.  It was a joy and a privilege to spend time with him, and also incredibly moving to be allowed to see some small part of what has been lost to volcanic activity.  The resilience of the Montserratians as they continue to reconstruct their future is extraordinary.

Teaching at Montserrat Secondary School (MSS)

There’s one secondary school on Montserrat, and I got to teach some of the art students for an hour.  Thanks is due to the head of art, Mr. Kelvin ‘Tabu’ Duberry (a fine artist as well as a teacher), for allowing me to hijack his classroom.

Teaching at MSS

Again, the students used pencil and watercolour and chose resin-encapsulated insects and plants as subjects.  These teenagers are already very able, so seeing them tackling observational drawing and the new medium of watercolours was fascinating.  They did some beautiful work, and managed to capture intricate details as well as some of the nuances of shine and iridescence on the elytra of the beetles.

Two beetles painted by MSS high school students

Chatting to Mr. Duberry was interesting too, the amount of excellent work he manages to produce with limited resources is quite remarkable.  At the end of the session I was touched and very pleased to be presented with a beautiful linocut done by one of the art students.

Me talking to Kelvin Duberry and holding the lino-cut I’ve been given.

Beaches and wildlife

There was plenty of free time to explore the island’s beautiful volcanic beaches.  Snorkelling revealed pristine coral reefs, purple sea fans, shoals of large pale blue fish, sea turtles, saffron corals, angel fish, tiny fish like glittering sapphires, long-spined sea urchins, and spotted box fish.

One of the beautiful volcanic beaches on Montserrat

The sea was warm, the sun was hot, the breeze was cooling but tropical.  And the sunsets were glorious.

Wild animals on the island seemed pretty tame; we saw hosts of birds including the notoriously bold Pearly-eyed thrasher Margarops fuscatus and American kestrel Falco sparverius.

Pearly-eyed thrasher looking for crumbs.  Bold as you like.

Above the ever-changing blues of the Caribbean sea we saw Brown pelicans Pelecanus occidentalis, Royal terns Thalasseus maximus, Tropicbirds Phaethon aethereus with their eerie cries, and Frigate birds Fregata magnificens.

Magnificent Frigate bird Fregata magnificens in flight over Marguerita bay

These were easy to identify thanks to a handy wildlife guide to Montserrat, co-written by some of the people I was working with during my trip.  However, I am well aware that there are many many more birds to spot on Montserrat.  No wonder the guide is titled, “Birding in Paradise”!

Birding in Paradise – authors include Catherine Wensink and Sarita Francis

Conclusion

This trip was one of the most wonderful weeks of my professional life.  Everyone I met was committed and working incredibly hard to promote the biodiversity of Montserrat.  They were friendly and fun, inspirational and enthusiastic.  Montserrat itself is simply stunning, somehow retaining its’ sense of self and its friendliness as well as being abundantly generous to tourists.  The plants are awe-inspiring, the volcano is beautiful and terrifying, the wildlife is accessible and jewel-like.

Will I be back?  If I am useful enough to be invited back, I would commit to another week of teaching botanical illustration and nature drawing on Montserrat in a heart-beat.  Birding in Paradise, yes.  Illustrating in Paradise?  I’d take that offer any day.

Gazebo at Montserrat national trust, site of my workshops.

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