For the Love of Lavender and the Color Purple

Today I planted Lavender. Grosso, to be exact, because it's my favorite varietal. In every house we have lived in I have placed Lavender in the ground as a way to mark the territory with one of my most favorite things. It's April so of course my mind wanders to plants and perennials and my body wanders into nurseries in search of color and living things to place in pots, in dirt. I feel like I accomplished something and added a most pleasing element to our home, one that I can nurture and watch over.

Every spring I worry over the perennials that I planted before winter strangled the landscape with her cold shriveled hands. Did they survive? Are they showing any signs of greening up at the base? I dug up a little seedum that didn't make it today and felt a pang of sadness as I tossed it into the wild and untamed mountain land. Back to nature with you to compost, break down, and feed something else living out there. 

Much of my emotional well-being is predicated on whether or not I have color somewhere in my vicinity. On the wall, in pots, on our dinnerware, on my socks, outside my window, in the magazines I pour over like Dwell or AD. Pinterest provides a great deal of satisfaction in pinning images of color drenched spaces I want to live in. For several years I've been designing and redesigning a simple off grid modern house for a bigger parcel of land we own north of here. Color will surely be a big part of it.

Pattern is likewise just as pleasing to my brain. It shows up consistently in my design work in some geometric form because linear is the anecdote to our messy lives. I can count on linear being stalwart, orderly and reliable. I can't count on politics to make me feel good, that's for certain. Oy. The funny is that I obsessively crave order and despite decades of striving, will never ever reach the pinnacle of organizational nirvana. It will NEVER happen! I've thrown in that towel and now am faking contentment to do the best I can and muddle along to life's rhythms. Secretly I'm still desperate for order...

The color lavender evokes calmness. The scent of lavender is purported to do the same thing, so right there, you have a pretty sure thing! Spray it on your pillows, fill the tub with warm water and dried lavender, hang up purple art, plant big pots of the herb near your front door. In nature purple is paired with green. Feel free to copy cat that combination because it works brilliantly.

Here is English Cottage Poppies in Lavender in a nursery. It's more of a heathered lavender rather than a blue purple. Poppies is such pretty wallpaper! It's available in pink or blue as well.

Lavender in whatever form is worthwhile cultivating for your peace of mind. Bring it indoors or place it lovingly outdoors and nuture it. It will give you back ten fold what you put into it. Just my musings on lavender today because it felt wonderful being out of doors and working in the dirt with fresh new plants.

Thank you for visiting my wallpaper shop!

Much love,

Victoria