Welcome to Villa Emilia (My Woodland Garden), a photography blog with a slant towards gardening and nature. An amateur gardener and photographer, I hope to share beautiful moments with you through pictures. Let me know if you like them! ❤

Thank you for your visit.

31.1.2016

January ends







With this collage, I participate in "A month in collage" challenge at Pieni Lintu and in Mosaic Monday at Lavender Cottage Gardening.

The background of the collage is one of the fern frost photos that can be found in this post.





The thaw came some days ago and the blanket of snow on the roofs falls down, rapidly and noisily, or slides down very slowly.




This morning our home had thick "snow curtains"...




... even laced ones:




I believe this little fellow on the snow belongs to the genus Chionea.




As you can see, sometimes our winter looks almost black-and-white. Let's add some colour! These are my favourite fruit jellies, unfortunately sold only during the Christmas season:






♥ Wishing you a lovely new week and month! ♥






Welcome, February!







29.1.2016

Hello weekend!


Hello all! With these photos I participate in




Thank you to Amy, Eileen and Karen for hosting!






The photos have been taken this afternoon through one of our living room windows. Great tits, the most numerous visitors at our bird feeder, pick sunflower seeds from the feeder and come to eat them under the branches of these spruces, often hiding so well I can't snap any photos of them.














I still haven't visited everyone after my previous post. Sorry about that!
I'll try to catch up as soon as I can! ♥






Have a lovely weekend!


25.1.2016

Memories 2015: Uppsala, Sweden


Hello all! In general, I try to show with my photos how our part of the world looks like in this moment.   Today, however, I want to take a short break from the winter ice and snow. We'll have a walk in the centre of Uppsala on a peaceful Sunday morning.  The cloudy weather wasn't the best for taking photos, but it wasn't the worst possible either. The photos were taken in July.


























Participating in Mosaic Monday:















































Have a lovely new week!


22.1.2016

Five photos



My photos for this week's Five on Friday  -  herbs grown on the windowsill, more halos, more dreams:
















Have a lovely weekend...

and especially a Sunlit Sunday!


19.1.2016

A wish, a dream, and a promise





A good title, isn't it? (It brings to my mind The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.)  The title and this post have been inspired by the lovely post Toive, unelma ja lupaus vuodelle 2016 (and the related challenge) on the wonderful Ruusunmekko Garden blog. Many Finnish garden bloggers have already written posts about their wishes for the new gardening year... posts accompanied by truly enchanting photos.

I have been posting almost every day recently. I still wanted to publish this post, because it has been waiting for some time already. Now I'll slow down and concentrate on visiting and commenting...




Dreams are pink (and rosy), aren't they?




At the moment, I wish especially that the plants (mine and yours) would survive this harsh and capricious winter. The temperatures have been around -30 degrees Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit) for quite a while and and in the beginning there was very little snow. We are lucky to live near a lake, however; there was a layer of snow (very light and fluffy) on the ice, and armed with a snow shovel, a large plastic tub and a pink plastic sled, I collected some to protect the most delicate plants. I had tried to protect them using dry leaves, burlap etc., but the weather conditions have been more challenging than expected. Fortunately, we finally received some more snow.

We'll see. Gardeningwise, last spring and summer weren't very successful  and one was hoping for a better year. Otherwise,  I will need to start to recycle old photos from the previous years (oh no!).




I'm dreaming of my present/future garden looking a little bit like my previous garden, lush and vigorous, but also something more... magical. A garden with climbing roses, hidden meadows with wildflowers, and secret paths out to the woodland beyond. A garden where fairies come at light summer nights and plant seeds picked from distant enchanted forests and where in moonlit winter nights wood sprites and hares dance in a circle. :)







I promise to try to choose the right plants to the right place, considering our climate, the soil, light requirements, the cold and wind tolerance... and I  promise to ignore this promise if, in my pursuit of beauty, I meet something completely irresistible, like honeysuckles. I promise, however, to try to make all my plants happier.







Even though the new year is already well on its way, it's good to pause and reflect on the goals to set for the next months.

Many of you already know Donna's inspiring blog Living From Happiness. Just before the New Year, Donna chooses a word to guide her through the coming year. Her word for this year is "Innovate". You can read her thoughts about inspiration, change, and creativity for example in these interesting posts: Innovation in 2016 and My Manifesto: An Innovative Life in 2016.

"For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." (T.S. Eliot)










Wishing you bright and cheerful winter days...
as well as beautiful but not too hot days
to the friends on the southern side of the globe!


16.1.2016

Happy weekend!








Hello all! With this post I participate in 

Saturday's Critters, hosted by Eileen,

Sunlit Sunday, hosted by Karen

and 

Mosaic Monday, hosted by Judith.

Thank you to all the hosts!

It's cold outside. When I'm writing this on Saturday morning, it's still dark outside and the temperature is -31 degrees Celsius (-23,8 degrees Fahrenheit). When the sun rises, the first thing to do is to make certain the bird feeder (and at the same time the unofficial squirrel feeder) is full. 

These photos were taken yesterday. Do join me, my camera and a zoom lens for a short walk! :)











Tracks I'm not able to identify. I'm afraid it could be a mink (Neovison vison).







Many of you have already seen my fern frost photos. In the not heated porch of a summer house, there are windows to three directions. There I was, turning like a spinning top, trying to capture the lovely play of light and colours.  My photos, especially when compressed, fail to do justice to it. I'm dreaming of... a macro lens. ♫

Nature is an amazing artist.






























Three photos added on Sunday afternoon:














I hope you enjoyed the photos.  Have a lovely weekend!