HI THERE! I'M BRIANNE TURCZYNSKI, FREELANCE WRITER, HISTORICAL RESEARCHER, & PERPETUAL SEEKER OF THE HUMAN CONDITION. WELCOME TO MY SPACE WHERE I SHARE THE BOOKS I'M READING, MY SPIRITUAL FINDINGS, FLOWERS IN MY GARDEN, AND LOST STORIES. ALL ARE WELCOME HERE.
I think I have read just about everything Vita Sackville-West wrote about gardening, I also own many of her garden books. She continues to be the place I go for advice and also cute little anecdotes about additional uses for flowers most gardeners never think to mention. . . . Been fidgeting in the garden … Continue reading In Your Garden by Vita Sackville-West
For The Bride: A scrapbook for brides from 1920’s. My mother gave me this as a sort of joke on my anniversary one year along with a book called, The Silent Hostess, also another inside joke. . . . My husband and I were married 14 years ago today. I was 22 years old. It … Continue reading For the Bride: Today is our Wedding Anniversary
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finally finished this! Took me two months!! 🙄 Mostly because every time I picked it up I fell asleep. It didn’t help that I had Ennio Morricone film scores circling in my mind, as I’ve been listening to his arrangements with Yo-Yo Ma on repeat for two weeks. So that music perpetually in my … Continue reading The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
I would like to...render thanks now to this graceful iris which arises from reedy stems in delicate flower-heads of dark purple, lavender, and white. It varies in its colour[sic], and that is one of its most attractive characteristics. -Vita Sackville-West More For Your Garden June 27th, 1954 If you've read my post, Snatching Velvet in … Continue reading Why Love The Iris?: An Interview with the American Iris Society
"...do plant Abelia Triflora. It flowers in June, grows to the size of what we used to call syringe [lilac], and is smothered in white, funnel-shaped flowers with the strongest scent of Jasmine." -Vita Sackville-West In Your Garden; June 18th, 1950 I waited all summer to buy the Abelia. As you might know, shrubs are best … Continue reading Fragrant Abelia
I went to a Christmas party given by a neighbor of mine...All the things appertaining to a cocktail party were standing about, on tables; but the thing that instantly caught my eye was a pot plant of cyclamen I had not seen for years. Delicate in its quality, subtle in its scent, which resembles the … Continue reading The Modest Christmas Cyclamen
Not often now, in my saddened old wisdom, do I get enticed by catalogue descriptions into ordering something which I know is almost bound to disappoint. Yet from time to time I fall. I do not regret this. If one lost the capacity of falling, it would mean that one had passed from the trustful … Continue reading Bugbane: The Angel Of The *Fall*
Another vine which is giving me great pleasure at the moment is Vitis heterophylla, an East Asian. You can't eat it, but you can pick it and put it in a little glass on your table, where its curiously coloured berries and deeply cut leaves look oddly artificial, more like a spray designed by a … Continue reading Porcelain Berry Bright…
What about Tropaeolum speciosum, the flame nasturtium, with brilliant red trumpets among the small dark leaves? This is the glory of Scottish gardens... -Vita Sackville-West In Your Garden November 24, 1946 Something rather peculiar happened when I was planning my garden back in April. I knew I wanted to plant seeds, two in particular; the … Continue reading Vita’s Wish For Nasturtium…
The marvel of Peru, Mirabilis jalapa, is familiarly called four o'clock, because it opens only at tea time and shuts itself up again before breakfast. It is an old-fashioned herbaceous plant, seldom seen now, but quite decorative with its mixed coloring of yellow, white, red, or lilac, sometimes striped or flaked like some carnations. -Vita Sackville-West … Continue reading Just In Time For Tea
BRIANNE TURCZYNSKI 