Garden flowers through the year

I had a project this year to draw all the flowers in our yard and gardens.  It started innocuously enough, when I noticed the last flower of the winter-flowering witch-hazel at the start of March, and thought "If I want to draw all the flowers in the garden, I better draw that one before it disappears."  After that, I somehow felt obliged to draw the other 273 flowers that appeared through October.  It was a great exercise in paying attention throughout the summer - including noticing details of all the showy flowers, but also all the little weeds, and changes like a period when most flowers were purple, then a switch to the reds and cadmium yellows.  It also forced me to draw regularly, even if it was only a 5-minute sketch of a little flower that was in danger of disappearing overnight, even if it was a bit overwhelming sometimes, like when I was away for 6 days in May and came back to find 35 new flowers on the "To Draw List".  [Click thumbnails below to enlarge]