Bzzzz Buzzy busy times in the Swedish garden

 

It is buzzing all around me, lots of bees looking for new flowers.... very happy with our big wild cherry tree flowering. All wild animals are busy, all birdhouses are already booked, the red squirrel is running through the garden without even seeing us and the hare was too busy to prepare a solid nest for the small ones (so we gave her a little help outside our garden).

And we are very busy too.... there is a lot to do in the garden now, nature isn't waiting. It just goes on, like in normal life 😉. We fixed the fence around our garden (so we hope there will be less visits of hare and deer eating our flowers we worked very hard for), we made a southfacing herb garden, started a sunny fruitcorner, we have been digging, mixing and spreading compost in big parts of the garden, we restored the hedge (where some beech trees died in wintertime) and sawed and planted some greenery and summer flowers.

Because lots of rain through out the days last weeks, you can see thousand colors of fresh green 💚. As you know, green of nature around you give lot's of positivity and energy.

The result is also there is less time left to work outside, there is a swimmingpool on the grass (so we have problems to cut the grass) and everything is growing even faster. Even the weeds, they are growing so fast it's hard to manage (in less time outside) when your garden is 2500 m2. At the same time, I have to admit, it feels very good and healthy to keep busy outside (while being at home that much together with the two of us for months due to Corona), no need for the gym and the greens around us give lots of energy 💚.

And we have to hurry now, only few days of higher temperature next week and it will be also busy with midgets or knots, because it has been so wet till now. It will be impossible to be outside without being eaten, so we try to do as much as possible now when it's not raining. 

After one nice week with good temperature (half of May), temperatures went down again (average only 13 degrees). So nature is still little behind with flowering, only four weeks before Midsommar (the longest day of the year, after this days will shorten again till Christmas 😏). At the other side it's very good weather to recreate your gardendesign and replant some plants without spending hours for of watering.

Still I hope summer will start soon, we are longing for some sun and warmth after a long Corona year, with so much restrictions and without any traveling . I just took a quick look for next week, I saw some sun, higher temperatures and no raindrops anymore, let's hope 🙏

Work in progress spring projects outside

Yes, spring arrived in Sweden too! All of a sudden it's very sunny and 18 degrees....and in 2 days it became very green... I'm very happy my "Kungsängliljor" (Kievitsbloemen or Fritilaria Meleagris), the white and the black ones, are doing so well, this year (and they haven't been eaten (yet). They are lucky, they like to have wet feet 😂.

But what a crazy weather. Last week it was still frosty in the night, so I had to cover my small tiny plants (which got outside already) and new grown tomatoes every night. Yes, I know it's possible before the Icesaints come. But I was very lucky I didn't put out all my young plants yet. I was looking at the weather forecast daily 😬 and little stressed because they were inside too long. And I wanted to move forward of course, to be ready the end of May. For the first time I lost also several plants this winter, outside in the garden (my lovely Dutch red berries...) as well inside in the barn where I put them for wintertime (the Canna I found in my fathers garden 😢,) it became too cold. 

After the cutting down a lot of trees in the woods in our backyard, we needed to repair the lawn. Now it's planting time too. We chose some trees and bushes: a beautiful special and hardy oak (Quercus Rubus), a Flowering Cherry (Prunus Sagentii) with nice autumn colors and an Acer Japonica among other things. They were planted and started growing already. They had also little damage because of the late frost but now they are very happy on their new place and with al the rain they got later on😂

Meanwhile we try to get rid of the old Syringa, with the entrance. A very heavy job for us, getting a little older. So we try to fix very little parts each time we are working outside, bit by bit, but it is a tough guy 💪. We have been digging in our compost side to build a new one, we opened up the first one we made to use the ground which already is digested to new compost (from all weeds we took there from the start). We found already some older places where the old lady already made her compost, we use it and it is super ground with nutrition and moist to grow new plants with.

We were also very creative (to use old stuff in a new way): we planted an old rusty stairway (used for the chimney sweeper in former days), now it will be the Clematis Climber. An eyecatcher in our garden coming years!

We have been creating a new garden for some years now. At first we had to recover the old garden again because it was overgrown for some years. Of course we need to maintaine now as well. But now we are more and more creating something. It will be a mixed design of Grandma's Garden plants with a touch of Piet Oudolf natural garden (have a look at my Garden Dreams some time ago). It takes a lot of time but it makes us so happy, working, taking care of something and creating something new. Maybe one day...

Already a long time I have been dreaming about a sort of visiting garden, maybe just for people who are interested in gardening. It is very Swedish to have a coffee or tea with small cakes enjoying nature in a  small outside gardencafe (trädgårdscafe). Now we have the opportunity, a beautiful natural flowering garden (even it is work in progress) in the middle of Smålands nature close to a lake. Only Corona is responsible for some delay.. and the weather shows it is an unreliable partner too. The garden is not ready after winter to show yet.

PS We have a sort of try out to protect our new plants, just coming out of the earth after winter against the deers... we put some blinking CD's in the trees... in the dusk it's like "dangerous" animal eyes, they scare them away.... we hope 🙏 But we are not sure, maybe it also scares the birds? We will see, to be continued...