Garden challenges

 

Backsippa (Pulsatilla)

This time I like to take you with me in my garden adventures. About the challenges in gardening, the plants very slowly waking, taking special care for seedlings in a difficult climate and uninvited visitors. In the garden you will have good and bad times. You win some, you loose some. It will never be like you expected. Always new actual jobs coming up spontaneous and it will always workout differently as you thought. 

The unstable climate doesn't make it more easy just now. It's too much water at once, sometimes on a frozen ground. Or too little water in months, so the ground will dry out and get heavy water after a long time. Different seasons within some days. Too warm or too cold at once. Last year it didn't rain from april to June. This springwinter the clematis nearly drunk in the swimmingpool created on the icy bottom (but I managed to higher up a little with some extra sand). Hope they will manage and are not rotten already. Last weeks we had two days of summer with 20 degrees, but after it got winter again. We even had snow within 5 days after. 

Now, in the end of april it's still freezing at night. I think last year springtime was a little earlier? springtime? Though my seedlings are on the way out. I have them on the veranda, I try to cover them every evening and uncover them in the morning. Nevertheless it didn't help enough or it was too cold. Last week freezing -3 at least. So I lost some of the seedlings. I need to start again later, when I just thought this project was finished. Last week I started cutting the grass partly by hand, the robot is not running yet. But I had to look in the future again.... when it start freezing hard it shouldn't be cut too short, then the grass will be damaged....but you'll only know afterwards. I'm happy it went well this time. The first days after there was no frost.

The plants are -very- slowly waking up from wintersleep, for the last weeks. It started, like always with the snowdrops some weeks ago. Some weeks after the Crocus started. Now we are in Narcissus time. And one of my favorites: Vitsippor, Blå sippor & Backsippor. The tulips are starting soon, they haven't been eaten. But most of the trees are still not green at all. Maybe in two weeks? The positive side is that I managed to weed the total garden for the first time, while the weeds are still very small because it's still so wintery. So not growing that quick that you'll soon be behind. While weeding I will often find a lot of baby plants. I collect them now for selling later in spring (in the plantmarket at the roadside), while they can grow in a pot for a while. By the way, this is also the ideal time for replanting and designing the borders. My favorite part of gardening: making nice border combinations. Like painting with different plants, times of flowering or leaves and complimentary colors. 

We even managed to fix already some bigger projects. We cut back the hedge at the barn, so it can grow this season again. It was very old and had a lot of old died branches. Soon it will be fresh and renewed again. We made a watercover under the airco/warmth unit outside. We pruned the willow trees, took away all winter leafs and prepared the compost side, I even carried out compost 💪. As far as possible because it was still a swimmingpool, so it went out to be a sort of mud wrestling. But in the end, gardening is just like in real life. You will meet a lot of challenges. It's up to you how you handle it. At least I got a very good and healthy condition from working outside, because it is like a good physical workout every time. The coldness is challenging too - I don't like to weed when it's under 7 degrees, it is sooo cold. Of course I wear good clothes but I really have to warm my fingers after an hour before I can move on again. Yesterday is was only 3 degrees, snowy and grey (of course 😜)... 

Also the animals are waking up. The first cranes we saw in Mars in the lake nearby, that's really early. A lot of reptiles did come out their wintersleep because we had some summer days. But when the severe forst came in the countryside again, a lot of these animals were found dead in the garden or on the streets. 

Last week I was working in the compost area when I spotted a slow worm for the first time (Snok på Svenska / Hazelworm in the Netherlands). In the two days of summertime I spotted the loving toads (pad - NL), in a very sunny but hidden place at the roses. The man climbed on the back of a female to be sure he's the first to mate. Just waiting to be carried to the water. They are not only ugly, they are lazy too.  Some weeks ago it was totally quiet around us, you couldn't hear anything. It's different now. A lot of birds have been starting nesting, most of the birdhouses in our garden are getting occupied now.  No signs of the hare yet, but we closed the gardenarea in March with a anti hare net. In winter we left the entrance open. It's not that big issue in wintertime because most of the plants disappear temporary into the ground. I forgot actually to protect the young beech trees, planned to be a hedge some day. The hare found them unprotected in winter and has not only been eating them more small again, all the buds with leaves for spring are gone too. I hope they will recover in summer. It's a pity one of them was ment to be the port to the compost area, I will have to change that one for a bigger one, otherwise it will take to many years to grow back. By the way I just took a look back, when you look at the older pictures you can really see what progress we made in the garden 💪. 

We also got some uninvited visitors. Mr and mrs Magpie (Skator/Eksters) decided to stay with us for a while. In the middle of a very big forest, with a lot of very nice and tall trees, they found their ideal nesting area very close to the window of our sleeping room. They build in very stable castle of branches, not easy to disturb. It's very high up in the Christmas tree, we don't dare dont climb that high. In the beginning they flow away when they heard Peter yelling at them. But now, they just think there's that crazy man again 😏. Now we made a very long stick of snow sticks and try to disturb the building and the breading every day, till now without any positiv result haha. But we are afraid they will stay with us for a long time, about next months. Breeding 20 days, feeding the youngsters another 20 days at least before they take there own way out. Mostly you can not mis them because they are very loudly (special early in the morning) and they shit everywhere around the place. And the worst of all: all the young small birds nesting in our garden are not save anymore, the eggs or young birds will be a very nice dinner for mr. & mrs Magpie and their youngsters. When they like this place too much they will be back the next years too.....😳. Let's see what happens.... See you next time!

Lingonrundan Påsk - för tidigt för trädgården

 

Hunting spring signs

 

It's a pity, last time I wrote it was a real Nordic winter... some beautiful days. But within one week it was green, raining warm water or very misty in Småland again. We didn't see the sun for weeks. Only some moments we had to go out quickly to catch the sunlight for some minutes. Hopefully now it will change to early spring, don't you think? Maybe spring will come a little bit earlier this year 🙏.

While we keep ourselves busy inside we keep on hunting spring signs, till now we only found the snowdrops. Just now we are busy with next years planning. What days shall we open? What events we will take part of? This is the time to subscribe and upload actual information. I think we will start with Lingonställen beginning of June. They have an Easter event end of March (info is coming soon on the side) but that is really too early for a garden. Would be nice to start some earlier, somewhere in May. I'm hoping every year but I don't think nature will hurry, so it's wishful thinking. But you never know.

End of June it will be time for Tusentradgardar again. A lot of (private) gardens in Sweden open up for every one. An event I really can recommend. Organised it every two years. Full of energy, even more inspiration and meeting only nice people and gardening enthousiasts. 

Half of July I'm happy to join the open garden day 2024 by Land.se again. They have not got the new information on the website yet, but it will come soon. It was a big succes last year, we booked a visitors record!

End of July I'm very honored to welcome the members of  "Värnamo Trädgård Förening" in the garden for a loo around and a fika. 

The event season will end with a Lingonrundan in the beginning of September. 

So it's looking like we will open up every two weeks in summer, maybe some spontaneous openings in between, depending on time and weather. I'm sure the summer won't be as bad and rainy as last year....

But now it's time to get out of my head again. I started with cutting the pelargon. I have some nice English (French for Dutch people 😝) Pelargon. My collection is growing more as I thought. They are so nice to grow here in this climate and they seem to like it in my upstairs room. But last year I managed to sell them also in the small plantmarket att the street side. This year I had also an a refugee, staying over for winter. The neighbors had no place to put it so it had a sort of sabbatical inside with us before getting out at their side again. 

Of course i started with the seedlings. Maybe to early but  just can't wait. I started with the experimental ones. Some difficult plants I want to seed, some plants who need warmth inside on my kitchen floor and cold outside to germ or seeds I hope they will flower this season too though they are two years plants. So experiments first. After it i started with Hollyhocks and Sunhats because i like to sell them flowering. But then they need to be quick unless I'm so quick to seed them more early. 

Hollyhocks

Outside we started with all cuttings. A nice part is always the Willow trees. Because it triggers me always to make something nice out of it. Those tranches are so fresh and beautiful colored and easy to work with. I already have some ideas in mind, you will see later. Beside of the water in the garden, it really needs to go down because now it's like a swimmingpool. But also in the lake is very high water. At lease we have no problems with drinking water next summer season. As soon as the temperature will go up to 7 degrees or above it will go fast and all jobs need to be at the same time. Before you know you are in the middle of summer (when you take a rest for midsummer). 

After the snow i'v been looking for Spring signs every day. It took a while but I'm very happy to tell you I found some: 

• Last week I was waken up very early by a singel crane in the lake nearby. The very first one a heard. It's looking like his/her partner is not back yet. When I look for the place where they collect before spreading after migrating from Europa I can read the first one was seen the 19th of February 2024.
• The snowdrops I told you already about but I even found the new buds in the Clematis Alpine what is climbing on the iron stairs. It's growing in the total open air in the back of the yard, so a very cold micro climate you could say. But maybe this is a tough cookie. 
• The Alliums bulbs started growing already... that's the sign we will need to prepare for closing the garden. Otherwise the hares will eat all of it. Or even worse they will find a place to make their nest. 

I really hope the water will disappear soon. Because it is too wet at the moment. We will ruin the grass by walking to much on it, it's very weak. The good ting is you can see the very nice mosses all around. Some people think they only grow on sick trees. But in contrary, they only grown in very healthy areas with clean air. I think they are beautiful. I call them trollenmos, but I don't know their real name. 

Do you want to read about last year spring time, please follow this link: Following natures steps last year. Or we will meet next time again, same place same time 😊.

Finally a nordic winter

full moon in late afternoon

Finally it looks like we have got a real Nordic winter (on the average). Though sometimes the climate change comes in between and we jump up or down with 20 degrees in some hours. We had some weeks of autumn and then the frost came in. It has been very cold now for a long time. Sometimes the warmth tries to get in for a day or two. But in general we have got winter since half of november. It has been freezing most of these weeks at daytime too. They got even a cold record, both in Sweden (43,6) as in Norway (43,5) last weeks. The record here at our place while we are living here (in the south of Sweden or Western Småland) is -18 in the late night. At the same time it feels even more cold, like -22 depending on wind and shadow. I can tell you that's really cold. Nature is building art, nice frost flowers on the ice or on the trees. You have to cover your face very well when you get out!

When it's that cold for a long time, other problems start. Like to open your car doors 😨. We had it when we came back from a travel. We parked at the station. We only could open one door, so we had to climb a little. We were so happy the car actually started unless the coldness. And the roads were dark and not well maintained. Most important? We made it to reach home save. 

Since Christmas we also have had snow. Yes, you read well: we had a white Christmas, with a lot of snow. In between all disappeared a little while and we had some green days in between but now we have been living in a white world again. At the moment it's only a small layer of snow and mostly frost. And finally the sun came back, after a long time of darkness in November and December. When you go out this time of the year, it feels like taking a sunbath. Of course, it has been very cold too. But after being outside you can feel the fresh energy it gives you.

We have been out many times already, making long walks in the woods (looking for animal traces) or on the lake (enjoying the sun and wondering about the beauty of nature by looking around). Yesterday we made an extra long walk around. We found a lot of traces. Most happy we were because we found a lot of moose traces. It is some time ago we saw a moose live. But it's looking like mama moose is walking around in this neighborhood with a kalf. 

Of course we are feeding the birds too. It's really busy around the place. We see a lot of Blackbirds and Tits and even Woody Woodpecker knows how to get out the seeds. Last week we saw beauty full waxwings at our feeding place. They are seldom seen in the Netherlands (in Sweden more common though). 

Picture unsplash.com/@dmitry_beloglazov

The ice on the lake is very strong now, as long as you stay on the save side where is no stream. The ice is not suited for skating because it's very uneven. The wind has been blowing hard when it started freezing. In the weekend you see an lot of people visiting the lake for grilling, ice fishing or just taking a sunbath. It's very popular. We heard our neighbor is a specialist too... Maybe we can go ice fishing in the weekend? I'm wondering how tick the ice is....

Lights in the dark

Most of the people know Rudolf the red nosed rendeer, of course. Influenced by all the american films and videos. But for those who don't know... The rendeer pull the sledge with Santa Claus through the universum to bring the presents all over the world. So that;s why we see their sculptures everywhere in Christmas Time. These ones have been seen in Stockholm City. They put a big effort in Christmas lightning and I want to recommend it to every one, it's worth visiting. 

But did you know the story about the Christmas balls? The one you can see above is a very big old fashioned one, called witches ball. They are about 15 - 20 cm diameter. You can still find them on antique markets. In former times they put them in front of the windows to scare the witches by the glitter. Maybe that's why we still have Christmas balls in the Christmas tree.

As you can see they created a nice lightning of Christmas balls in Malmö. Actually they made a couch in it, so you can sit in it for taking a selfie or picture. 

Beside of the Christmas Balls they made a fantastic lightning in the central park too. With endless presents, bells and hearts in the trees. But also rabbits and rendeer of course. For now I just want to wish every one a very good new year. Or like they say in Sweden "Bra Fortsättning". With beautiful nice travels, chances to meet new people and possibilities to discover.  Don't forget, it is not about making as much money as possible.