 |
| 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!