flowerbeds

Entrance to the outside place. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

To continue the report from the current state of the garden and greenery, I’ll show you some other plants and spots.

Astilbe and echinacea on the outside. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

In the flowerbed along my patio there are two white astilbes and one pink. I bought their bulbs on a garden fair years ago. They were supposed to be one white, one pink, one dark red… Well. When they came up there was no red one. Instead there were two white ones. They have grown fine over the years, even though there is nothing in spring and I always wonder if they will come up again or not.

White astilbe. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

Pink astile. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

After the astilbe, on the way to the backside garden, there are echinacea. White and pink. They are still on their way up and not blooming just yet.

Echinacea. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

They are coming fast now. I think they are a couple of weeks earlier this year than last.

Hollyhock, alcea rosea. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

One of the hollyhocks on the corner of this flowerbed has just started to open its flowers. The bumble bees love them Yesterday I saw three bumblebees and one bee in one of the flowers at the same time. I save their seeds every year and spread them in the flowerbed. First year they don’t bloom, next year they do. Then they die.

Hollyhock, alcea rosea. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

I presently have two different hollyhocks. One is pinkish-yellow, the other one a strong cerise.

Hollyhock and nasturtium. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

Along the noise-preventing fence, I’ve put lots of seeds from last years nasturtium in to the earth, where it accompanies one large hollyhock. I love the effect against the red fence.

Digitalis for next year. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

Last year I had a very tall digitalis in the flowerbed outside the patio. I spread its seeds along the fence and in the flowerbed. I had forgotten that I did so and was very surprised when the above leaves started to appear here and there. With the help of a garden group on Facebook found out it was digitalis. So next year the flowers will appear. It was white and 1.80 meters high.

Part of the front garden. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

When you continue you come to the front garden. There are flowerbeds and there are bushes and it is a bit wild. I am not a big fan of very strict and orderly designed gardens. I prefer a bit of ad hoc plantations and love it to look natural.

Daylily 2016-07-19 Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

Buds on daylily. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

I’ve got a few daylilies there, but only one flower on one of the plants. The daylily plants are bigger than ever this year, now that no tree is shading them any longer. I would have liked some more flowers though.

Poppies and aquilegia. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

Two other wild flowers that keep on spreading are the small red (and orange) poppies and the aquilegia vulgaris. The latter is whitish-pinkish when it blooms. I thought it had wandered on into the black currant bushes (we have two here) and left that spot and the flowerbed behind it, but it appears I was wrong. The plants just came up there again and probably blooms only next year. The ones among the black currant bushes bloomed quite early in the summer.

Red yarrow Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

In this area I also have a red yarrow. I probably put its eeds there a couple of years ago. I know I tried to grow them then and didn’t really succeed. Or that’s what I thought. They started to appear a couple of years later, just about everywhere, to my surprise. But this is the only red one at the moment.

Giant verbena Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

Just outside the entrance to the patio I have a large, black container with giant verbena and a small white verbena at its feet. The container has holes in the bottom so water can pass through. I bought the giant verbena on the internet on a sale. The plants where almost white and very crocked when they arrive in the mail. They’ve had problems with mold on the leaves for a while, but I think they’re fine now Now they are dark green as they should and have grown a lot. The flowers just appeared, which the bumblebees and the butterflies love.

Part of the wild garden. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

Above you see part of one of the black currant bushes, poppies, aquilegia and the bird-bath. There are also some wild flowers in front of them all.

Black currants with daisies. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

Instead of the bluebells – which are finished for the season – there are now daisies in the black currant bushes. They are soon finished too. I remove both the bluewbells and the daisies every year when they have finished blooming, but they come back the next year, every year…

Part of the garden Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

The above is part of the garden. To the left are the raspberry-bushes. Agreed, they are not good-looking, but we got a lot of raspberries this year. In the middle the really wild flowerbed with a the new bush behind it plus the food-station for the birds.

The grass is really not green this year. It is more yellow than green. It has been too dry and warm this summer for it to become green. Which also means less moving. The small “lawn” we created in the autumn 2010 by digging up lots of thorny rose-bushes – the kind that spread by their roots, beach roses – from this area and then put grass seeds into the earth. In the spring 2011 the “lawn” started to come up. No point in watering it. It will come back if it starts raining. We give water to the flowerbeds and the bushes though.

Bushes. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

Just outside my kitchen windows, we have three bushes. Two of them, the one to the left and the spirea in the middle, I got for free by moving them to this location. They have settled well and are getting big now. The one to the left have large, white flower plumes. It wilts down to nothing during winter and the spot there is empty then. It start over in the spring and it is always a surprise how large it will get the next year.

The bush in the middle is a regular spirea that came from one of the flowerbeds around the corner of the house, where the housing-community exchanged the spireas for other bushes.  The bush to the right is a pink, hanging lilac, which we bought the other year to exchange another bush that was removed when the walls of the house were painted. It hasn’t bloomed yet though… Next year?

Below another glimpse of the garden as it looks just now. It isn’t large, but there is a lot in it… Will show you the rest another time.

The garden Photo:©nini.tjader.2016