summer

Jul

2019

Daylilies, summer 2019

Daylilies 2019. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

I love daylilies and have three kinds of them in the garden. They originally came from a flowerbed in the housing community that were re-made and we had the free take of whatever grew there before the remake. So I got these three kinds of daylilies. They are well established where they grow now in my garden. When it rains they get a “waterfall” from the roof right down on them. Which they actually love. Apart from water I feed them nothing else. Sometimes in the spring might add some fresh soil on them. In the winter they totally disappear and start new again when spring arrives. Each flower blooms only one day. But, as there are several buds on one stem, they have a long blooming-time. When wilted, I cut off the wilted flowers. When the leaves get yellow, I take off those too.

Here some pictures of this years daylilies which started blooming jus a little over a week ago.

Daylilies 2019-04-22. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylilies 2019-06-27. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Dayliles 2019-07-07. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylilies 2019-07-17. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylily 2019-07-21. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylily. The dark-red one. 2019-07-24. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylily. The red-yellow one. 2019-07-24. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylily, the peach colored one. 2019-07-24. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylilies. The peach-colored ones. 2019-07-26. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Daylilies. The dark red ones. 2019-07-26. Phopto: ©nini.tjader.2019

Jul

2019

Summer at the Big Dam

Summer at the Big Dam Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Yesterday neighbor and I took a walk in the woods by the Big Dam (in Tumba, Sweden). We do that now and again at different times of the year. There and back is about 8 kms.

Summer at the Big Dam. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

It is a magical place. I shoot almost the same pictures of it every time we are there. Yesterday was no exception. Water was still, no wind and the sun was shining.

Summer at the Big Dam in Tumba. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

The water was TOO still. Brown stillstanding. Smelled rotten. The flow down to the creek was blocked by treestumps and dead branches.

Summer at the Big Dam in Tumba, Sweden. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

Still, it is a beautiful spot. As there was no wind, the clouds got mirrored in the water.

Summer at the Big Dam in Tumba, Sweden. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

The trees in the middle of the summer are as green as they can be. There is fish in the dam.

Summer at the Big Dam. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

The dam seem endless when you stand at this point. It is supposed to flow down into the creek and further on to the Small Dam further down. There is a place there with logs to sit on to contemplate the view. I wouldn’t recommend swimming in this brown still-standing water though…

flower, bumblebee — Flower by the Big Dam with bumble bee. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2019

By the dam there was a group of these flowers. Have no idea what it is but the bumble bees seemed to love them.

On out way back home we always pass this old treestump by the path. I take a picture of it every time to see the change of it. It is the remains of a large tree that fell over the path during a storm some years ago.

Aug

2017

Summer flowers

Summer flowers. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

There are plenty of summer flowers in our garden. They come and go over the summer season. Some come in early spring, early summer, or in the middle of the summer or, like now towards the late summer. In most cases I let them run wild and grow where they like to grow. Except for those planted in the flower beds, but those are not covered here. Some are planted from seeds over the years. Others the birds have brought, like the smaller red and orange poppies and the digitalis. Yet others have spread by themselves over time.

I love the summer flowers. They bring color to the garden. I have plenty of different flowers and I think they now follow each other in time for blooming in a good way. It has taken a couple of years to get to that. The bumble-bees and the bees love our garden and there is no shortage of either.

This has been a rather odd summer as it has been extremely dry. In many parts of Sweden watering the garden has been forbidden for that reason. Not in my area though we have been asked to use watering in the garden sparingly. That is clearly seen on the lawns which are more brown than green. Watering the lawns has not been prio number one. Watering the flowers and shrubs and so has been more important. The dry conditions have also caused some of the flowers to bloom earlier than usual, and some later than usual. Some have become taller than usual and others smaller than usual. All have had shorter blooming seasons than previous years.

Summer flowers in the garden. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

Below is a gallery of some of the summer flowers in no particular order.
A rather wild garden… Enjoy.

Reload page to see them in a different order. Dubbel-click an image to see a larger version. All pictures are ©nini.tjader.2017 and shot by me.

Jul

2017

Summer whites

Summer whites in the livingroom. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

Summer whites is a way to confirm that the summer is here. That means changing the covers of the furniture to white ones.

Summer whites in the livingroom. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

What do I mean by that? Well, with all the white light in the summer I always feel I need even MORE light and white by changing the covers on the furniture in the living room. I don’t need to change the curtains as they are always white. Some might say that it is enough with the light outside and the eventual sunshine and that you therefore should have dark colors in your home in the summer and light colors in the dark season. I feel the other way around is the way to go. Summer whites in the summer and dark colors in the winter.

Summer whites in the livingroom. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

So, the other day I changed the covers of the EKTORP chaiselongue and the small JENNYLUND armchair to white from grey (the very pink fleece cover there is protection against dirty cat-feet). Neither is particularly hard to change cover on even though you have to remove the armrest on the chaiselongue to be able to change the cover. I have done that often enough to be comfortable with it.

Summer whites in the livingroom, the EKTORP chaiselongue. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

Yesterday I switched the livingroom carpet from dark blue to off-white. To do that I needed to move the sofa-table and all that was on it and on the shelf under it off the carpet. Only then could the carpet be changed.

When the carpet area was already empty, and carpet changed, I decided I’d also take that opportunity to change the cover of the sofa from grey to white. To change the cover of the sofa demands space for the work.

Summer whites in the livingroom. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

Changing the cover of the 2-seater KARLSTAD sofa is a lot of work. First you remove the cover of the four pillows. Then you remove the armrests with the sofa-legs. Then the legs from the armrests. Then then cover of the armsrests. Then the large cover over the rest of the sofa. Then you put on fresh cover for the large part of the sofa. Then put the fresh covers onto the armrests and then attach the legs (2 for each armrest) to the armrests. Then attach the the armrests to the sofa (4 screws each). The sofa is then ready to get back the seating pillows and the back pillows. Changing cover on the KARLSTAD sofa is actually the same thing as assembling it from scratch, twice. So I tend to not change the cover of the sofa too often…

The non-fresh cover has to be dry-cleaned. You cannot put it into the washing machine unfortunately. And it really needs cleaning by now.

The summer white covers need to be on now until at least when the dirty ones have been cleaned. Hopefully no cat with dirty feet will step on them meanwhile before I’ve put a protective towel or such on the now summer white furniture.

The KARLSTAD 2-seater sofa is no longer sold at IKEA, only the 3-seater. So if I want a new cover for it, I need to get it from BEMZ, and that is pretty expensive. The EKTORP chaiselounge with armrest is no longer sold either. The light grey cover I have for it is from BEMZ. The JENNYLUND armchair is still sold and apart from the white cover I have a dark grey cover and a dark blue cover with white flowers for it. Its first white cover shrunk enormously in the laundry and can no longer be used. I’ve saved it as a pattern to be able to make my own cover one day.

Part of the darker livingroom. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014

Jun

2017

New flowerbed

New flowerbed has been added along the fence, June 2017. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2017

New flowerbed has been created.

Late last year we created two new flowerbeds along the fence, That turned out well. Already then we thought we might create a third flowerbed, as there were enough space for it and it looks nice with plants along the fence. Just looking at the fence isn’t all that exciting. Both I and my neighbour can see those flowerbeds from our flats. So last week I started digging.

Digging for new flowerbed. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2017

The worst with digging for a new flowerbed is to get the grass off. That is hard work.

Next step was to create a border around the new flowerbed and to add fresh nourishment and earth.

To create the border around the flowerbed was no problem as we had collected quite a lot of nice round stones for this purpose not that long ago. We had to go buy fresh earth though. Nourishment (earth with cow-dung) we had half a sack so that was added first. Then the fresh soil. And then plants.

The next step was to decide which plants to have in the new flowerbed. Two of our alumroots/heuchera had long begged to be moved to a place where they would get more space to grow. They com ein a lot of colors and we have four of them in different colors. Two of them had so far grown just to the right of the lambsears (above). So those two I dug up and moved to the new flowerbed. You see the green one at the back and a purple green one at the front in the picture above. Now the lamb’s ears can spread even more…

It looks perfectly normal without the heuchera here in this flowerbed.

The above purple alumroot/heuchera also needed to be moved as it was slowly disappearing under the hosta at its side. so I dug that up as well.

After the third heuchera was dug up I added some stones at the backside of the flowerbed and some sticks in it as there are plenty of bulbs for springflowers in the ground and I don’t want the cats to dig them up. I also dug up some of the anemone sylvestris that had spread to that same area and moved them as well to the new flowerbed. I also dug up some Japanese anemones (anemone hupehensis) that had disappeared under the largest hosta outside the patio where it would get no light.

When the planting was done and watering too it looked like in the picture above. The sad plants top the left are the Japanese anemones. There is space left top the right of them as they have a tendency to spread out if they like the place where they grow. They didn’t like being moved though and leaves immediately wilted.

One of the alumroots also hung at first after being replanted. It has recovered since though and today looks just as fine as the other two alumroots. The Japanese anemones look very sad though but I think they are still alive. Keeping an eye on them… I will have to cut off the leaves I think, but I will wait a few more days before I do. It might help them recover though.

Three flowerbeds along the fence.

So, now there are three flowerbeds along the fence. Much nicer to look at than just the fence and the grass. The two we created last year are coming along just fine and looks like in the pictures below. All plants in them have been moved from the long flowerbed along the wall of the house, which got too crowded over the years.

This one (called number two…) got some new plants this spring, to the left of the left astilbe.

I added two ajuga reptans (with nice blue flowers) that creeps along the earth and spreads. Have to keep an eye on those so they don’t take over the entire flowerbed. If it grows too much, I’ll move some of it to another location. I also added two other plants with yellow flowers which are low and can stand dry and poor circumstance. They have flowers now, but not the entire season.

In flowerbed number one (closest to my flat) the plants are coming along fine as well. They have grown a lot the last couple of days and have changed quite a lot since I shot this picture. The three green plants at the upper right will become quite tall later in the season. They just now started growing.

Otherwise… everything is growing with an amazing speed and all is green and lush. I love this season. Summer is here.

Jul

2015

Daisies = Summer

We’ve got two kinds of daisies. One is the lower one with the raised middle that comes first.

Those are finished by now.

Now comes the taller ones with a flat middle. They are really tall (taller than a meter high) and the flower is large (and loved by small black insects).

The tall ones mingle with the bluebells (which are soon finished blooming). They both mingle with the black currants… (which are ready for picking just now). Picture below is from a couple of days ago. Everything is changing fast this time of the year. Both bluebells and daisies = summer at its peak. (Just wish the weather would be more summer like and less rainy…).

May

2014

TBT Things I used to do – aquarelles

TBT (Throw Back Thursday). One of those things I used to do but have not done in a long time is painting aquarelles. Here are some examples from 1996.

One of these days I might, maybe, take it up again and again paint aquarelles.

Nbr 76/100

summer

Daylilies, summer 2019

Summer at the Big Dam

Summer flowers

Like this:

Summer whites

Like this:

New flowerbed

New flowerbed has been created.

Three flowerbeds along the fence.

Daisies = Summer

TBT Things I used to do – aquarelles

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