31.05. Last day of spring

Hello, last day of May today, can you believe it? Tomorrow the spring is over and summer begins….well according to the calendar at least…although we are promised a new wave of nice warm weather so the last few days of icy cold winds can just go somewhere else :-) We have had a few hours of rain the last week, but it just amounts to so little, so very little I am afraid. I dread to think what my water bill is going to be if this is to continue, however, I must admit I would rather pay a bit extra for watering the garden and enjoy a nice spring and summer, than having a wash-out like the last few years! If I could choose, I mean, which I of course can’t, but you know what I mean!

My pictures for today is from my garden, this one should be a familiar one to returning visitors; it gives an overview of the garden and today you can really see how lush my garden is. However, you can also see how unusually yellow the grass is for being last day in May; normally the grass would be radiant green at this time of year. I never water the grass; it just have to fend for itself and if it dies it dies, simple as that. Grass always comes back as soon as the rain comes back so it doesn’t really die, it just dies on the surface.

Here is the garden a bit more close-up, with the new central bed in the middle of the picture. I am aware of that this bed looks a bit like a barge has stranded in my garden…but this is a working project and I can assure you that it will look different when it is all finished. It will however take several years to complete, both because it will be expensive and because I can only do so much at the time…so it just have to look like a barge in the mean time :-)

Here is the garden from a different angle, look how much the climbers on the arch have grown already. I pruned it so hard in February, I wondered if I had taken too much, and already I wished I had taken off much more. By August, this arch is going to creak under the weight of these two plants! They are called Dregea sinensis, by the way, lovely scented plants that flowers long into autumn. Close-up pictures of the flowers for you soon :-)

And do you remember the tree I had to cut all the branches off completely, as it had tipped over as a result of the foxes digging a tunnel right between its roots? It is a Red Robin, a Photinia, and the tree was just too big for me to handle and get close enough to, to straighten up again. I ended up cutting off each branch ¾ in, where there were no leaves, hoping that the tree eventually would put on new leaves. I am pleased to say that the idea was not completely silly, it is working, although a bit slower than I had hoped, so this tree has a bit more leaves to produce before I would call it a success. But we’re getting there, I think!

And finally, some flowers for you. First one is of one of the old lilies, an Asian hybrid, don’t know its name, if it got one, but it has a very distinct zingy orange colour. The lily beetles absolutely love the leaves and the buds of this lily, and there are much more lily beetles and lily larvae on these lilies than on the white ones I have. The leaves are different and I am sure that’s got something to do with it; my problem is to detect them in time before they have had the opportunity to mate and produce those disgusting little larvae that looks like bird poo. Ugh! 

Here is another lily, which is quite new; I have had it only 2 years. It is dark red, I am afraid my camera doesn’t do it justice when it comes to the colour; my camera has problems with red colours, they never come out the right hue.

And lastly, I just couldn’t resist last time I was in Tesco, I had to buy this pretty little patio rose! When you buy them it says on the instructions that you should keep them indoors and that they will flower for 2-3 weeks. What it doesn’t say is that if you put them outdoors and keep deadheading, they will keep flowering until Christmas. If you cut it down to 2 inches above ground in March every year it can last for many years and flower just as nicely every year. I already have 2 other patio roses, and they are 10 and 7 years old. No need to chuck them when they are finished flowering!

That’s it for tonight, tomorrow is the first day of summer, let’s hope it will be a good summer, with lots of warm sunshine :-) See you soon, take care.