188E - Green vitamine!

 When I cycled to my garden at the beginning of this week it was dry, but obviously it started to rain a.s.a. I wheeled my bike through the gate... Never mind, my green vitamine works as well in the rain.

My asters and hydrangeas are gorgeous 

   That's the way it is in my country.

   Because I was wearing my blue suede boots, I quickly changed them for my beaten up gardening shoes in the greenhouse. The right shoe was already on my foot, but I couldn't get my left foot into the shoe...Huh? My shoe turned out to have been converted to a mouse den.     I do not have the signs 'we are working at your return to your home country' up, but I moved the nest elsewhere anyway.

   I realise that this needs some explanation for non-Dutch readers. We have a new government (100 days of chaos so far), and one of the PVV 'solutions' to our current immigration problem are those signs, apparently.

Aaaaand back to gardening!

Pruned apple orchard

One of my neighbours had very kindly, but without telling me, pruned my apple trees, so I stood looking at huge piles of branches with a very silly expression, until I realised they needed to be moved.

So I threw them on the rubbish heap, despite the pouring rain, I was wet anyway. I tore out the high Erigeron (the weed kind) as I was there anyway too. I left the Teasels though, too pretty.

Halfway through the week Summer returned suddenly, but both two days I suffered a nasty headache, so I could not garden. I blame the flu jab I got on Tuesday.

So I got back to the garden on Thursday, and saw my garden slowly but surely drifting into her wintersleep. The light is a lot dimmer as well. Whilst I was dealing with the spent Solidago, I got company from the largest Bumble bee I have ever seen. With a fox-red lower body and 3cm long, so a stone bumblebee: Bombus lapidarius. (A male would've had a yellow collar as well) She was much more interested in the Verbena Bonariensis than in me, so I could take a good look. They nestle in a hole in the earth beneath stones, so she could very well live underneath my waterbutt. And no, no photo, when I rushed back with my mobile she had left.

My Persicaria affinis 'Kabouter' has recovered very well from the flood that covered her in Spring. Like all Persicaria she is spreading slowly but surely.

I had to get quite a lot of leaf litter from my frog pond again. The waterlily is sinking, she thinks it is getting too chilly. But the papyrus is still standing proudly.

Do you spot that bald tree on the left? That's the leaves that landed in my pond.

Right, I'll say goodbye with my cheery coloured glass. I hope you will have a lovely weekend.

Renée