2026/7 - Tricky Times

 It is the 3rd of February today (writing and actually posting do not happen on the same day, as I'm sure you'll understand), and we are at that point when nature seems to be shaking off the winter fast.

Puck is feeling the approach of Spring as well, and wants to sniff out the balcony...just to make certain all is still as she wants it to be.

But appearances can deceive...Yes, in my neighbourhood the snowdrops are showing, and some even have buds, and just look at the buds on that plant in the photo with Puck! But experience tells me we could still have frost and snow in the weeks ahead.

And the many buds on my pretty absinthe plant could all freeze.

It's too late for my Pelargoniums, I'm afraid. In the previous very mild Winter they happily grew on, and saved me a lot of money, but this year they are as dead as doornails.

I simply have nowhere to store them at home  over Winter, and carting them all to my greenhouse is too much work and useless anyway, as it is unheated.

Oh well...it gives me the opportunity to sow some different plants for the balcony planters this year.

I do have something special though...no filter used! This is the third time I witnessed the Northern Lights this year, and this time I had the brilliant thought I'd take a photograph. The other two times I was so in awe I forgot.

Well, no need for me to fork out thousands of Euros to travel to Lapland, eh? All I need now is for a herd of elephants to appear on the abandoned football field at the end of the street, and a pod of dolphins in the Brielse Meer. 

I drove to Hunky Dory to pick up some chicory and sow some new seeds, and took a quick tour of the garden. Very quick! It was 1°, but the Eastern wind made it feel like -6°. But hey-ho, the bulbs are showing themselves!

Thanks to the rain my frog pond is full for a change, and I hope the resident salamander is fine and sleeping in the mud.

The Helleborus is waking up, no more sleeping for her. She is five years old now, and getting a bit tired. I really should get some fresh ones to keep her company.

The Tradescantia is lighting up that entire corner on the other side of the frog pond. Have you ever seen something that red? In a few weeks I'll give her some support to scramble up against. It blew over in a storm and I haven't got round to it yet.

This baby is holding its own so far. It is a Cyrtomium falcatum, and I simply cannot remember that name, so I call it 'fern', which is not too bad, as it is from the Dryopteridaceae family (niervaren in Dutch). It is a rock plant...so totally out of its comfort zone in my soil. I really should provide it with some crushed brick or something! I'd love to build it a brick folly, so it could hang down gracefully...and be the belle at the wall, so to speak. But as I garden on an allotment, that is out of the question.

My other fern, nameless, is also still alive. Totally out of place as well, but I pamper it with my leafmold and put sticks around its base, hoping that it gets tricked into thinking it is in a forest.

I bought 3 little Cyclamen this afternoon, but could not face that wind on the balcony. Tomorrow should be better, so I'll put them properly into a pot then.  They are so sweet!

Alrighty, this is it for this week. Do look me up at my website Renée Grashoff Schrijft, where I hope to have some exciting news about my second part of the trilogy about murder in Brielle soon. I cannot wait myself, and I hear from some of you that you cannot either, which is pretty cool!

Take care!

Renée Grashoff