Brielle is a beehive of Summer activities from April to the end of September. In October it morphes without a stop into the Winter festivities. There is the choir festival, the Big Band competition, and then we have the totally alien* Halloween, blown across the pond from the USA due to films. Pumpkins appear in shop windows and by front doors. Perhaps we should listen to their music?
My garden has yet again failed to produce a single pumpkin. I had sown the seeds, but they shrivelled up due to the heat, or were eaten by mice. Luckily others on the allotments were better at it, so there are plenty of pumpkins to celebrate with. Or to eat...
* A large portion of Dutch citizens still regard Halloween as an alien, weird and perhaps even blasphemous party. It is the Calvinistic heritage, I suppose. I simply think 'go for it, if it pleases you'. When my kids were between 9 and 16, I threw a Halloween party for them every year, I do love a good party. They really threw themselves into it - their Mum's blood. But now that they live their adult lives, I have given up on Halloween. I prefer these gorgeous Malus apples to a pumpkin anyway.
Musical plants
Do you watch Gardener's World (BBC)? On Oct. 16th they had an item about the electric current plants and trees produce. Some genius has the ability to convert it to a musical key, and what then happened blew me away!
It sounded so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. I would buy an album of that music. I adore plants/trees anyway, but I look at them with totally different eyes now!
So I wonder what my blue grape was singing about this snail slowly making its way to the top. Probably the blues!
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| The Ixia and multi coloured rose 'Masquerade ' enjoying the sun |
In between a lot of rain there was some sunshine as well this week, so I took the opportunity to mow my grass paths, and replanted the last batch of plants from my balcony planters.
Always such a satisfying job, mowing my grass! I don't know why people dislike it so much that they buy robots to do it.
This is the still colourful plot of my neighbour three plots down. Like me, she has Solidago the Thug to deal with, and had ripped out bags and bags of it, to bring to the municipal yard. I wish I had had the foresight to do that four years ago! I foolishly put it on my compost heap and spread out that compost a year later...idiot! I bet that Solidago sounds like The Sex Pistols.
My greenhouse border, which is slowly turning into a Lily and Iris collection.
The Aster lateriflorus 'Horizontalis' at its best on the left, and the Begonias on the right, with the Dead-Nettle front right.
The other tin planter with some Erigeron, Verbena Bonariensis, a lost Calendula and masses of Monarda. Oh, by the way, it is too wet for the Hornets now, but at the start of the week they were still out in force.
The Waterlily is sinking down, always a sure sign that the temperatures are down as well. You can just about see the woodpile, where a hedgehog has its home. I swear my old dog pool has plugged that leak in my old frog pond...since it is there the water around it is not draining away. Who would have thought that the equivalent to a patch would have this effect! I am happy I did not give up on it in the end! I have seen watervoles, mice, the hedgehog and lots of birds there.
Do visit my website at Renée Grashoff Schrijft to read my blogs about historic Brielle, and have a calm week, wherever you are.
Renée Grashoff
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