2026/22 - Celebrating my end of May Garden

 Doesn't time just fly by? Here we are, rapidly approaching June already... Hunky Dory and my balcony garden are glowing with flowers.

This Wallflower, name unknown as it was a gift from a friend's garden, is almost at the end of her flowering season, but she looks great. The yellow ones on my balcony are past it though, and as they have been in their planter for three years, and have turned very woody, I will take them out, thanking them for their efforts.

The Camassia leichtlinii is valiantly trying to ignore the lack of rain...she likes her soil to be a lot more moist than I can offer her. She is an experiment: will Camassia survive my heavy, dry clay? She does, so next Autumn I will plant some more. We have finally got us some rain, although most of it passes by my delta and falls on the East of the country.

Now here is a puzzle for you: when I planted Hunky Dory I planted a Papaver Orientale in the hot bed. It grew and bloomed that first year, then vanished. But! It has emerged at the entrance to my greenhouse, four plants no less, and they are doing great. How??? It is a mystery to me.

One of my favourites for my garden: the Geranium macrorrhizum. It likes its corner near the hole which used to be my frog pond, next to the woodpile.

Said hole...also a very sad hole. Not enough rain, so no water left whatsoever! I will see what survives in there now. On the right the Erigeron is still doing its thing, and some of the aquatic plants are hanging on so far. But the grasses, always opportunistic thugs, are rapidly colonizing the hole.

Talking about colonizing: to my great joy I have many Digitalis this year, who have spread themselves around the garden. Like the giant Poppy they have planted themselves around the entrance to the greenhouse, but they are in all the beds as well. They are so majestic, and tough as old boots. So I tell them "go forth and multiply!" Lucky for me, they are very obedient.

One of my neighbours still never visits his plot...and this is one of the wild plants that have settled there. Very pretty, some type of Clover. I shamelessly pick it for my flower arrangements at home (he never ever weeds, so...).

The greenhouse

My 'lettuce in the old rain gutter' experiment works! I am chuffed. At first they were struggling because of the sun (no chalk on the roof panels), so I rigged a sunscreen for that part of the greenhouse. And it works a treat! 

The Rettich in the black pot should almost be edible by now, so I'll dig one up very carefully soon, to see how far along it is. And the Paksoi in the raised bed is ready to be eaten. In fact, they are all ready...that's the drawback of using plugs...all is ready at the same time. I will have to be clever with them...

The Cucumbers and Tomatoes are doing fine as well. I have planted my Calendula seedlings in front (the photo does not show them).

After my greenhouse being a total disaster resembling a weedy patch of wasteland (because of this pesky plant!) for two years because of this inerasable weed that came up a.s.a. I had removed it, I am very glad I decided to use the French bark on top of weed depressant cloth  and built me some raised beds. I'll build some more now that I see it works.

The Helleborus enjoying the rain.

I'll leave you with a few photos of my neighbourhood. This is along our daily walk.

Puck likes to sniff out the blue heron that sits here often to fish.

Another part of our daily walk. The grasses come up to my hips right now. This morning we met a hare, a green woodpecker, a gaggle of Canadian geese, a bored black cat, a roe buck, and saw evidence of the beavers that live here as well. Not bad, eh? For a built up industrial area just below the smoke of Rotterdam.

See those clouds? More rain to arrive. I love it when the Hawthorns bloom. We have quite a few along the ramparts and ravelins. The mill is a wooden standard corn mill, still in use.

Right. I hope you've enjoyed this week's blog. I will include an extra one of extra photography, just for fun. Pass on the word if you did. And if you would like to read more, follow the link to my website at Renée Grashoff Schrijft

Have a good week, wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff 

180E - The countdown to Autumn has begun...

 This past week my garden had a bit of an autumnal feel to it. The crisping artichoke leaves were the cause, and also the scabiosa and other plants telling me they wouldn't mind a nice bit of rain on their heads.

Toddler-sized melon in my neighbour's patch

Just look at that melon, it is huge. But you can hardly call the green, green.

   Anyway, rain (with thunder) has been predicted for tomorrow, so to me it was a good day to plant my new Heuchera and Crocosmia. I gave them a good drink and then the rain will treat them tomorrow. I'll also sprinkle some fertiliser.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I wasn't going to, but I've changed my mind. When I was deadheading my scabious, I realised I am not ready yet for a garden going to rest.

My balcony tomatoes

On the balcony I cut off the tops of my tomatoes like the good girl I am - just like Monty ordered. There are many green ones still, after I picked kilos already, absolutely a success! And repeat next year!

My balcony garden is looking marvellous anyway. The white grape I planted in the trellis planter has established, and all flowering plants are doing their jobs: making me happy.

The beds in Hunky Dory are slowly being taken over by autumn flowering plants. The asters are showing colour now, just like a sizable patch of very tall plants I got as a gift, of which I had no idea of what they are. I had to look them up on my Plantnet app. They turn out to be Solidago gigantea. Oh dear. Don't know if I am happy with that.

The  North corner of the balcony at sunset

   I have a lot of work trying to pull out the ordinary solidago, which is colonizing my entire garden. I hope its huge sister is not of the same temperament!

   But, I have good news as well. This morning I noticed quite a few butterflies, that was really for the first time this Summer. There was a shrew running along my path. And there were loads of bees, hoverflies and bumblebees on my flowers.

Bumble bee paradise, those artichokes

I am so pleased I planted the artichokes that first spring! They are past their best by now, but the flowers that haven't turned to fluff yet, are covered by bumblebees. Opposed to the butterflies, that don't want to pose for me, the bumblebees ignore me and my phone camera completely. Oh, they see me alright, but are simply going about their business. They sometimes buzz a bit louder, as if they are saying 'hi there, good shit, man' (like I heard one boy say to another at a festival I went to last weekend. The band was extremely loud, and rubbish, and the grunted lyrics mostly came down to 'I want to die' - oh, you poor things).

The Crocosmia are completely Zen

   By now we are three days along and it has rained- and how! My neighbour's still unplanted bed-with-just-spread-donky-manure was sopping, he could not walk on it. But his newly planted strawberries were dancing in their tidy straight rows.

   Hunky Dory was pleased with the rain, I saw and smelled it. On the artichokes the bumblebees were crowding eachother, there were 4 to 5 on each flower.

   In my balcony garden (which I do water, otherwise I will have a lot of straw within a week) the reaction was more varied. The banana was very happy, she loves a good shower, but I noticed the Pelargoniums frowning.

Happy banana

They prefer a warm gentle rain to being pelted with the pressure hose-like rainshower that they got instead. They always protest immediately in their passive-aggressive way, by showing brown flowers. "No, I will not perish, but look what happens when you do this to me", sort of.

Right. For the teachers amongst you (and I know there are many), you have to go back to work. Courage! But have fun as well.

Me, I hope to be able to enjoy some late summer weather. I'm not done yet, not ready for autumn!

Do take a look at the extra photos, won't you, and have a lovely weekend.

Renée 

178 - Extra polinator photos

Because I really am worried about them, some extra photos of pollinators in my garden - remember who you are losing... 

I am forever trying to get them to pose for my phone camera, but they will not sit still for me, far too busy living their own lives. And that is as it should be.

The last photo is of Hunky Dory in August 2023 (pre-grass), as I feel that sky is conveying my present emotions exactly.

Take care, 

Renée