The Dutch Delta Gardener: strictly non-AI writer/creative: birds

Posts tonen met het label birds. Alle posts tonen

vrijdag 21 november 2025

2025/49 - Have you planted your Tulips yet?

Being Dutch and disliking Tulips is a contradiction in terms. Or almost a sin. Take your pick!

Still, when I was young, I thought them stiff plants, boring. That was long before I started gardening myself. And also before I started getting the winter blues with the climbing of my years. Now, I use planting Tulips in November as a reminder that 'things' will get better again, that the grey winter sky will become blue again.

So ever since Hunky Dory has become 'mine', I have made it a ritual to plant some new Tulips in November. This time I have gone for red ones: Tulipa Pallada, Tulipa Miranda, Tulipa Doll's Minuet, and Tulipa Pieter de Leur. Hopefully they will do better than my pitiful summer bulbs! When I was planting them, the largest earthworm I have seen so far, wriggled up from the soil so fast that I nearly jumped. Hurray! As thick as my finger and 10 cm long! My hard work at improving my soil is paying off! Happy, happy😃

Besides that, I have only done some tidying this afternoon. I had planned to dig up the Solidago which has spread into the grass path, but when I was actually there I lacked the energy. I did thin out the planter in the greenhouse though, taking the excess endive/chicori/romain/chicory* to eat as a salad. We call it andijvie, and I love it both raw as well as cooked.

* English translations of this plant name vary wherever you live. Andijvie is translated by endive, but what is called endive, we Dutch call witlof! So: the official Latin name is Chichorium endivia var. latifolium. What's in a name, eh?

Outside there were some surprises for me, the weather being weird as ****

This Helleborus niger Mont Blanc is supposed to flower in March. But here it is.

The Rosa Masquerade I moved into the soil from its pot a few weeks ago, is so happy there that it produced one flower for me. Its flowers are no larger than a 2p piece, but it was covered in them in summer. I bought it in the sale, and truthfully its flowers look totally different from the ones on the label! Not quite as elegant, nor as large...A case of the wrong label, or simple fraud? Never mind, a rose is a rose is a rose, right?

The Pyracantha Teton is covered in berries this year. The Papyrus next to it keeps looking interesting, even when gone brown.

This grass is gorgeous! I like grasses anyway, and that is a good thing too, as my garden is swamped by the wild varieties*. This one I bought though, it is Carex Testacea Prairie Fire. It comes into its own now that the surrounding summer perennials have died down.

* some of those are really nice too. But most are just thugs that I have to pull out. The seed flies in on the wind from the fields next to the allotments, me being on the edge.

These Phlomis russeliana seed heads are much too lovely to cut off, don't you think? I planted it especially for the butterflies, but made the mistake of putting it too close to the Artichokes, so it gets a bit bullied. But looking at those Artichokes today, made me realise that they seem to have moved themselves a bit to the left for next year. Come to think of it, everything is a bit too close to the Artichokes...or they are simply getting too big each year. Still, the bumblebees and ladybirds adore them, so they can stay.

Another plant that refuses to go dormant is the Scabiosa. It has had a difficult time this summer because of the drought, and is now making the most of the rain we've had lately.

I have deadheaded religiously, which helps. Still, I should plant some fresh ones next Spring, as the clumps do dwindle after four years.

The entire garden is covered in young Nasturtiums...obviously they are much too late in the season , but some are flowering. So far no night frosts are predicted (weird in itself, in this part of the delta we should be having night frost from late October onwards), so they will live on until then. And then turn to snot.

The Artichoke which I cut down to the soil, as a storm had blown it completely flat to the ground, has grown up to hip-height already. The other two are still tiny, so this one must be on a rich water veign.

Now that the trees in my neighbourhood have dropped most of their leaves, the little birds are moving into the gardens. So this afternoon I drove to my favourite nursery and bought a simple birdfeeder. I hung it on the balcony, in sight from my easy chair. The Jackdaws are already checking it out from the flat roof opposite, but they have nowhere to land, it is for the small birds only. I get visited by Blue Tits and Coal Tits during the winter months. I keep hoping for a Robin, but they think my 3rd floor balcony much too high. And I wink at the group of 15 Banded Parakeets that screech at me when they do their fly-by to swoop on the birdfood in a house perpendicular on my block of flats.

Okay, this is it; have a good weekend wherever* you are. (* I noticed some new readers in the USA and Sweden, welcome!) I'll leave you with a photo of my 'kerstcactus', Schlumberger, which refuses to wait for Christmas every year, and stubbornly flowers in November instead. I have repotted it 4 times to bigger pots in the 7 years since I was given it as a baby, and it has given me numerous new babies.

Do look me up on my website: Renée Grashoff Schrijft

Bye bye,

Renée Grashoff

vrijdag 14 november 2025

2025 /48 - My gardens are winding down... but birds visit!

Whilst I am writing this, I am looking with half an eye at the Blue Tits that are investigating the bird peanut butter that I have put out for them. They have returned from their Summer residences, wherever they may be, to browse for insects amongst my balcony plants.

They will spend the winter in the bushes at the end of my street, but will come to visit my balconygarden. Then in April/ May they build a nest on my flat roof, raise their babies, come to visit the garden as soon as their offspring can fly, and then disappear until November.

I do my best to protect their food against the Jackdaws and Magpies, that also like that food, and fly up in very noisy, feisty pairs to investigate. Not that I begrudge them the food, but they are capable of gobbling up in 30 minutes all that the Tits take days to eat.

The large birds do very well around here anyway, as they are not above turning out the garbage cans along the footpaths, and I see them take snacks from the cat food bowls left out as well. As well as making the most of dog turds (ieuww!) and leftover fast food. Puck gets very upset when she sees them eating from the bowls by the way, as she is not allowed to. She thinks this very unfair.

This photo was before the latest storm, they have almost dropped all leaves by now. It always makes me a bit melancholy, that dropping of the leaves. It is beautifully sad, for it means we are in for months of grey skies and dripping tree branches. And working in the garden is a chilly, wet affair.

My neighbour's plot is looking ordered and well, as always.

Mine...hahahahaha. Oh well, I do my best!

Mind you, I managed to plant some self-seeded perennials, finally! It had been February I was able last to get a spade into to my soil! My Senecio Silvergleam had made dozens of babies in the neighbouring plot next door, which has been left a wasteland for the last year. So I dug up the largest ones and planted them along that drainpipe leading to my struggling leaky frog pond. That pipe is ugly as sin, so the Senecio will hopefully camouflage it a bit. The second benefit is that the bees love the yellow flowers. And the third pro is that I really like silvergrey foliage.

The Eucalyptus on that wreath is a good example. It lights up even the gloomiest day!

That photo is one of a series I am slowly accumulating, of doorways brightened up by plants. This one is in my hometown, where lots of people fortunately share my love of greenery. One day I'll be able to do an entire blog about those doorways.