53 - Gales!!! And an angel on the roof of my greenhouse.

 The first was anon, the second Corrie, the third was named Dudley. The fourth Eunice. And the one today?

 Who cares what their names are? The sad fact is there were 5 huge storms within the space of one week. And if this is what will be our new normal the coming years, I don't think I will be able to fulfill all my gardening dreams but will have to rethink some of them.

Eunice especially was horrendous!

At home in my new built flat, all specifications ticked, everything moaned, creacked, clattered and I could not sleep due to the gusts of over 140 km/h screaming past my balcony. I could not sleep full stop! My greenhouse, my greenhouse, damn me for building that shoddy pallet gazebo in front of it, was all I could think about.

In 1990 I experienced from up close what a South-Westerly gale can do. I lived right on the Haringvliet then, close to where it ends up in the North Sea, and below the dyke were old poplars on a lawn, with trunks of at least a meter in diameter. Dogs need walkies, even during gales, so I was out with my old dog (who was then a very young dog), but could not keep to my feet on the dyke, so had walked down to shelter below it, and even there I had trouble keeping upright. Suddenly I heard a loud sound like a whip splintering wood, and to my consternation I saw that 5 of the poplars had been sheared off like match-sticks at three meters above ground level. Doggie and I ran back to the house, certain we would feel the next tree hitting us any minute. Needless to say we lived to tell the tale. But I have great respect for and not a little fear of the strength of wind since then.

So. There was a lot of damage on the allotments this morning, I saw entire greenhouses blown to smithereens, including that of my next door neighbour on the South side. Whilst I was fishing the shards of glass from my pond and garden, I decided that the gazebo has to go. I do not want another sleepless night worrying about it.

And this evening I will light a candle to the Greenhouse Angel who protected mine!

Although...yet another storm today...Sunday. I am quite sick and tired of them by now. Hope my greenhouse is okay, here we go again!

You can read more about my gardens on Instagram@songsmith2962 

5 - Ravishing Roses

 Shakespeare used a rose to explain something: 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...'

Still, the word rose evokes quite a different image from the word turd, and a turd smelling as sweet as a rose...would we rave about our dog's turds? I doubt it.

Roses are amongst my garden favourites. I walk the longer way home simply to pass the house which is festooned by a climbing New Dawn. So it cannot come as a surprise to you that I had to have some roses in my balcony garden. 

The first that joined my life (sorry, I'm a weird plant nut, remember, so roses are family) was the Rosa canina you see on the left. It was small, and past its best, so a bargain. But it smelled divine and fitted in my saddle bag, so what's not to love? We've kept each other company for 4 years now, and it has bravely weathered several gales, drought, snow and frosts. It blooms, I give it a haircut and it blooms again.

It is always the first one to show buds, and to wave her first flowers at me - look, look at me!

Then 2 years ago a friend took me to an old nursery in the next town, where they grow old fashioned roses. The scent from the greenhouse was heavenly. So I brought home an English tea rose. It starts out with salmon and yellow buds, opens up to salmon flowers and then the blooms fade to a buttery yellow within a few days. I've repotted it twice, and it blooms twice in a season as well. This modest beauty has been blown over during the gale last April. I found her on her head in the rock garden, but she only dropped some leaves and rearranged her branches  - let's get on with it, she quietly said, I don't want to think about my ordeal ever again.

And then there are my miniature anonymous hybrids that I rescued from the DIY centre. You know the kind, they are covered with flowers when they appear on the shelves and usually die within a fortnight? I got three for the price of two ( ha!), and they have been with me for 4 years as well. They are like rowdy little boys, jostling each other for space, and always poking their noses at whatever flavour of the year they share their planter with. They have viscious needle-like thorns, and shout loudly when they want a drink - hey! Thirsty!

I planted one of those little thugs in my cottage garden 26 years ago, and it has climbed the elderberry next to it and is now over 10 m tall, almost smothering that elderberry in blood red roses every year.

Not all my roses have been a success...In the first year I tried to get a Schneewittchen to wind through my trellis. I'd had one in my cottage garden, where it met a New Dawn halfway across the pergola and was easy going and gorgeous. But here the lady complained about the balcony, it did not like the planter, it got into a fight with the depressed Honeysuckle, and got black spot. She howled she hated it so much she was going to kill herself, and made good on that threat. We remember her with fond regret.

#roses #thedutchdeltagardener #gardenista #gardeningistherapy #gardening #greenthumbs #myhappyplace

If you'd like to see more photos of my Roses, you can visit my garden on Instagram @songsmith2962 and @grashoffr

4 - My garden of Eden

 "Eden: the beautiful garden where Adam and Eve, the first human beings, lived before they did something God had told them not to and were sent away, often seen as a place of happiness and innocence."

That's according to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

When I first read this it intrigued me, the 'did something', it is surprisingly vague. To me, beautiful gardens are meant to be worked, apples are meant to be picked, otherwise that happiness is swiftly erased by swarms of wasps, slugs and other assorted creepy crawlies. Innocence? Hm. I was told not to use plants taller than 50 cm, but that first summer my verbena bonariensis grew taller than me (I'm 1.69). Luckily there are no snakes on Voorne, otherwise I would have been evicted pronto.

We do have a lot of other wildlife around here. It's the proximity of water and greenery. At the end of my street, near the small ferry to the next isle, there are abandoned playing fields. The football and tennis club have moved out and the animals have moved back in. The large white poplars and summer oaks house ringneck parakeets, woodpeckers, ravens, crows, doves and a roost of jackdaws. In 2019 a buzzard raised two chicks there. Underneath the trees live hares, voles, mice, and I come across the occasional roe deer or two at dawn. Herons fish, mute swans nestle, all kinds of waterfowl make a hell of a racket. We even boast two beavers. 

I love it. To me, rewilding is the magical word of the decade. I do realise that parcel of land is meant for a housing project, but long may my council lack the funding! In the meantime I try to lure the wildlife to my garden. The slugs have rather unfortunately made it their home, that wasn't in the plan. But I coo over every ladybird and bumblebee that flies onto my flowers. I'd love butterflies and sorely miss my old pond with damselflies and dragonflies. I've put up an insect hotel and feed the birds. And try to plant pollinator flowers.

So this year I have sown some seeds. Aniseed (especially for the flowers), marigolds, lathyrus, two kinds of nasturtium, and mixed pollinator seed. I put the seed trays on my heated living room floor (that works well for the seedlings, not so much for me, as walking becomes an obstacle course) and meant to put them outside in April, like all normal gardeners do. Except it was so extremely cold, all through April. So they remained indoors.

We had night frost up to May 28th, I kid you not!

Those seedlings grew well. Puck thought so too, and bit off all the heads one afternoon when I was out. I cried. There, I'm not ashamed to admit it. But I did put them out in the cold after that and kept my fingers crossed. Well, unlike the cheap red Lidl rescued salvias I had planted to brighten up the gloom, those seedlings took the frost and rainstorms in their stride. They hardly grew at first, and the nasturtiums lost some leaves to the wind, but they survived. Unlike my beloved cannas. Not a shoot in sight so far, deep sigh. I fear I've lost both pots. I adored those blood red cannas, even more so because I rescued the original one from the local DIY centre, where it was thrown onto the rejects tray and I got myself a bargain for €1. I'm big on rescue, my Puck is a rescued dog, many of my plants are and I could use a good rescue myself. Anyway, that one miserable canna was divided into two gorgeous plants last year, and every evening Puck and I sat next to them and praised every flower.

#cannas #rewilding #seedlings #wildlife #thedutchdeltagardener #birds #plantaholic #gardeningistherapy #adoptdontshop #rescueddog 

You can read more about my balcony garden at Instagram @songsmith2962 and @grashoffr