2025/47 - Hello November, how are you?

 Well and truly into the misty, grey, damp season we are now... I have put the huge towel into the hall again, for drying off Puck after walkies. She adores her spa moments. I don't mind rain or mist, but I'm not so fond of the combination of rain and wind! They, and my glasses, make for a situation where I cycle through town like a blind bat most of the time.

But rain makes the last of my flowers shimmer and shine.

The wet has made my garden perk up, in fact there are more flowers now, than last August. It helps that the nights are still relatively mild, around 12°C.

As soon as we start having night frost, quite a few of them will give up and wither.

The Ixia doesn't mind at all that it is wet. I was worried that the bulbs had died during the drought we've been having, but they simply delayed showing themselves. Phew, what a relief!

They are in amongst the Crocosmia, Rosemary, Aquilegia and the Carex which has spread itself all around this bed.

The same applies to my Cosmos. It is finally showing flowers, well, lovely, better late than never.

Prettily pink! 

The Malus is looking great as well. I planted this for my pleasure, but also for the birds, as I read somewhere that they enjoy the fruit. But so far they have never touched it.

Tiny flowers, but they have a gorgeous scent I can smell from metres away! And so can the bees. Even in the rain some of them were buzzing away. I hope the lot of them will manage to find a place to sleep over winter amongst my bee hotels or under the wood pile. I even have bees staying on my balcony. I know, because of the neatly cut away pieces of leaves in my planter, which they use to close their burrows.

The trees around Brielle are in full Autumn regalia.

I always have mixed feelings about November. On the one hand I am dreading the winter months (grey!!), on the other I quite enjoy the scent of the fallen leaves and all my plants going dormant. And I can actually get a spade in the ground to plant or reposition plants, there is that too.

Look!

Finally been able to move my Kiwi from the pot into full soil. Hopefully it will like its new position, and grow me a nice screen.

And the same applies to my three roses. Into the ground! That Sage on the right is doing great again, the rain has benefited it, and the two heavy storms we've had last week ( wind speeds up to 130 km/h !) have not done any damage to Hunky Dory.

I'll leave you with a photo of Puck enjoying herself licking the raindrops of the Pelargoniums on the balcony. She is a senior now, walkies sometimes are a very slow affair. Sniffing everything takes forever, and sometimes she seems to forget where she is and why we are where we are.

I then need to remind her. She tends to stare at familiar objects with a puzzled face; what IS that thing? It being the tree we pass at least twice a day, for example. But she still perks up when she spots a cat. Cats need to be reminded that Puck is Queen. All the cats of my neighbourhood know her, and most of them don't take a blind bit of notice of her. Oh yeah, that's that silly dog that jumps up and down, duh!

Still. I suspect that my doggie is in the first stages of dog dementia.

Look me up on my website at Renée Grashoff Schrijft

Have a good weekend wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff 

185 - EXTRA PHOTOS last week of September 2024

 After a slump, my garden is filled with flowers again, helped by the warm days and cooler nights. So I took some extra photos for you. Enjoy!

Have a lovely weekend!

Renée 

182 - EXTRA PHOTOS

 September! Many plants are winding down, but some are now ready to shine.

How verdant do you want it? The colour in the frog pond part of the garden  mostly shows in spring, but I quite like the green as well, it is very restful.

Have a great weekend.

Renée 

179 - Extra Photos

 Colour: the best way to convince you is to show you.

These are dried balcony flowers in a glass frame I made this week.

Phlox and Echinacea in the garden adjacent to mine.

Bolted salad greens. I think they are gorgeous. 

How yellow do you want it? A melon flower from my neighbour's patch.

And here is the melon, size basketball already

As blue as it gets!

Have a lovely weekend, won't you? Renée  

179E - Colour: nature is the best designer!

 When I used a paintbrush last week, first time in yonks, I let myself be inspired by the colours of the tree spinach in my balcony garden.

Wonderful colours 

   You must admit, aren't those colours amazing?

   I am influenced by colour very much. You could state that the emotion directive part of my brain has been equipped with an extra neuronreceptor for colours. Thanks, Mum.

   That trend of a couple of years ago, of everything slick black, grey and white, especially in bathrooms and kitchens, it gives me the shivers. Showering, okay, I do that with my eyes closed, but cooking in a black kitchen? Not my idea of a cheerful pastime. It's because I think black and grey non-colours, they do not occur in the plantworld (basalt, granite, slate, marble - all 'rocks'). And 'thus' they are boring, and most of all depressing, to me.

Cheery, inspiring, vibrant

Ooooookay, now that I probably have offended more than half of you, sorry about that, I do not mean to.

My own kitchen (unfortunately) is broken white with a fake black marble worktop (nasty shiver down my back). I had no say in that and no funds to replace it. But, to counter it, I painted my cabinet Caribbean green with pink roses.

To counter the often depressing grey skies of our delta, I use as much colour in my gardens as possible. Hunky Dory has a pink/purple/blue/white bed, a crazy colours bed (where all visiting self-seeders can grow, whatever colour they are) and a red/orange/yellow/silver bed.

Echinacea and Japanese Anemones 

   If plants with gold leaves existed, they would go in there too!

   But, as I was grumbling about last week, that last mentioned South-American colours bed will not grow for me, so far. Especially the red leaved shrubs disappoint, when I had planted them for structure. Fail!

   Red sambucus, well  here in the delta it grows like a weed. Except in my garden. My two pinus though, meant to be a silver-green balance against all that (non-growing) red, are shooting up from my clay as if they want to reach at least 10m before 2030. Still, I give them a compliment every week, because when you are a moisture- loving forest floor plant and you take on my concrete clay and spit in its face, then you are a superhero, obviously.

This one has no troubles, lol!

Anyway. My mate Monique and I wanted to visit Seven Hills Nursery in Westvoorne to get some plants for her garden, so then I got some new red Heuchera 'palace purple' and the festive Crocosmia 'Emily McKenzie' (see photo top right) - duh. Attempt number umpteen to find plants that will survive the soil in my 'hot' bed.

To be fair, they have it rough, because I do not buy expensive mulch, I do not buy expensive fertiliser and I do not water the beds, only the planters. What I do do, is sing to them. Who else can say that, right?

My home-grown Pelargonium

   We have been enjoying tropical temperatures last week!

   Puck and I are loving the early mornings, when it is still cool and quiet. We share our 6 a.m. morning walkies with birds, cats, hares and waterfowl. This morning got me all excited, because I thought I spotted a large predator on a traffic sign at the Langesingel. I thought it was an owl or a buzzerd, but when we got close enough to really see, it turned out to be a blue heron. And they are common as muck around here. Oh well.

Okay, enjoy your weekend!

Renée 

177 - EXTRA PHOTOS

 Both my gardens are LUSH. Here are the extra photos I promised you in blogpost 177/177E.

As you can see, Hunky Dory is still predominantly pink and purple. Some white, some yellow, a very little orange/red. I tasted the first fig 😕 unripe so not a good taste, but there are many more to come.

Bye bye, take care!

Renée