82 - De Engelse Roos (n.a.v. het verlies van HRM Elizabeth II)

 Een loterij waarbij ik op mijn 13e één van de 5 vrije plekken won van een week-lange uitwisseling met een school op het eiland Sheppey, was het begin van mijn levenslange liefdesverhouding met Groot-Britannië.

Ik logeerde bij een typisch Engels middenklasse gezin, een politieagent en een verpleegster met 2 kinderen, in een rijtjeshuis met een achtertuintje in Minster. England maakte een verpletterende indruk op me, geholpen door de excursies naar Canterbury, Rochester en London en de lessen op de comprehensive waar iedereen zo vriendelijk was tegen dat zooitje ongeregeld uit Brielle. Het was liefde op het eerste gezicht.

Op dat moment begon ook mijn fascinatie met de geschiedenis van die eilanden en vooral met de gebouwen en bijbehorende tuinen. Want dat was me onmiddellijk duidelijk: Britten houden van hun tuinen, voor mijn gevoel (toen en nu nog) veel meer dan Nederlanders. In Minster maakte ik ook kennis met het fenomeen flower show, en hoe serieus dat genomen werd. Er stond nog net geen schrikdraad om de lathyrus, want die moest binnenkort op de show tentoongesteld en hopelijk een prijs winnen.

Wat jaren later woonde ik zelf in London en liep ik eindeloos door haar straten, schaamteloos om poortjes en hekjes kijkend om maar te zien hoe die tuinen eruit zagen en altijd met een schaar in mijn zak op maandag omdat ik dan naar mijn horticultuuropleiding moest en geen geld had om de benodigde bloemen voor mijn oefenstukken te kopen. Ja, ik jatte de klimop en rozen op weg naar Tottenham, en mijn bloemstukken werden opgebouwd al naar gelang van wat ik te pakken had kunnen krijgen. Een commentaar op mijn rapport sprak van mijn "often surprising choice of material". Hahaha, ze hadden geen idee.

Waar dit verhaal toe leidt, is mijn liefde voor Engelse rozen die onlosmakelijk verbonden is met mijn liefde voor Britannië en dus mijn gevoel van verlies nu Queen Elizabeth II ons ontvallen is. Tuurlijk, niet 'mijn' koningin, maar emotioneel wel degelijk, sinds haar portret op van alles stond waar ik 11 jaar van mijn leven als wanna-be Brit mee te maken had.

Mijn respekt voor haar is immens. Philip Larkin, Engels schrijver en dichter, heeft het veel better verwoord dan ik:

                         In times when nothing stood

                          but worsened, or grew strange,

                          there was one constant good:

                          She did not change.

En in de woorden van Elizabeth zelf, die ik nog steeds meedraag sinds de dood van mijn moeder: 'Grief is the price we pay for love' .

Wil je meer lezen, bezoek me dan op Instagram@songsmith2962 .

44- A rose is a rose by any other name.

 Mijn wieg stond op de derde verdieping van een  huis in een straat in Blijdorp, dus de eerste rozen die ik me kan herinneren waren die in Diergaarde Blijdorp. 

Oma had een abonnement, dus ik leerde daar letterlijk lopen. Mijn favoriete plek in Blijdorp was overigens de rotstuin, zo spannend om over de grote stenen te lopen die daar de paden omzoomden, en dan te moeten bukken om onder de taxussen door te komen. Mijn kleuterjungle.

Het zat er dus al vroeg in. Maar ik wil het eigenlijk over rozen hebben.

Wist je dat er mensen bestaan die niet van rozen houden? Ongelofelijk he? Zelf zit ik aan de verre andere kant van het spectrum: ooit huurde ik een kamer omdat er zo'n mooie  rode klimroos over de voordeur groeide (slechte keus, de inwonende eigenaresse bleek een alcoholiste, die prachtroos kon daar uiteindelijk niet tegenop). En in ieder huis waar ik woonde plantte ik rozen. Ook in mijn huidige balkontuin. Het balkon ligt op het Zuid-Westen, dus de eerste voorwaarde (zon) werd gegarandeerd. Voor rozenmest zorgde ik zelf. Waar ik echter totaal niet op voorbereid was, was de felle wind die 9 van de 10 dagen over mijn balkon raast. Na 3 jaren van omwaaiende rozen, afgerukte verse knoppen en geknakte takken heb ik het opgegeven. Het deed eenvoudigweg teveel pijn om mijn gekoesterde rozenknoppen keer op keer van de planken te moeten rapen. 

Mijn enige twee overlevenden, een donkerrose Gallicia ( enkele) roos en een zalmrose naar geel verkleurende hybride theeroos heb ik een paar weken geleden naar mijn volkstuin gebracht, bruusk gesnoeid.

En ja, ook daar staat vaak wind... maar als de zon schijnt, hebben ze zon! We gaan het zien. In elk geval begon de Gallicia binnen een week nieuwe scheuten aan te maken, een hoopvol teken. De theeroos is wat aarzelender, één begin van een nieuwe scheut. Zij was zowiezo meer een prima donna, beeldschoon en met een heerlijke geur met een hint van citrus, maar veeleisender dan dat wilde Spaanse ding (dat ook zalig geurt, voor mij moeten rozen naar roos ruiken, anders kan je net zo goed een zijden exemplaar neerzetten). Ik ga de dames verwennen met lavendel als buurplanten, goed tegen de ongewenste insecten, want aan gif sproeien doe ik niet. En dan maar hopen dat ze het op de tuin beter naar hun zin zullen hebben, met hun voeten in de klei. Volgens mijn tuinbijbel vinden ze klei prima te pruimen. (Oh oh, het boek zegt ook dat mulchen met turf een goed idee is..., well, the times they-are-a-changing!)

Mijn volgende post is Tweede Kerstdag, dus ik wens je alvast hele gezellige kerstdagen. Don't let this lockdown get you down! 😗😗

Meer over mijn tuinen op 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

3 - Mediterranean

 Smug in the face of climate change in my delta, I had my sunshade right, bring it on, in Spring 2019 I filled my garden with plants that should be able to cope better with the weather. The sickly Lonicera seemed to have perked up a bit, so I told it to hang on and dragged, pushed and shoved its trellis planter to the most shady corner. That means shade until mid-morning, sun thereafter. I put Nasturtium seeds at its feet for company. And rigged a line between a teepee and the rainpipe for my runner bean to climb. I could already taste the fresh beans, love them. Fired by the urge to grow some more veg, I sowed salad greens, got a tomato and a chilli plant and begged one of my friend's strawberries off him. Along with the herbs that had done very well and a variety of Pelargoniums in the railing planters, my garden looked very different from the first year. I was tempted to get a Musa...better not, that ever blowing wind, eh?

Puck and I installed ourselves on a lounger with book, beer, bone and a bowl of water and watched the veg grow. Every afternoon the jackdaws from the roost at the end of the street would line up on the edge of the roof opposite and stare at us. Puck would stare right back, she's very protective. Swifts swooped, a cuckoo called in the distance, the occasional screeching ringneck parakeet flew past, the slugs held war councils amongst themselves and the bees for some reason lacked.

That previous windstill scorching summer, I had had plenty of bees, hoverflies, wasps, houseflies and, darn it, mosquitoes. So what had happened? Well, there was the wind. We had extreme amounts of wind in 2019. And my Mediterranean collection didn't attract a lot of bees for some reason. In fact, my entire harvest of runner beans, non pollinated, consisted of 1 beautiful bean. Puck and I shared it ceremoniously and pronounced it delicious.

The Nasturtiums did very well, climbing the trellis, and trailing elegantly over the edge of the planter. But the Honeysuckle again dropped all its buds and most of its leaves. Then an unprecedented Summer gale struck. It whipped my Roses, tore off their leaves, gave the Pelargoniums a good shaking, threw over the Fatsia and tomato and made my tiny side table sail away. It landed three floors down and 10 m away at 3 cm from the fender of a Lexus. Some very posh neighbours here. For some reason this particular one was not amused. He screamed at me that I am an irresponsible nutty plantgeek. It sounds even worse in Dutch. So rude!

Okay, I did take better care of storm damage prevention after that. My roses recovered, I was so happy they did. And there was another, very unexpected, little success. When I arrived in this street in June 2018 there were no plants on the balconies. Some folk had artistic Buddhas, most had expensive lounge sets, and there were plastic lavenders and grasses dotted here and there (no doubt weighted down with heavy rocks). But nothing green and alive. Until I noticed in 2019 that on one of the balconies a miniature olive tree appeared (clashing somewhat with that Buddha) and look, on another a couple of tasteful clipped buxus balls. One family even went wild and put two mini palm trees on, hung with solar lights. Not outdone, the man in the flat opposite put down a cheerful planter full of geraniums and sat next to it every evening,  smoking and calling Poland.

See, my darling, I told Puck. Even a drop of water can eventually wear down a rock. All we have to do is show them how lovely real plants are. Puck agreed. She always does, good girl.

You can follow this blog by clicking on the button that says 'Atom. You can also follow me at Instagram @songsmith2962 and @grashoffr

#mediterranean #balconygarden #thedutchdeltagardener #dogs #gales #spreadnaturelove #slowgreen