We got more snow yesterday, I am not amused. It is slippery everywhere, so I stay inside. I ‘m glad I don’t have to work anymore. The highways are open but the smaller roads are a nightmare. The children are very happy as most of them never saw snow before,they love to play in the snow and make snowmen, my little dog loves the snow, when it is rainy I can’t get her out of the house, but snow, oh yes !
Tomorrow a huge storm is predicted with lots of rain so the snow will be gone I think but next week will be very very cold.
We have snow ! For many of you it may be normal to have snow in Winter but we haven’t had snow for many years now, at least not snow that stayed for days. As we are not used to having snow it is a problem over here, especially when you live in a village but even in the cities it is a problem and there are very long traffic jams on the highways. The roads are very slippery and in the hospitals they have their hands full with broken arms and legs or worse. But it is pretty and if you can stay inside a warm house and look in the garden , then it looks fantastic.
Today I took a few pictures for you.
This pot is home to several succulents, luckily they are winter hardy. It stands on the garden table.
A view in my garden.
Another view in my garden when it was snowing this morning.
A view in the garden.
The holly tree still has a lot of berries, that is because we feed the birds all year round.
Even the verbena bonariensis is still standing.
Apparently we are going to get more snow in the comming days and severe frost, with a severe storm predicted for Friday. It could be rain or snow, I hope it will be rain !! Next week we’ll have “warmer weather” and rain.
This was the biggest and largest of the six I sowed, they all took quite a battering of heavy rain and storm winds, I don’t expect seeds this time of year but the yellow is a bright spot in the garden. I think I’ll experiment next year with a few types from the shop. But the birds won’t go hungry, we always have a bag of mixed seeds for them and peanutbutter without salt.
We still have nice weather for the time of the year, apart from the few days with high wind and lots of rain. In the past it was normal to have night frosts in November or even earlier when I was a child (a loooong time ago). So 15 to 18 C° is good !
Somewhere in September I decided to plant 6 sunflowerseeds (the beginning of Autumn here) As I was feeding the birds outside in the garden I saw a few sunflower seeds among the mixture of seeds. I filled 2 smal pots with potting compost and put 3 seeds in each pot. A few days later I saw the first seed had sprouted and the next few days they were all visible. I put them high up on a table as the slugs love young fresh plants . A few weeks later I planted them out in the garden , all 6 of them so now I have sunflowers in the garden. My husband called me crazy to start with sunflowers so late in the year. I have no clue what breed they are, they all have a different hights, some are in bud others in flower. So now I know I can start early with seeding sunflowers and seed some every 3 months or so, to enjoy them in Spring and Summer and Autumn. And I don’t even have to buy seeds as we always have a mixture of seed for the birds in our garden.
I think the buds are very pretty too.
I will let you know how they evolve. So far the weather is still arround 15 C° and at the moment there is no frost in sight.
I hope you all still enjoy the plants in the garden or on your balcony. Take care !
Recently I went a weekend away with my sister, we both needed a bit of peace and quiet but as it was just for 3 days we wouldn’t go too far away. We decided to go to The Netherlands to a place called Vlissingen, it is a small city at the North sea. We had hoped the weather would be rather nice but a few days before we went to Vlissingen the weather forcast changed a lot. Instead of sun and between 18C° and 20C°, we got heavy wind (wind force 7) , a lot of rain and 15C°, but we enjoyed it anyway, we did a lot of reading, talking and enjoying going out for a drinks, lunches and dinners, luckily they were all close by. Nothing spectacular but it was fun. We stayed in a small hotel at the seaside, pretty and comfortable.
The following pictures were taken the last day when the sun was out for a bit, it rained most of the time so I didn’t take a lot of pictures as I don’t like my camera to get wet.
In the middle of this picture you see a tower that used to be a prison, now it is a restaurant.
My husband and I decided to go to the local heath area for a walk in late afternoon when the heat was bearable. It is a lovely and natural area where there are sheep, cows and deer but none of them showed themselves, it is quite a large area (large for my tiny country) so they could be everywhere, as I a can’t walk for long we saw only a small area but it was enjoyable and very very quiet, we only saw a few people who were also walking.
A pine tree and heather (erica), it was only the start of the heather flowering, you can also see how dry the grasses were.
More pines, weathered by the rain, wind, sun and storms.
Close-up of the heather flowering.
More trees and dry grasses.
Dried wood everywhere.
We found proof the cows had been there. The sun made rocks of these “remains”.
We’ll get an early Autumn as we had a very dry Summer.
More trees with Autumn leafs.
Remains of a fallen tree.
What I liked most was the peace and quiet and being in a natural environment. When a tree dies they don’t remove it, they let nature do what it does best. If the tree falls they let it lie, the insects and the funghi do the rest untill there is nothing left, the animals are free to go where they want, they do get a bit of help with food and water but arround the heath area is an electric wire so they can’t escape and get killed on the road. Our country is tiny so we don’t have the space of a much bigger country. Besides, the population density in my part of the country is 507/ square kilometer.
Have a great week and enjoy your garden or balcony, try to create a piece of nature, however small, it will make you happy !!
I took a few pictures in my garden this week, June and July are the prettiest month’s of the year over here.
A half dubble hibiscus syriacus, the bees love to visit the flowers. The red flowers in the back are crocosmias.
The same flower from another angle.
Hens and chicks are also in bloom at the moment.
Crocosmia lucifer, always performing abundantly every Summer
Hens and chicks with a few visitors; a yellow little violet who selfsowed in this pot.
This beauty is called mirabilis jalapa, always a succes, they have black seeds in the form of a pea, you put a seed in a small pot or straight in the garden and a few weeks later you have a lovely bushy plant with beautiful flowers, there are several colors, in a cold climate they die down in Autumn after the first frost but when they stay alive underground they form a big root who will turn into a bigger plant, you can try to dig up the roots before the first frost and keep them frost free, then plant them in the garden after the frost is gone.
Have a great week ! I hope you all have a lovely Summer. Take care.
GWENNIESGARDENWORLD 
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