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.
As always I look arround for flowers, plants and trees, not only on vacation. But I found a few gems on holiday,
Evening primrose or oenothera macrocarpa in a lovely sunny color
Deer hay or hypericum with soft pink buds.
I loved this malva with the dark purple veins
A wild rose along the road
A dark leaved elderberry wit pink flowers, what a beauty !!
Orange is the national colour in the Netherlands, so you see it everywhere and in everything, even in cakes, ice cream, fountains with orange coloured water, clothes…..you name it, they got it in ORANGE
We saw lots of wild orchids, but only this soft purple one but there were many of them.
This is the pretty flower of the hogweed plant (heracleum montegazzianum) but beware, it is dangerous, if you touch it you can get painful blisters.
This is a small hogweed plant, they can really get to 2 meters high and they come in huge numbers at the same place, it is a relative of the parsley herb.
I don’t know how this plant is called but it was about 3 meters tall and we saw it in many places, against that blue sky it was a adorable !
Thanks for visiting and take care. Enjoy all the flowers and plants in your neighbourhood !
Recently we had a short vacation in the Netherlands. We live at the border with the Netherlands but in Belgium. We went to the very north to a province called ; Friesland, surrounded by the sea, although The Netherlands are surrounded by the sea for the whole of the West and North part and they also have several small islands you can visit by boat, some of the islands do not allow cars,
What is typical about the Netherlands, it is very green and they have a lot of water, sea water but also streams and ponds and lakes, water everywhere you can see. Almost every family there owns a boat, or 2 or more.
The green plants you see behind the water is reed, they have lots of it and they often cover the roofs of their homes with dried reed,
This is a farm house with a roof of reed.
They have lots of horses and cows
As they had numerous huge floods in the past with many people death, they made dikes, lots of dikes, all arround the sea, they are quite high and covered in grass, and on the dikes are sheep who keep the grass short.
An old sailing boat, still in use.
More old sailing boats,
An old mill build in 1861, still in use,
The old house above was build in 1835, at first 2 families lived in this house, nowadays just one family, most of the inside still looks like in 1835.
Almost everyone in The Netherlands moves around on a bike. They have broad cycle paths away from the roads.
Evening sun.
We were lucky with the weather but there was a lot of wind, wind is normal near the sea but it was more than normal.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip to the Netherlands, a country with a King and a Queen.
GWENNIESGARDENWORLD 
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