This is my dog Pipa, she lies totally zen on the sofa.
Have a great week all !! Greetings from me and Pipa.
TOTALLY ZEN
SPRING BLOSSOMS
Now that a lot of trees and bushes have blossoms it is really starting to look like Spring, at last !!
I don’t know what tree this is, some sort of prunus but I don’t know which one. This tree is in the garden of our local kindergarten which is right across of our house.
Same tree as above but more in close-up.
As we are having dry weather for a change the blossoms stay for a longer time.
And….. we have a patio !!!! After waiting for 16 (yes sixteen) months for it because it wasn’t dry enough to lay the tiles, if the concrete layer is wet the glue for the tiles do not stick. I’ll show a picture of it when the furniture and the plants are in place.
Have a great week and enjoy your garden or terrace !
THIS LOOKS LIKE SPRING !!!
It’s definitely looks like Spring now !!! It’s getting warmer slowly but surely.
I look forward to the rest of Spring .
Have great week, enjoy your garden or balcony and take care !
A WALK AROUND A PARK
Last week we had really lovely weather and the grandkids were free from school so we decided to go to a nearby park hoping to see signs of Spring. It was a lovely sunny day and about 18 C°. To our surprise there was still a lot of water everywhere, we had a very wet Winter but we thought the park would be dry by now. I took a few pictures so you’ll see that was not the case.
This was the only green thing we noticed, the branches of the tree above are reflected in the water.
All you can see is dry grass and water. The green trees you see are pines, they are always green.
You can see the sun is shining and the grass is dry. I quite liked this tree stump.
This is normally a dry area.
This is a marsh but it is usually a lot smaller.
There were not many waterbirds, just a few ducks and ofcourse birds in the trees, but there were a LOT of walkers and cyclists, all enjoying the sun we hadn’t seen in a long time.
Afterwards we went for a drink and something to eat across the road, it was packed with people. I think I can say we all enjoyed our day.
Today we are back to the cold again and we’ll have a few frosty nights this week , next week the temperatures will be on the up again and the sun will come back.
Still no patio …..
Thanks for visiting, enjoy your garden and take care.
ONE TWO THREE : DIVE!!!
Black swans looking for food. I found this quite amusing.
Have a great week all !!!
ALMOST SPRING
It is still Winter but there is also a little bit of Spring. I went to the arboretum near where I live and there were already plenty of flowers, ofcourse all those flowers were winterhardy.
And the bravest of all flowers over here in Northern Europe is the snowdrop, they are not bothered by snow or ice they always are the first to show their blooms.
Cyclamen coum is also winterhardy and performs year after year after year in white, pink and purple flowers.
Hammamelis, there were many hammamelis bushes, the flowers always look like they need a bit of ironing, they come in many colours.
Pieris japonica is preparing to bloom soon but they are already looking pretty.
A couple of black swans were having fun in the big pond , they couldn’t have choosen a better place to raise a family, they will be well protected in the arboretum.
Edgeworthia or paper bush was ready to open their flowers.
Not everything was ready to open their buds, like this prunus species. Maybe next time I visit the arboretum again.
In January we got twice as much rain as normal and very few hours of sunshine but that is about to change, light frost at night and sun during the day, we are all longing for a bit of sun here and we hope to have finally a nice Spring and a lovely Summer. Fingers crossed !
Have a great week and enjoy the beginning of a new year in the garden.
WINTER
We are having a bit of Winter, just a bit of frost and a bit of snow, nothing really out of the ordinary compared with what people in other countries get. I hope you are all safe and well.
I took the first pictures of 2025 as the frost made everything look a lot better.
Lonicera nitida, a wintergreen bush with small leafs but it grows really fast.
Euphorbia cariacias looking sad as they don’t like the cold.
My white camelia, already with buds.
Russian vine, taking over the garden, I think we need a professional gardener to remove it, it grows faster than the speed of light !!!! So beware and don’t plant it !!!!
Rhododendron in bud also as we had a soft and very wet Winter so far.
Viburnum tinus,a pretty wintergreen bush that can handle a bit of frost, it will soon bloom with soft white and pink flowers.
And my spineless holly who was already defrosting in the sun.
The frost makes the garden look very pretty and it brings a lot of the birds to our garden as we feed the birds and they have a bath in our pond. It doesn’t matter how cold it is, the birds want their daily bath.
Take care dear people and enjoy your gardens and balconies and keep safe !
MERRY CHRISTMAS
As you may already know I don’t put a Christmastree in my house for Christmas as I feel sorry for the tree’s, they have been growing for several years and all of a sudden they are cut and used inside where it is warm, and they are decorated with all sorts of things, pretty ,yes ofcourse, but then a few weeks later most of them are trown outside in the cold where they die, very few are replanted and used again. When you look at the pictures you can see how I decorate my home for Christmas, what you see is just a small part of the decoration. I try a different setting every year.
I WISH YOU ALL A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS !!!
ps . I know I have been a bad blogger this year due to all sorts of circumstances, and I hope to be blogging more frequently next year.
BONKERS
The weather is completely bonkers, we went from freezing temperatures with snow, hail, sleet, storms and pouring raining to Spring overnight !!! Yesterday it was such a lovely Spring day with temperatures up to 18 C°, it was the “hottest” 24th of November ever ! It was good enough to sit outside on the patio for lunch or for afternoon tea, alas I do not have a patio yet, the bedding was laid a week ago but ever since it was too wet to lay the tiles. But I did a bit of work in the garden. Cos of the frost and the wind all the leafs came down.
As you can see my fig tree is still full of figs, unripe and not edible.
Here’s another part of the same fig tree.
When the patio is finished we’ll ask the gardener to do a lot of pruning everywhere in the garden, and a few tree’s must go as I want working in the garden to be easier for me, it is just getting too much, as you all know I am not a Spring chicken anymore. Ha !!
I’ll sent pictures of the finished patio and the pruned garden as soon as I can take pictures, when that will be will totally depend on the weather. We used to have 4 seasons, now we still have 4 seasons but they come unpredicted, a Summers day or two, Autumn for a day, then Winter for a few days and then all of a sudden Spring !!!
Have a great week all !!
MY CALLICARPA
I have a bush in the garden who gives lovely purple berries in Autumn, it really looks awesome. I couldn’t get a picture of the bush as it didn’t have the right background, every other bush has ugly leafs now and the leafs are falling, so I took a small branch and put it in a small vase.
This is a small branch of the Callicarpa bodinieri.
I hope your Winter will be good ! Take care !
GWENNIESGARDENWORLD 
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