SILENT SUNDAY
DO YOU SMELL THE ROSES ???
My roses were a few weeks later in bloom than other years cos of the cold and wet Spring we had, but now they are in full bloom and my garden smells of roses at the moment.
Rambling rose, rosa Guirlande d’Amour, I have it in my garden for almost 25 years and each year it blooms like this, we do not feed it nor do we water it. What you see now is the first bloom, after we cut all the faded flowers, it starts blooming again but not with as many flowers as you can see here, but it blooms till the first heavy frost. This rambler doesn’t grow as tall as the other ramblers, and it’s thorns are not as sharp as those of the other ones.
Rambler rose Francis E.Lester, a lovely rose, we cut it back last Winter to a few inches and it has grown again to 5 or 6 meters now , you can see all the buds, so it blooms for a long time, in Autumn it gets lovely orange rose hips for the birds. You can’t see it here but the thorns on the stems are horribly sharp, you really need very strong gloves to handle it.
Rosa Francis E. Lester.
This is rambler rose Seagull, a close relative of the rose Francis E. Lester, this one has horrible thorns as well. Ramblers use their thorns to climb in trees and bushes, normal climbing roses need to be tied to a bow or something else, they have long flabby branches who need a bit of help to climb. This one gets orange rose hips too, their thorns are equally sharp as the one’s from Francis.
Mind you, if you don’t cut ramblers back each year they’ll grow 10 to 20 meters high in a tree or over bushes.
The birds love climbing roses as they use them to hide from predators and to nest in them and in Winter they provide food. The roses are buzzing with all sorts of bees at the moment.
How many roses do you have in the garden ?
Have a great week and enjoy your garden.
Great picture to celebrate Pride Month
GOOD OLD FASHIONED ELDER
Elder or sambucus nigra is a fantastic big bush that provides flowers in Spring and edible berries later on. The flowers and berries only grow on wood that is 2 years old. You can cut the bush really short if you like but then you have no flowers and berries for that year. But it regrows very fast. You can use the flowers and the berries in jam , syrup , cakes, smoothies and all sorts of food, it helps to cure coughs and kills virusses. The birds and the bee’s love it too. So what is not to like ?
The flowers, aren’t they beautiful ?!!
Close up of a flower.
And the buds.
I can really recommend this bush for the garden, at least when your garden is big enough as it grows to 4 meters by 4 meters but by trimming every second year you can keep it lower and slimmer.
Have a great week !
GARDEN GERANIUMS
For all the people who don’t know garden geraniums ; they are fantastic plants and there are so many varieties you can choose off. They are reliable, they look stunning, they are winterhardy, they are cheap and soooo very easy, and the bee’s love them. I have a few in my garden.
If you are looking for good ground covering that grows everywhere, sun, shade, dry and moist, and surpresses weeds very well once they have been growing for about 3 years, they you need the Geranium macrorrhizum. He also doesn’t disappear in completely in Winter.
Flowers of the Geranium maccrorhizum, the plants flowers early in the year and flowers for a long time.
Another geranium, this is geranium sanguineum, a lot smaller than macrorrhezum but so cute and pretty, blooms for a very long time but disappears in Winter, but once the weather warms up, they are back again.
This is geranium Johnson blue, a stunner but needs more attention.
Geranium phaeum, a taller plant, airy and self seeding all over the garden, but he is not a nuisance. Attracts a lot of bee’s.
This is geranium macrorrhezum in white.
An there are so many other varieties, you can have garden geraniums flowering in your garden from Spring to Autumn.
Have a great week and thanks for stopping by.
SILENT SUNDAY
SILENT SUNDAY
MY FUTURE APPLES
I have two apple trees in my garden, they are tall and narrow; they are created for small gardens and they give me many apples, the flowers look the same but the apples are different. You can even plant them on a balcony in a big pot and keep it small.
This is a small piece of my youngest and smallest apple tree, last year it didn’t have one apple but by the looks of it I’ll get plenty this year. These trees struggle a bit for a few years after planting but it gave me apples already, just not last year. Gardening teaches you to have patience sometimes.
This is the biggest and gives me lots of apples each year.
I love to have a bit of fruit in my garden, I have a huge fig tree and a monster of a blue grape vine who lives in my greenhouse.
What fruit have you in your garden ?
Have a great week all !
IT IS DEFINITELY SPRING NOW.
We had to wait rather long for Spring this year, the weather went up and down like a yoyo. It was wet and cold with a better day once in a while.
As I am not mobile at the moment I can only take pictures from the patio at the moment.
This was my june berry (amelanchier) last week, just the buds were out.
This is the same june berry ( amelanchier) today
Dwarf rhododendron Moerheim
Pieris Japonica
Skimmia japinica Kew green.
For people who have only a tiny garden or balcony, a skimmia is the ideal small bush, the flowers appear in Autumn and it starts flowering early in the year and it attracks lots of bee’s, it is wintergreen and winterhardy up to -10 C°. There are several different colours of flowers. But you need a male and a female plant to get flowers.
Close up of a skimmia flower.
Take care and enjoy your Spring !
SILENT SUNDAY
GWENNIESGARDENWORLD 
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