nature – GWENNIESGARDENWORLD

July 2, 2025

A SHORT VACATION IN THE NETHERLANDS

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.

November 25, 2024November 25, 2024

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 !!

October 6, 2024October 6, 2024

A WALK IN A NEARBY ARBORETUM

A while ago I went to the arboretum hoping I could make a few nice photo’s. My garden is still a bit of a mess, a huge “bit” really. We are still waiting for the new patio we ordered in January but cos of the rainy days it wasn’t possible, my husband removed part of the old tiles, hoping we’ll soon get the workers in. So now the garden looks even messier !!

Here are a few of the pictures I took in the Arboretum.

The hydrangea panniculata did really well this year, that’s probably because they love wet soil.

I loved this pine with the silver needles on the outside.

This is a close-up of the pine above.

They had a beautiful banana tree, I always wanted one but it doesn’t really goes with the rest of my garden.

This is one of the two rosebushes who had a few nice flowers on display, and they do have many rosebushes.

This is the 2nd rosebush, also with pink flowers.

This white annual is called cleome hassleriana, over here people call it cat’s whiskers.

And this evergreen bush is absolutely lovely in the garden, with it’s bright yellow patches it always looks like the sun is shining. It also gives bright red shiny berries. It is called Aucuba Japonica. I have 2 of them in my garden.

We already had very cold nights for the time of the year, close to freezing, soft sunny days and warmer days with rain. We have had 12 month’s in a row with more rain than normal for us with only a few warm days here and there, one or 2, never a week . I found it quite frustrating as it was difficult to work in the garden. I hope you all had a lovely Summer.

Take care !!