And suddenly, it feels like summer. After a cold and wet spring, with even some snow at the end of April, temperatures are in the twenties. The warm weather has made a big difference to my garden. Lots of things are emerging; leaves, flowers, and unfortunately, slugs. May is a busy time in the garden. I have been weeding, and removing dead leaves and slugs hiding under the leaves. Obviously, I should have cleared up the leaves months ago but I didn’t. I bought some new plants and planted them in the garden and made a wigwam for my sweet peas. What have you been up to?
Tag: pansies
DIY pressed flower Easter eggs
It’s almost Easter, so it’s time to get crafty. Join me in this blog post where I show you how to make pressed flower Easter eggs. I have always loved decorating eggs for Easter. First as a child, and later with my children. My boys are growing up too fast and are no longer interested in crafts. They love an Easter egg hunt but prefer chocolate eggs over dyed eggs. I’m on my own now!
Last year, I dyed my eggs in different shades of blue and green to create an ombré effect. This year, I tried a new Easter egg idea I’m sharing with you. It’s an easy and affordable project. All you need are eggs and pressed flowers.
Continue reading DIY pressed flower Easter eggs
The joys and sorrows of gardening
Three weeks ago my friend Bex nominated me for a Liebster award. The Liebster award is all about discovering new blogs to follow, so I was very happy to pass it on to three newer bloggers whose blogs I love.
As a flower lover and aspiring gardener, of course, I chose my nominees among like-minded flower enthusiasts.
One of the bloggers I would like you to discover is a fellow countrywoman, Marieke Nolsen. She is a florist and a gardener with a lush floral blog. She doesn’t have much time to write, but she shares lovely pictures of her garden flowers. I especially love the collages she creates, with pictures of yellow and white spring flowers, different kinds of small purple flowering plants, or a variety of purple pansies. She really has an eye for colour and a distinct style.
Violas are her favourites. I told you in my market days March how people are anxious to get some colour in the garden, they can’t resist the happy faces of the pansies. This lady certainly didn’t hold back!
Marieke hosts floral workshops using seasonal flowers, preferably from the garden, creating natural floral arrangements. She also has a passion for gardening and gardens as she arranges flowers or vice versa. I would love to join one of her workshops one day, I definitely need to practise my flower arranging skills, but for now I had to settle for a visit to her garden.
Marieke lives in an old farmhouse that used to be part of an estate, Den Treek. The estate consists of woodland and heather, it’s very popular at weekends. We like to take the kids there for a walk or even a picnic in summer.
The garden surrounding Marieke’s house is divided into four ‘rooms’ each with a separate identity. The garden was designed to fit the characteristic farmhouse, the flowering plants carefully selected to match the colours of the house.
The garden consists of several flower beds, full of perennials and shrubs. Because she loves to work with fresh-from-the-garden material these are mostly flowers and foliage for cutting, like crab apples and hydrangea.
Last autumn Marieke went to a visit a large flower bulb grower and exporter. The flower bulbs were reasonably priced, she just couldn’t resist them and bought 1500 bulbs! It took two days to plant all the bulbs in the garden beds.
Several times a year the garden is open to visitors. Marieke, of course, was anxious to have the garden ready for spring. She was hoping for flowers beds overflowing with tulips and visitors enjoying the bounty of spring bulbs. But, of course, you can’t fight Mother Nature.
This spring has been unusually cold and dry. As a result, blooms were about a month late. Only a few of the 200 tulips or so that were planted in autumn started blooming. Did they suffer from the cold, or did the voles (woelmuis in Dutch) get to them? These are the sorrows of gardening.
Despite these sorrows, there was still plenty to enjoy. The tulips that were in bloom, were beautiful, with large flowers on sturdy stems.
The combination of daffodils, white Lunaria, Muscari and yellow aquilegia in the front garden perfectly matches the white and soft yellow of the house. The aquilegia was planted to fill the gaps of the missing tulips. In my garden, it doesn’t bloom just yet.
The pots filled with white pansies, narcissus (Thalia) and dark green, almost black, holly made a very pretty picture.
I hope you enjoyed this garden tour as much as I have. I can’t wait to visit it again in summer and see the hydrangea in bloom! I promise I will take you there again.
Today being the last day of April, I hope to see you again next week for Market days April.
Market days March
March seems to have been much colder, wetter and darker than February. So, no sunshine on this month’s market pictures, just grey skies, and raindrops.