Fortunately we have had some rain last week so there is some fun in doing gardening work again. I don’t know how you get on in dry areas such as Texas or California, but I found that this drought we had from May to mid-June started getting on my nerves. Seeing lots of plants wither away, looking on a burned lawn already in May, trying to keep alive the strawberries and vegetables (who have remained in a bonsai state nevertheless), trying to save weakened plants from massive aphid attacks — all this was not very enjoyable. Therefore I didn’t feel like writing at all because who would like to read about the feelings of a depressed garden enthusiast?

For the roses, however, the weather has been perfect. The warmth has made them blossom early and with their deep roots they were not as dependent on regular watering as those plants with more shallow ones.

So almost to the end of June there was a fireworks of roses in my garden now only subdued by the recent rain that has caused quite a few blossoms to wilt. However, fresh raindrops on rose blossoms, is there anything more elegant than this?

Also, the rapeseed bug, a tiny black beetle usually feeding on rape blossoms, and a pest that has become resistant to almost all insecticides is bothering us again. However, it is not as bad as last year and the year before when you couldn’t go out wearing anything coloured white or yellow unless you wanted to be covered with little black bugs right way.

So for some reason there are never perfect conditions for gardening. It is either too cold or too hot, too dry or too wet, there are fungi or bugs or deer trying to live off your favourite plants — and still they always manage to come back up again. There is always something growing, flowering, flourishing, which is quite a miracle when you think what obstacles they are facing all the time.

Lush, luxuriant, brilliant — words like these popped up in my head when I walked through my front garden last week. The irisses and lupines in full bloom, the whole area seemed to be overflowing with colour, which was enhanced by those bright pink sweet williams.

That old tree trunk comes from my parents’ garden and used to be part of a huge cedar tree. The ivy came with it, two, and it will probably have overgrown everything within the next two years. I often use this tree trunk as a bench — lying on the east side of the house it’s a great spot for an early cup of tea on a mild sunny morning.

Helianthemum and salvia grow in abundant bushels directly at the curb. Being so close to the tarmac this is one of the hottest and driest areas in the garden which only heat and drought resistant plants survive. This is particularly true for this year, as spring has been unusually dry with less than two inches of rain since mid-April. Ironically the rest of the republic has almost been drowned in the past weeks, heavy thunderstorms and rains causing flooding in the south and west of Germany. Only the areas close to the Baltic Sea didn’t get any rain. Often we could see the clouds building up but drifting away again before any water came out.

The white string you can see at the top of this picture is part of an electric fence that we use to keep the deer out. For some reason they don’t come in through the back garden but simply walk down the road and cause havoc among the flowers. So while the fence doesn’t look too decorative, this is much better than having a herd of deer trampling on everything, munching away the roses.

Since I had a rather stupid accident in the kitchen last Tuesday, cutting my leg severely on a broken glass lid, I forgot to water the garden. As a result, all the plants suffered severely. The lilies and lupines haven’t wilted, they have simply dried up. So what you see on those pictures above is already a thing of the past. Now I’m waiting for the hemerocallis, the roses and the peonies to do their bit, hopefully supported by some rain within the next week.

Carol of May Dream’s Garden, who is responsible for this Bloomday hype, says that May is her favourite month. And who am I to dispute this: May is the month of Spring Explosion when nature seems to have laid the fulfillment of all her promises into a few weeks presenting a firework of scents and colours.

Aquilegias come in all sorts of colours, blue and pink being the most common ones. Unfortunately I’m not very good with botanical names, however, as most of my plants are bastards, there wouldn’t be any name for them anyway. These here are very close to the wild varieties growing up to a metre in height. I try not to let those self-seed too much because otherwise they would take over the garden in the end.

Even though it’s almost midnight, I don’t want to be late again for Carol’s Garden Blogger’s Bloomday, particularly because Spring Explosion has almost started. The flowers are only waiting for a few really mild days to show their full beauty, but even what they come up with in this rather cool sunny April weather lets the heart leap. Right now I don’t find the time to work as much in the garden as I would like to; however, I always go my round welcoming every new flower that raises its head — driving my dog mad because she’d rather play or go for a walk with me.

No, I’m not going to rant on about those slugs who have finished off my complete scillas, lots of the daffodils and ruined most of my miniature tulips. I’ll simply show you some that have survived and shine brightly on all visitors who enter the garden.

The first cherry blossoms are starting to open. This is actually a surprise tree because it is a sapling that grew from the roots of my parents’ morella cherries, and which I planted among all the other wild shrubs at the end of my garden. So if it ever carries fruit it probably won’t be morellas.

The Pulsatillas are some of my favourite spring flowers. Unfortunately the wild tulips between them are already gone. I’ve also got a corner with the blue variety, however they haven’t started blooming yet. They love light sandy soil, and when the conditions are right, they self-seed quite easily.

Aside from the white forest variety, I haven’t been too lucky with anemones, although I adore them. They simply seem to vanish after some time. Well, it’s no wonder, if you plant heucheras on top of them in the autumn because you have forgotten that there have ever been some there before like this anemone blanda that keeps on fighting its way up. (Carol, was it you, who went on about having ’senior moments’ the other day? This was certainly one of mine!)

Well, Giekau is a tiny Village in Schleswig-Holstein, which is the most northern state of Germany. Being located at Lake Selent and close to the Baltic Sea (here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal featuring the region), the climate is rather mild (zone 8 is what I found somewhere, but I’m not too sure if these zones are all the same internationally). Winters usually don’t go below -20°C, summers are rarely hotter than 30°C.

…and what can you do there?

Gardening, of course. In our rich, heavy soil almost anything grows from apple trees to violets as long as it tolerates some frost. As summers tend to be a mixture of sun, wind, rain, warmth and cold some veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers are best grown in a greenhouse (which I don’t have) however, lots of other fruits and vegetables thrive under these conditions with very little help.

Also, the area is great for relaxing. The beaches nearby are not spectacular, but neither are they overcrowded. Some are ideal for collecting fossils or minerals (here a flintstone lined with crystal), as the whole of Schleswig-Holstein is basically the rubbish the glaciers left after the ice ages. Therefore you find rocks that have come all the way from Scandinavia littered on the beaches.
If you don’t like the sea, there are plenty of lakes around too. The landscape is marked by soft hills, making it ideal for easy hiking or cycling tours (if you don’t mind the wind).

And of course bird watchers will find this an interesting region. Right now thousands of wild geese are resting here on their way north. Behind our house herons are crowding up to feed on the little fish that are coming up the creek from the lake. Most spectacular are of course the White Tailed Eagles that breed around the lake and sometimes even have a look into our gardens whether the children have left the rabbits out ….

Those who like more action would have to go to the bigger cities, which are rare in Schleswig-Holstein. The capital, Kiel, is famous for Kiel Week, a great international sailing event. Lübeck with its historic town center is probably more widely known, not least for its marzipan. The next major city is Hamburg, which, of course, is not part of Schleswig-Holstein, but only a one and a half hour drive away from us.

(This is probably one of the last articles that will end up on Jodi’s list. Thanks for starting it, Jodi.)

Suspecting them before but without proof, now I’m sure: it was the slugs. As a result of the mild winter, the garden is full of baby slugs that are having a good time on my crocuses, particularly the yellow ones for some reason. Usually I’m rather careful with predictions, but it seems quite likely that this won’t be the last time that I lament about my slug problem this year.

It’s been Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day again, and this time I would like to start with some indoor plants. First of all this phalaenopsis that we received from my grandma as a wedding present now almost sixteen years ago. My grandma having passed away a few years ago, this orchid still keeps thriving, and serves as a remembrance, flowering faithfully every year, even if it is rather pink. For some reason putting it into a room we rarely use and not fussing about with it, but only watering it every once in a while and giving it some (normal) fertilizer once a year has given it a boost: this year there are two stems with flowers.

Another specialty I have to offer is this flowering avocado, which my son grew from a seed and which seems to thrive on little light, even less care and the smell of dirty socks that you find in the room of a fifteen-year-old. I’ve always thought, avocadoes don’t flower in captivity, however, it seems, you just have to provide for the right conditions. Also, if you see them in relation to the fruit, avocado blossoms are rather tiny.

As I’m not really good at growing plants indoors, these two count as our great successes. Most of my indoor plants — there are only a few left — have a really hard time in the winter, only recovering when I put them outside on the terrasse in spring. So let’s now have a look outside. The following fotos were taken about a week ago, when we had an unusually mild day. Since then it has cooled down, so that the flowers still look the same — only the bees have remained hidden because of the frost.

First of all the crocusses, the first picture showing them about two weeks ago when they had just begun to show. It’s amazing what a little sun and some warmth can do in such a short time. As to crocusses, I alway find that I haven’t got enough. There’s nothing like a huge spread of crocusses opened widely in the bright sun ….

The next picture shows one of my disappointments: snowdrops with snow heather. There was supposed to be a big bushel of snowdrops here to contrast the light pink of the heather. However, either our mole or my over-engaged weeding in the summer has scattered them about so that they look rather forlorn here. Also, the heather has not quite grown a I thought it would. It has suffered quite a bit from last year’s drought.

I’ve already shown some pictures of hellebores before, however, now they are at their best lighting up the dreary surroundings with their bright white. After blooming the petals of this one turn reddish so this plant is an eyecatcher for quite some time. The best of all, the flowers keep well in vases. Together with skimmia blossoms and some ivy leaves they make really elegant bouquets.

Finally, here’s a hardy rosemary with tiny blue blossoms. Even if the winter has been unusually mild so far, it’s really amazing how this mediterranean plant manages to flower this early in the year. In fact it has been among the first to bloom. I used to keep my rosemaries potted and carried them indoors, but I have found that this is unnecessary, and even harms them. Planted outside in sheltered places in well-drained ground, they are fairly frost tolerant. In this mild winter I didn’t even need any frost protection (usually my Christmas tree ends up sheltering delicate plants against severe frosts).

In last Wednesday’s post (What doesn’t grow in my garden) Don of Iowa Garden deplores the fact, that so common plants as aquilegias can’t be persuaded to find a home in his garden while other rare and difficult-to-grow ones are thriving. I’ve often made the same experience that there is no way of forcing plants into your garden. Sometimes moving them around to a more suitable place helps, but some plants simply vanish despite all efforts.

For example Pulsatilla vulgaris simply thrives in my garden, seeding itself all over the place so that I regularly give seedlings away to my parents in whose garden they disappear after a season or two. The same thing happens with catnip, which I almost count among the weeds, however, it can’t be made to settle in my parents’ garden. I’ve made the reverse experience with cosmos flowers, which self-seed in my parents’ garden but which I can’t persuade to stay longer than a season in mine.

Neither the spot they were planted in, nor the conditions of the soil (sandy for Pulsatilla, any for catnip as long as it’s not too acidic), nor unfavourable weather conditions seem to have been the reason for their disappearance. So it is very likely that they were driven out by the presiding inhabitants. Even if I’m no biologist, I’m quite certain that there is quite a lot of interaction between plants that we are hardly beginning to understand. If potatoes can warn their fellow plants of a bug attack by emitting certain chemicals then it is quite possible that other plants have found ways of keeping unwanted neighbours out, for example by influencing the chemisty or microfauna of the soil. I know this for certain of Walnut trees whose decomposing leaves change the chemical makeup of the soil and thus make it difficult for other plants to grow below them. And vegeteble gardeners have learned from experience that some plants make good partners, such as onions and carrots, while others hinder each others’ growth; e.g. it is not such a good idea to have plants of the onion family grow next to peas. So it seems that just like humans plants have found ways of signalling to newcomers that they are not welcome.

In fact, this goes both ways: plants that I don’t like, don’t stand a chance, even if I try to find a nice place for them out of respect for the person that gave them to me. Begonias are to be counted among these. I keep dropping hints towards my mother (who loves them), that giving them to me means their certain death….