Some Lensbaby indulgence, and...

I took out the Lensbaby today! I just love this lens. There's also a few taken with the 50mm and the 100mm macro. Guess which is which ;P

Some cherry tomato seedlings sprouted

And lettuce

I still need to plant these! I have no idea where to put the lavender...
Wheat will be the herb garden is now a mountain of soil.

These guys! We left a large pallet on the grass, and ladybugs seem to have
made a home out of it. At any time there are lots of them around!

At some point the strawberry bed got weeded and bedded with
the chippered branches from the willow tree we coppiced

I just like this overexposed blurry mess

White muscari waiting to be planted, I wanted white ones for a long time!

Some tulips from some bulb mix and roses

Louvre hyacinth

Hawthorn <3

Fern fronds

Fern fronds

More of the tulip-like-whatevers

Ginesta <3

A blue snail! apparently these eat the eggs of other snails (and other things).
Oxychilus alliarius. "Garlic snail", I think. 

We've been out in the garden most of the day (at it has been raining on and off all day also). Pim digging the terrace up, me just... what have I done today really? I don't know where the hours went, only planted the hazelnuts and the Japanese quince, and by the end and Pim had to help me dig and bring in soil and chips.

Been walking up and down a lot for sure, trying to visualise the "landscape", the view from every corner, thinking how to lay down the paths and beds and masses of plants and all that.

Since I wanted to plant the new bushes at the back, in what will be "room" 3 of the garden, I finally stopped wandering around, grabbed the hose and tried to lay down paths for that area before I decided where to plant.

I want to divide the garden in three chunks, since it is narrow and super long (5 to 8 metres wide by about 40 long). The first part will be the terrace (eventually we will build a conservatory over part of this large terrace) and kitchen (herb) garden. Second, orchard and vegetable garden. Third, berry orchard and shady fern corner.

So anyhow, I had a huge pile of old branches just where I wanted to plant the bushes, so I had to untangle the partially rotted mess and move it elsewhere (close to the hedge which will be a long term project anyway). That took me a while. As I worked I also picked out the bucketful of snails that were resting there and placed them elsewhere.

So finally the grass gor removed, the bushes got planted, the soil topped, the chips spread. By then it was pouring so I snapped a quick one with my phone:

Incredibly impressive eh? looking at the big picture is still quite deflating in my garden... these guys have a long way to go though. I posted about it yesterday, but I'll mention again the cultivars:
Corylus avellana 'Webb's prize cob', Chaenomeles × superba 'Jet Trail' (stays 1m high and 1m wide with a ground cover habit).

I have a pretty good idea of what I want and where, but the Japanese quince was a total impulse buy in the garden center. I am so glad though. This guy was totally unknown to me, but white blossoms attractive to bees, perfumed fruits, gnarly branches, cute ground cover habit, limited height and spread: I'm in! It is already pretty it's infancy. When I google I see mostly bright red blossomed varieties, that's a bit too much for me, but I've added "geisha girl" to my Pinterest plant board, those peachy blossoms are very tempting. I don't think I have the space for another, larger one even, though. Perhaps trained against a wall...

Update, and a visit to the local garden center

Two days ago the sugar snap peas just POP! today I saw the snow peas are also starting to pop up.

I took a few pictures around the garden. Not too bad for phone pictures, but I should take out the camera soon:

Hawthorn

Fern

Fern that I grew from spores

Fern

Fern - Cyrtomium fortunei

Fern - Cyrtomium fortunei

These Louvre hyacinths I planted in March have turned out beautiful
(and fragrant as ever)

Bad photo of the first flowers of my pretty white broom

Lilac. I lost the label, but I investigated today in the garden center where
I bought it, I think it may be Agnes Smith (white, single)

Will we get a HUGE LOAD of fruit?? (redcurrant)

Elder

Boston ivy on the front door. I killed its predecessor so I am really
pampering this one! it's a harsh façade...

So in the garden center we got:

A superbly staged vignette ;)

Corylus avellana 'Webb's prize cob' x2 (hazelnuts!)
Salvia × sylvestris 'Schneehügel' (a white flowering sage)
Lupinus 'Camelot white' (white lupines)
Chaenomeles × superba 'Jet Trail' (compact Japanese quince)
Lonicera japonica 'Halliana' (honeysuckle)
Hymenocallis 'ismène festalis' (x1 bulb peruvian daffodil)
Iris hollandica (white of course)
Muscari botryroides 'alba' x3 (and three sprigs per pot)
Lavender alba (dunno which) x3
And a pot of something I promptly forgot WTF it is! I know it is an herb and it is white although normally it isnt? may it be Verbena hastata or am I confusing that with something I sown yesterday?? sigh my memory...

More on these later today or tomorrow when we plant them.

Fig

We had two figs in pots, they overwintered indoors.
We decided to plant the smallest one (Ficus carica Brown Turkey) outdoors
It seems quite protected in this location, between
the apple closest to the house and the peony.

Loki found the perfect spot for a nap

In one large pallet we left over the grass all winter it seems ladybugs have been overwinteringand now are waking up. They're crawling all over and mating and reproducing, and they're welcome!

Bulbs

Zantedeschia

Labels

Today I got two bulbs in Aveve (is Agapanthus actually a bulb?) the Zantedeschia had a baby bulb to the side (that is why I selected this one), so I split it before I planted them. There is another bud, but I didn't want to cut the bulb so close to the center, the side bud split readily.

I'll have to remember to dig out the Zantedeschia in Autumn, maybe also the Agapanthus. I planted the Z between some herbs in a sunny but quite protected spot (at least as long as the pallets stay where they are) and the A close to the fence, behind an apple tree.

I also planted a cilantro from the grocery store, I never had luck with this... I planted it close to the mint, on the shadiest spot in the only available bed. This time, I put a cloche over it, and I hope that will let it adapt to being outside.

Also spilt some seeds around, nasturtiums, love-in-a-mist, borage.

I've put four planters I have on one of the new windowsills. Three have chard from last year that survived. I filled the 4th with soil and planted some chard bright lights. I don't think I ever had this one come out? I top dressed the other 3 containers with compost.

Today I fertilised the containers with last year's chard (seems to be doing fine if munched), fruit trees, strawberries, peony, roses (not tje new ones), lilac, Boston ivies, the big currant, elder. I used liquid tomato fertiliser because that's what I found in the mess.

Seeds

Today I sewed Marmande tomato seeds and some I collected from yummy fat cherry tomatoes from the shop. I hope they come out. A bit late but I was waiting to have some windows placed at the back where it is light enough. We'll see.

Some spring things

I started going to the gym and it's great, because my joints have improved to the point that I can even dig in the garden :D it's very satisfying. There are so many signs of spring! green buds and little growing leaves everywhere.

Hyacints

I dug a little around the roses and hyacints. I saw that the hop vine is alive and well, yay! Also signs of life on lilac, broom and elder in this area. I should fill in a bit with more soil, perhaps add mulch.

I started digging the stubborn, old grass tufts off around the fruit tree area as well. Some kinds of grass do not let go of the ground at all until they dry out completely, luckily we just have two mountains of soil from where we are excavating close to the house, so I just filled it up and piled the grass tufts nearby.

That's one mountain of soil

This weekend we had a look in Aldi and I brought back a cherry tree, six strawberry plants, a packet of peruvian daffodil bulbs and some seed packets (they're like 40 cents there) and a box with mixed bulbs.

The box is entitled 30X COLOUR COLLECTION, but I got it because all the flowers are white, haha. There's 1x Dahlia, 3x Lilies, 5X Freesia, 10x Gladiolus and 11x Anemones "the bride".  That's all the information in the box, apart from planting depth etc, Aldi as usual is a bit of a bet. I hope some of these come out, especially the anemones which I love, I planted some before but they didn't turn out. In the peruvian daffodil (Hymenocallis festalis) packet there were just three bulbs.

The cherry tree is "Rheinische Schattenmorelle" and it's supposed to be sour. We removed last year's dead cherry tree and planted this one, it just one thin stem of about a metre, but it had green buds and it was cheap so I got it. It is in the first picture on the far left.

The daffodils went in in between the other ones which are already up, but not blooming yet. I planted the rest of the bulbs and the poured the contents of three seed packets around the fruit tree area, these are white alyssum (Lobularia maritima), a mix of cornflower and Lobelia "Kristallpalast". I didn't cover or anything and it rained right afterwards.

Also planted the strawberries in between the others, (I've done some weeding but there's still some), and Pim planted the tree.

Strawberry mess

Today I also weeded what has other years been used as a vegetable bed, around the perimeter we transplanted the herbs that were evicted from what is going to be a terrace some time ago. So today there I sowed some peas: sugar snaps "Delikett" and mangetout "Norli" (Aveve), two rows of each. The sugar snaps are closer to the pallets. I also poured the content of a white California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) seed packet from Aveve around the fruit tree area.

I also "Speedy" beans. So I still have enough space to weed and plant a few of these beans...

Don't have pictures of this area yet. It's behind the soil mountain on the second photo.

Coppice

I've been continuing cutting limbs off the willow at the back. I had to do a bit at a time because of my joints. I've been cutting the canopy into smaller chunks and separating branches and twigs.

Loki, the stump and a holly sprout

Today Pim's dad brought a chainsaw to finish coppicing it, but it stopped working about 1/4 in. I tried to continue but it was a bit too much for me, the stump is quite wide at the bottom (at about 8 cm from the ground). In the end Pim cut it with the folding saw and some patience. The last bit split and there is a small hole on the stump. I gather it is best to not cover stumps with paint or anything, but I didn't like how this hole was going to collect water, so I filled it with paraffin from melted candles and dabbed around it a bit. It is not completely covered but the bits that would collect water are.

Looks like the central branch enveloped a couple of others.
There were signs of this on the exterior as well.

The hole that concerned me.

Waxy mess.

I hope it will sprout back this or next year and live on as a coppice. Perhaps even be harvested for basket material.

As it stands now.

So now, all the raspberries and red currants will get a lot more light and some sun. Last year was quite dark in there and they barely gave any fruit. I certainly should fertilise the area as well.

I also found a few holly sprouts in this area, one right by the stump (see first pic). They'll also stand a better chance.

There is another tree a few paces further, right at the edge of the property, a hawthorn which I love and is of modest proportions. It can be seen in the last picture.

Willow at the back

I've been meaning to trim the willow at the back for a while. The main problem in the entire garden is the hedge*, of course, but we'll have to talk with the neighbour about that and I suppose have disposable money around in case we reach an agreement. Not gonna happen any time soon.

Meanwhile, the berries at the back are also getting lots of shadow from the big crown of this willow. A year ago, I think, I cut off one side branch, but it grows so fast and this summer we basically got no berries.

I got a folding saw recently and today I cut one thick branch off at about a metre from the ground. I want to just coppice it, maybe even harvest it for basket weaving?

I have another two branches to go but I'm doing this by hand (should I say, by shoulder, which is giving me grief) and cutting everything into little pieces is taking me a long time. I don't know if I'll cut the other branches this year.

I harvested some of the pussy willow from what I cut and put it in water jars inside. Unfortunately Loki likes it (of course) and I'm sure at some point he's gonna topple a jar and make a mess.

I also cut off a thickish (5 cm?) branch in the hawthorn at the back. It was a sucker that was growing straight up from the bottom. Not easy, had to cut it in several pieces and untangle it sideways (it was as tall as the tree and branching at the top). I also trimmed a few other very minor branches. Now the tree looks much nicer, I think.

Some signs of life in the new snowdrop patch. Aren't they late?

*Of course it is Leyland cypress, and has been cut badly so it's brown on our side, and it's like 2,5 metres tall at least. Not getting any sun in winter at all.

Signs of spring

These bulbs were already here when we got the house,
they come back every spring.

I planted some snowdrops here in November,
they're popping out!

Cherry tree

The healthiest of the rosemaries ha grown 10cm sprigs

Rosemary beetle already in place

Fig tree