June Garden Impressions

Our little farm and garden was a bit left on its own in May but despite the drought, then bad frost for 3 nights and another periode of dryness, almost everything looks good again now. However, my old horse gets very slow and looks in pain and the vet came for to give her some injections. I hope she can last for a bit longer.
We could bring the hay harvest in - perfectly dry and the whole house smells now of fresh hay. Some hours later, rain started and we have had plenty of heavy rainfalls since EG has left for his business trip to Egypt. Due to the last two days of thunder and lightning, the chocolate dog ran out of hiding places and could not stop shivering.
Today seems to be a lot cooler and quieter though and it is time for a G.I.T. (Garden Inspection Tour). Come and see:



For the first time, this tree peony has been able to develop its buds. We had 8 stunning magenta flowers!



The first roses appeared in the front garden, top left Louise Odier, top right Pax, bottom left Sombreuil and bottom right Home Sweet Home.



Once the foxgloves are in bloom, the garden is overwhelmed by all kind of flying insects. Hélas, no honey bees could arrive yet and the project had to be postponed.



This agapanthus was rescued by EG from a compost heap in Madeira, travelled home with us in the suitcase and turns out to be .... white :-0.



The "grotto hill" gives us plenty of joy as there are so many different perennials developping there.



I am not the only one loving Lychnis. The voles, these *number-one-ennemies* of the garden, did pull all of them down which were growing in the 'northern embankment'. I suppose it is because they are evergreen and nice and juicy in winter. Obviously, no vole lives actually in the grotto hill.



One variety the voles do not touch are hardy geraniums. At last, the garden is now populated with all kind of different cranesbill. I lost count now, how many of them grow here.



In the same way as the bees are inspecting every hatch of the foxgloves I will never get tired to make pictures of them.



On top above is one of my best pair in the front garden: Hebe's lip and Philadelphus. Not only they flower at the same time, they also welcome everybody at the entrance gate with fantastic fragrance.
The pink one below might be Comte de Chambord with a very nice perfume and my ever preferred fragrance (together with Mme. Isaac Pereire) is of Sombreuil, the white rose on the bottom right.





When going for a G.I.T., the wee cat and the dog will join.
I often break one of the fragrant rose in full bloom and have a sniff on it every minute - or so. There are no better drugs in this world :-).



If you wonder what is the flower on the bottom right picture, it is Thalictrum 'Black Stockings'. Thalictrums are growing easily in our garden and are perfect because they are tall, stay upright even on the embankment, are very hardy and flower beautifully and attract bees. The best is, that voles don't have them on their diet :-).



The blue on top is one of my Penstemons which have survived the hard winter conditions. All species from the UK have almost no chance here.
For the very first time EG showed me this visitor: the Purple Emperor. I did not even know its name in any other language because I had never seen such a beauty before. Btw. the bumble bee is visiting a geranium thurstonianum.



This brand new beauty is geranium Midnight Clouds. The leaves are dark and well shaped and it looks very good even when not flowering.



Here is a first geranium selection - top left to right Sherwood, Striatum or Apfelblüte, Wargrave Pink, bottom left to right Trevor's White, Striatum or Apfelblüte and the last is an oxonianum but I must look up its label, sorry.



This is one of my favourite combinations in the 'south embankment'. The rose was bought as "quatre saisons" but it is of this dark magenta whilst "quatre saisons" is pale. Behind is Lysimachea Firecracker. I love the dark foliage but I cut off the yellow flowers when they open as it disturbs my camera's eye ;-).



Top left to right: This is behind the grilli kota Geranium t'Stich with foxgloves and linaria, then home grown Canterbury Bell, Geranium Splish Splash, bottom left Geranium Phaeum (mourning widow) and on the right rose Souvenir de Madame Auguste Charles.



Top left: Geranium Patricia, Thurstonianum (without bee :-)) and Splish Splash again.



Please sit down with me at the end of the tour and enjoy the view and sniff again on that rose which accompanied our walk around. (Abraham Darby)



P.S. Debbie, you are in my mind.

Adieu Lilian

My beautiful, lovely lady, my wonderful mother-in-law is gone.

I was blessed to know her and I was honoured to stay some of her last days and nights with her. She showed me then her very first "lettre sentimentale" she had received from a smart French young man in 1940 when she was 16 years old, it was the year when her own mother died. His name was Prosper and amongst the lines was this sentence: "vous étiez si mignonne dans votre uniforme et j'adore votre sourire. Je me réjouis de vous revoir samedi prochain".
She certainly never lost that beautiful smile she had first given to him.

R.I.P. ma chère Lilian. Tu me manques.

Madeira - Day 1

Funchal, Botanical Garden





The view over the town and the sea is tremendous. The garden itself a firework of colours.



I liked the way the stump had been given a second life by using palm bark and making pockets for smaller species (top left). There were also big camelia trees still in bloom (top right).



EG found 'his' Brachychiton. He grew one from seeds and moved it from the UK to here without knowing its name. The tree had then already reached 2 m of height. As it had not survived after one of these severe winters, he eventualy found out its name and now a new baby plant will have a fresh start here.



On top, that is a staticia but the blue is much more intense than my camera can show.



The solandra on top left is also living in a pot in my office. We got a small cutting from our first trip to Lanzarote. I was always impressed by the size of the strelizia and the huge variety of spiky specimens. Even the leaves have spikes! (top right)





The picture on top left is the bloom of a 'hydrangea tree', dombeya cacuminum from Madagaskar.



If we are lucky, some of the iris on the picture down on the right, might show up in our garden...




... because gardener's dream is finding a fresh compost heap :-).



The photo below is geranium maderense - my friend told me immediately that it is not hardy enough for our regions. *sigh*



The topiary was mainly of box plants but also of muehlenbeckia, lonicera and others.



We could see the Aida Blu heading for the port of Funchal.



She had arrived when we came down later to get an impression of Funchal.



On that day we did not visit Blandy's wine shop, only on our last day we did.



This is a picture for my British fellows: the ex Beatles boat. Bought by them in 1966, the Vagrant yacht is now high and dry in use as a restaurant.

Happiness is...

... coming back from wonderful holidays in Madeira and being welcomed by:

- a behaving dog at the airport
- a smiling son at the end of the dog lead

and finding at home a huge surprise parcel for Easter...





It took a long while to discover all these fine treasures wrapped in matching paper and tied with matching ribbons.



Delicate items all cross stitched by the sender.





That will complete the violet collection:



THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Spring Flowers

Just a quick upload of actual Spring flowers over here - will the coulours in Madeira top all that?







We'll see.

First Signs of Spring

The longer the days get, the more I wonder how I could ever have had time to squeeze in all the Spring activities whilst following a full time job.
After this long winter, everything is now happily back in the outside mood. Our first barn swallows arrived on 24th March. So far, I never saw more than 3 but hopefully, there will be more soon. The 'bio' men came to fit the house martin's nest boxes, 4 x 2 boxes. One is my Valentine's gift and the other 3 are belonging to the community with a 5-years contract. They install the boxes for free. The men were making lots of unhappy noises on top of their ladders when they found that the heavy duty Hilti drill was the bad choice: not gentle enough for our nearly 300 year old house and its loose joints. But eventually, the job was done in a good way.
The sparrows, who live next to the new boxes in the gaps of the stones where the stable wall joins the house, have not adopted them as social buildings, yet. Every year, they share the nesting space between many other sparrows and also plenty of starlings. I love to listen to the starlings when I am in the bathroom and the wee cat would sit on the window and watch them upholstering the nests.

The house got new windows - enfin! - and one can feel the difference. No more a drafty, almost British ;-) residence but a cosy upgrade to the stone house. And as we were in the mood, we started to make the attic habitable. One room has been already plastered and the stones were filled. Because we run out of space -for our fleamarket treasures ;-). The old floorboard needs sanding and a big woodworm treatment will have to be done on all the ancient roof beams.
On top of that, by the end of the summer or early autumn, the last big project will be started: the annexe, which was formerly pig's stables. Once this is done, we should be at the end of 11 year of restauration and alteration and modernisation of this house which owns us.

But one of the most important activities in spring is cleaning the pond, cutting down all the old brown sticks and fishing out a maximum of pond weed and algues. Whilst fishing for algue, the newts will be found in the net, they will be examined, counted, catalogised and I wonder every year how to identify them? Using an ear tag? Or a discrete tatoo? Or a print on the back?
On the second day of pond cleaning, I took the camera with me.



I am pretty sure that this is a female normal pond newt. (triturus vulgaris)


I believe that this one is the male version of triturus vulgaris.





This one on both pictures above seems to me to be a female of the alpine newt (triturus alpestris). Its head is more large and flat whilst the green ones have more pointed noses.



The green one, again, is a common newt.





This one on the photo above seems to me to be a crested newt.



My attention was interrupted for a short while due to the balloon over us.



It must be fantastic in this blue blue sky and having such a brillant view from above!



The wee cat was heavily intrigued.



This is again, what we have most, just the normal green pond newt.





Whilst I believe that this one above is the male version of a normal pond newt.





That last one, I am pretty sure, is the alpine newt.

I am not an expert at all and if anyone knows what populates our pond, I will be thankful to be told. The species which is nearly no more found here in our region (the Tuscany of Belgium :-) ) is the crested newt.

I might also show this document to the nice 'bio' guy who is going to help me with my bees. Yesss, I will be starting with bees as soon as back from the next trip!!!

Next trip? You wonder where? MADEIRA!!!