Let's All Smell the Roses, shall we?

Hi, my mindfully dreaming friends from all over the world. How has your day been so far?
I am in my garden, under my umbrella, in a summer frock with a thick vest on... In other words, it is a typical Dutch late-Spring day, with a bit of everything: wind, sunshine, and huge sailing clouds.

I'm on my own; my family all had their own things to pursue, and that's fine by me. They'll all be back at some stage in the evening, demanding food and attention, so right now I'm enjoying my time by myself. And admiring my roses. The one above is a New Dawn.

I adore roses. And have tried to grow them ever since we bought our house in 1994. But our soil isn't quite right for them; and it has been mainly a big case of trial and error which species thrive and which do not (and that, unfortunately is most of them). The white one does okay. It is called Snow White.

This one, a small flowering kind with bright red blooms, is just about to spring into flower. And it has a story.

My Mum, knowing I love roses, bought it for me in the supermarket years ago, in a pot. It was just 15 cm high and had exactly 5 flowers. It was one of those supermarket plants that are supposed to look good for a week or so and then they expect you to throw it away and buy another one. I even scolded my Mum for spending her money on such a plant. So, when this rose had dropped her flowers, predictably after a week, I first wanted to throw it on the compost heap. But I changed my mind, for the leaves looked quite healthy. So I planted it outside our garden, underneath the elderberry tree, and told it to either live or give up the ghost, it was all the same to me.

Not only did it live, but it thrived. It is now huge, climbing all the way up into the elderberry and along our fence. It has hundreds and hundreds of flowers every year. It has survived the coldest winter we've experienced for years in 2012, whilst all our other roses died. I greet it every day. Admire its pluck and will to survive. And have have said sorry to it numerous times for showing it such indifference when I planted it.

(Yeah, yeah, I've warned you I'm one of those dotty women, haven't I?)

The gorgeous pink climbing rose above is another gift from my Mum. She had it on her balcony, where it suffered from the ever blowing Westerly winds we have over here near the sea. So she gave it to us, and it does well. It shall remain nameless, like the hardy little pot rose. But it is loved.

It is just coming into flower as well, as you can see in the very fashionable selfie :P

Here we are. At the end of this rosy blogpost.  I'm going to pour a glass of sherry for Mum (who will be arriving for dinner any minute) and a glass of red wine for myself, and smell the roses. That makes me very happy.

Enjoy your evening!

A New Serial: Beautiful Hellevoetsluis!

This evening I had a short discussion with my daughter. Her argument was that Hellevoetsluis, and especially the part of Hellevoetsluis we live in (called the Kooistee) is ugly, or un-attractive at the least.
To prove her wrong, I took her for an hour long walk. In the rain (poor girl). To show her that the Kooistee may be a working men's suburb, but that there is beauty here.
This is the result.
And I thought that I would show you some more pictures from time to time, to prove that even the Kooistee has its merits.

These photos are from one and the same corner, on the Orion. A very early rose and  three kinds of clematis.

Our route this evening. (Google maps): Left on Trambaanpad, right on Mandenmaker, right to Nijverheidsweg, left to Kanaalweg, left to Orion (took 4 photos on the corner), left to Nereus, right to Dierenriem, straight on to Trambaanpad.

Next time I'll show you another route. 

A Rose would be a Rose by any other name. Roses: do you grow them?

 Here it is.

My favourite flower.

Ever since I can remember I have adored roses, in all forms and shapes (yes, even those garish orange ones that have no smell), but especially the English blowsy scented ones like the one in the photo.

My Mum used to grow pale yellow ones in borders, masses and masses of them, and red climbing ones against the (whitewashed) walls of their old house. Every year they were pruned and mulched with horse manure (we kept a  horse, so plenty of it). Our old dog used to scrape out nice comfy holes underneath them, and so did our free ranging chickens, and the roses didn't mind. They bloomed and thrived.

When we bought our present house twenty-one years ago, one of the first things we planted in our derelict wasteland of a plot outside was a climbing rose, a New Dawn.

We bought it only 30 cm. high, and within one season it grew to a stunning 2.50 m long, absolutely covered in blooms.

We've changed our garden around 100% since then (due to the extension we've built into the garden at the place where the New Dawn used to be), but I dug out an old photo for you.

There is the New Dawn right at the right of the photo, and the white climbing rose "Snow White" in the foreground on the left. This too, grew metres long within the first year of planting. It was an issue with my (then) neighbour though, as the blooms all blew into her garden and she was the one who had to sweep them all up every day. So after a year or two of putting up with her grumbles about it, we dug it up and replanted it on the other side of the garden. Here is the proof, in a little posy I made last Summer

These days I have many different kinds of roses. At the moment they are just coming into leaf, but I promise I'll take photos of them for a future blog when they are in flower.

Do you like roses? And which ones do you grow?

This is for the garden lovers amongst you!

After 2 extremely cold, blustery and wet days, the sun came out around noon. So, wellies and thick jacket on, hatted up, and on with the gardening gloves!

This is the side garden towards the back, facing the park pond. You can just spot it in between the pergola frame.

The border is coming on nicely, with lots of mini narcissii, pansies and tulips. At the back, on the left, is a yellow monarda, which will still have to be dug up, as it is getting too large. It seems okay now, but in summer it towers over everything else and spoils the view. So we aim to put it in the side border, next to the new wood shed.

Our garden is predominantly North-East facing, with the front bit due West (we are on a corner) and the 'backest' back bit East. We lack a sunny South side...meaning our climbing rose White Sneeuwwitje was always facing the garden of our neighbour. When she complained of having all the rose leaves on her desert of a paved in 'garden', we dug up the rose and replanted it next to our fence. So now at least the blooms face our way. It does rather well, by the way, hurray!

This week hubbie has cleared the bit next to our pond. There was a box border there, with mahonia and some shrubs, but it was getting too large. He took it out, and replanted one of our decorative grasses, which was getting too large as well. It doesn't look much now, but in summer it gets huge, over 2 m high and at least 1 m wide.

Now it looks like a mini beach, doesn't it? It is large enough to put a small dining table up, which is lovely, as this bit gets the last sun of the evening.

We've spotted the first frogs in the pond, and the pond forget-me-not is spreading already, as are the waterlilies.

This is the old situation of last year.

I'm looking forward to milder weather, and my froggy chorus in the evenings. We've planted massive lilies, called tree lilies today, which will grow as high as 1.80 if the packaging is to be believed. And a lot of dahlias, in all kinds of shapes and colours. I've strictly forbidden Viggo and Gina to dig them up again.

Right. I'll leave you with one of my favourite images. Bluebells. And an owl. I'll be extremely busy the next couple of days and evenings, so you'll have to wait a while for the next post. But don't fret - I'll be back!