Viscri

This summer, we spent most of the month of August in Romania.
We did not do much sightseeing, but one weekend we took the kids and went further into the heart of Transylvania.
Viscri is one of the spots we visited and it gave me the feel of a parallel world, one frozen in time far from civilisation, with kind people and where life is at a very slow pace.
Prince Charles was charmed by this place and chose to have a home away from home here.
I can understand why.

Magic in the Garden

This is our Romanian garden/orchard/veggie garden, one that we can enjoy only for about 5 weeks a year and maybe that's why it feels magical.

That plus the fact that you need to open a gate to see it from the main courtyard which gives it a feel of a secret garden.

These are merely iphone pictures so they don't capture its magic and it has many other angles I did not photograph, but I wanted to post them and remember what it looked like this summer.

Autumn Colours

Half of this bouquet is picked from a field, the other half from my garden.

I have recently discovered I like the combination of mustard yellow and shades of white.

It looks like a happy bouquet :)

Rainy Summer Day

What's to do on a rainy summer day?
Well, make bouquets and take some photos, of course!

My roses are back and I must leave ... for three weeks with the hope they'll be still thriving when I return.

Dahlia Time

Summer is in full swing and I've taken care of many things, the blog not being among them.

I just thought I'd post a couple of instagram photos of my new dahlia: Cafe au Lait

It's a big favourite among frashionable florists, so I looked for it in shops and managed to find it.

I do love it so!

Unfortunately, earwigs love it as well as you can see their bites on the outer petals :(

Have I mentioned I hate earwigs?
Well, I do.

And here's a glimpse on the other side of my little flower arrangement 

Fragrant Peas

Sweet peas season has started and this year I only have those I planted from seed.

I love the white ones with a touch of pink

Bouquets of June

One thing I love about having a garden is being able to have fresh fragrant bouquets from spring to late autumn.
As June is a month of bounty in this respect, I thought I'd post some of the bouquets I made and managed to take a picture of :)

Here is a recent one in a colour combination I'm rather fond of despite the fact that I'm generally not very drawn to getting yellow flowers for my garden.
It's Graham Thomas and the Pilgrim plus the mock-orange and a couple of lavender stems.
I found out that by crushing the wood stem of the mock-orange you can make its vase life considerably longer.

 

I've got these large cornflower blooms this year that last 7 days or more in the vase.

And they're just starting to show up.

And I've got a whole patch of them :)

I love this combination of sweet peas, scabious and corn flower.

 

June also means my girl's birthday and she had her first real party this year, so I picked flowers from the garden and made 4 arrangements.
This is one of them, the others I forgot to photograph.

And a natural self-made bouquet as this little rose always comes in perfect bunches

Sunset by the Lake

Today was the national celebration day here in Luxembourg.

I stayed out of all the fuss and festivities and I only heard the midnight fireworks from the distance of my bedroom, but the sunset by my favourite lake ... this I did not miss.

Not today.

Happy anniversary, Luxembourg!

May life be always as peaceful and beautiful as this sunset reflected in this ancient lake.

Garden Beauties

Some photos I took this morning with my phone.
I never seem to be able to photograph it all - there is so much going on, but I thought I'd better post some rather than none :)

Gentle Hermione with delphinium

New rose - Boscobel

Jubilee Celebration

Lady Emma Hamilton with alium

Graham Thomas

Mock orange

Poppy with a visitor :)

Home to Plants, Playground to Children

Here's a piece of my garden as seen from the balcony.

There were celebrations over the last weekend and fun was had and gifts were bought ... and received by the birthday girl.
Now the view to my garden includes a big garden house for kids and for people as tall as I am (1.65m) who can actually stand inside :)

Roses of Early June

It's the time I'm waiting for all winter - the time when all the roses open their blooms and fill my garden and house with their pretiness.

 

These photos were taken in the beginning of June, but now they are still blooming profusely with new ones coming along.

 

So one day of early June I cut one stem from about each rose bush that was blooming at the time. Some were not, so these are just a part of my now 28 rose bushes.

 

I brought them all inside and I just had to have a photo shoot in my small and amateurish soft box :)

 

Here is the line-up:

Yellow - Graham Thomas and The Pilgrim

Lower pink - English Garden and Princess Alexandra of Kent

Middle pinks- Evelyn and Brother Cadfael

Top pinks - Garten Traume and Gentle Hermione

Dark red - Munstead Wood and Astrid Gräfin von Hardenberg

 

In this photo there is also the purple rose which might be Novalis by Kordes, but as I've stollen it (psst, don't tell anyone!), I'm not sure of its name.

 

There's also, at the very right end, another dark coloured rose, which I assume it's the Dark Lady by David Austin, this being the last mistery in my garden :)

A close-up of the roses now.

 

Astrid & Munstead

Princess Alexandra

Gentle Hermione

Garten Traume

Brother Cadfael - I loooooove this rose!

Evelyn - I love this one, too.

It looks a bit like a painting to me

English Garden

The Pilgrim

Graham Thomas

 

I enjoy June so much, now that I have a rose garden.

I only wish my garden were bigger so I could add more roses.