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.

Itoh peony

I've got this peony as a gift...well, I got a "cheque cadeau" and I chose this beauty and an arch for the garden.
It is now in its fourth year and positioned in a rather dry sandy spot near the driveway of the house, but I've found it to be so carefree.
Itoh peonies are herbaceous, so they die back to the ground every year, but their foliage looks similar to a tree peony and the flowers are similar to those of tree peonies, too.
They stay in bloom for about a month because the flowers last for a long time and because there are several flowers on the same stem that are in various stages of development.
What's not to love about it?

Aquilegias

It's soon the end of May and I am leaving tomorrow for a week away from my garden.
The garden is mostly green right now and there are not too many blooms, but many-many buds.
These beauties are putting their delicate flowers in the middle of the lush green.

This is pink Nora Barlow.
It's so easy to keep in the garden as it will self seed and I needed to take some out and give them to other gardeners, there were so many of them!

 

Among those self-seeded babies, I had this new hybrid surprise :)

Isn't this any keen gardener's dream?

Notice the difference between the aquilegia above and the one below?

Yes, this newer one has little trumpets, while the mother-plant does not.

Also, notice the last-standing Angelique tulips in the background.

And this is black Nora Barlow (yes, I like this Barlow kind a lot!).

And here is its surprise baby - another hybrid, this time an aquilegia with a single row of petals.
I must confess I like the mother-plant better in this case.

And this is whom I suspect they crossed with - a single row of petals with trumpets:

Not only aquilegias are in bloom right now, but also these big alium heads.

They smell so nice, too!

Angelique

Tulip season is almost over, but I still have some beauties in my garden.

In fact, I am lucky enough to have a flower patch mostly in shade so everything there has a later blooming season. Among the flowers planted in there, there are the Angelique tulips.

Angelique, being among my favourite tulip, is planted in several spots around the garden and in front of the house so I have a very long period when I can enjoy its blooms.

It's such a beauty - from bud, to a fully open flower and in a bouquet.

Let's not forget its amazing fragrance!

 

Purple Tuesday

I felt like posting some pretty things today, although I'm away from my garden.
At a quick glance through my phone photo library I realised I wanted to post this photo of the smallest anemones in my garden.
They look quite similar to the wild white ones growing in the forests of Luxembourg, but they're purple. Much prettier! :)

And since I started with purple tones, I had to add these beautiful giant crocuses.
I have them in a pot and also in many places in the garden.

Here, they make a decent combination with the blue iris.

 

And here they're paid a visit by a busy bee.
Look at all that polen!

Garden Tour in mid-March

It's been a while since I last wrote on the blog and these are not the newest photos I took, but .... I gotta start somewhere, right?

Last week I took some photos as a lot seems to be going on in the garden.

I love this time of the year when I go out and discover something new every day.

Well, the hellebores are not really new as I believe I also posted them at least a month ago, but in the meanwhile new ones started blooming so I'm adding those to the list as well.

This is the old one, as in the first one that blooms every year. It must start somewhere in January and it goes on for about 3 months or more.

That's what I call a good flowering plant!

The following two are very similar, but not quite the same.

The second one, which must be my favourite, is lighter and it has those pretty freckles in the centre.

There are also a lot of crocus blooms everywhere, but I'm only gonna post these ones here.
They make a pretty pair with the blue iris, although not chromatically so :)

This is a rather ugly photo because of the irrigation hose, but I admit I was too lazy to put it away for winter.
That scilla and the primula have been in my garden from the very beginning, 3 years ago, and they always come back, side by side, being among the first to bring colour in my garden.

These are the funky anemones that come out from the ground already in bloom.

They're not spectacular and not in any of my favourite colours, but they do bring colour and warmth in an early spring dull-looking garden.

And this is a new addition after having visited the gardening centre with my son.
He's so thrilled that "we take care of all the animals" !