Garden update

I've been working in my garden since mid-May. I tried doing garden work a couple of weeks after I came home from the hospital in mid-April, but I became dizzy and had to stop. Now, almost three months after my operation, I'm back to working in the garden for hours at a time. But I take precautions--sun umbrella up, wearing a hat to protect against too much sun, drinking a lot of water and resting when I get tired. We've had intervals of sun and rain, which has been very good for the garden, especially the berry bushes. There will be good harvests for black currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and strawberries. I've planted a cranberry bush that is thriving, and my Norwegian blueberry bushes are also happy. The American blueberry bushes, less so, so I ended up transplanting them to a sunnier location. 

Yellow loosestrife has overtaken a large area of one of my perennial spaces. I cut it back but it just keeps on coming. It's beautiful, but I need to keep it in check or else it will take over the entire space. That seems to be my job this year--keeping growth in check. Everything is doing well and I can't complain. But maintenance of the garden keeps me busy. I'm very glad that I decided to aim for a (mostly) perennial garden, because I don't have to worry about buying a lot of annuals each year. The bushes that have grown the most since I planted them three years ago are the forsythia bushes. I cannot believe how large they've become. Ditto for the lilac bush. And of course the ninebark bush, which resembles a tree at present. I could clip it right down to the base, and it would grow back happily. I don't do that though; I clip a number of branches to keep it in a certain shape. And the Japanese maple tree is thriving as well, which makes me happy; it is so lovely. 

The wild cherry tree that decided to take root from seed in my garden (I didn't plant it) has grown quite tall. It produces sour cherries, but not as many as the cherry tree I bought and planted. The birds (blackbirds, brown thrushes, sparrows) are eagerly waiting for the red currants to be ripe; each year it's a contest between humans and birds to see who gets the most red currants. Last year, we managed to pluck half of the berries, but the birds got the other half. They don't seem to go after the other berries as much. I don't know why. 

My garden is thriving, if a bit overgrown in places. I like it that way. It's as though I enter my own private secret garden when I arrive there. Except for the formal garden entrance (an arch covered with white clematis), the other three sides of the garden are 'walled-in' by growth along the street fence, tall raspberry bushes, and black currant bushes plus a 'krossved' (Viburnum opulus) bush.

Here are some garden photos from May and June.......enjoy!

Beautiful wisteria 

Japanese maple

Irises

Rhododendron

Ninebark bush

Blooming peony plant

Loosestrife 

This is me (wanting more plants)

 

Making friends with a little robin

One of the best things that ever happened in my life so far was being gifted an allotment garden in 2016. It changed and enhanced my life in so many ways that I never thought possible. I always had an appreciation for nature, for plants and flowers, and for birds and the wildlife around us, but I never had daily contact with them in the way that I do now. As many of my readers know, I have a soft spot in my heart for honeybees, bumblebees and birds of all kinds. One of the images that will forever stand out in my mind is the memory of the honeybees and sparrows side by side on the birdbath rim, drinking water together during a particularly dry Oslo summer (2018 if I remember correctly). I have captured those incredible moments in photos that I treasure.

Fast forward to the present. I have written about the new bird feeding station that I bought for my garden so that I can feed the birds during the winter months. I go to the garden every couple of days now to fill the different feeders. It didn't take long for the small birds to discover the feeding station; after a couple of days, they are waiting in the tree branches for me to fill the empty feeders, that's how fast they eat the seeds. The little birds that frequent the feeders are the sparrows, the blue tits, and a singular robin. The robins that you see here in Norway (European robins) are much smaller versions of their American counterparts, and they are amazingly cute. I read online that it's usually the male robin who stays put during the winter months at the location where he and his mate hang out during the summer months. So I'm assuming this little guy that I see each day is the male; I don't know if he has a mate and where she may be if he does have one. In any case, I'm becoming friends with him little by little. He is not afraid of me at all. Today, when I arrived to fill the feeders, he landed on one of them right in front of me and proceeded to start eating. He looked at me, then at the food, then at me, and then at the food again. He is the first one there when I arrive, and if I move away from the feeder to another part of the garden, he follows me. He is just so freaking cute. When I was in the greenhouse today, he was in the ninebark tree to the left of the greenhouse, just sitting in the branches. When I started to talk to him, he started to warble. I have heard his song before in previous springs, and I have seen this little guy before because he has been hanging around my garden for a couple of years. I'm glad that he chose my garden in which to hang around. 

Here's a very short video of him:

My early July garden

I'm happy with my garden this year--happy with the way it looks, with the different plantings, with the perennials that have now grown high and wide. The latter take up space and fill in the gaps. I will probably need to divide some of them next year. Despite a chilly and rainy June, the garden is thriving. That's because it got off to a good start during May when it was warm and sunny. By warm I mean temperatures in the mid-70s. The pumpkins are the only plants that have been slow to grow. I doubt there will be many pumpkins this year, but there will be a good amount of zucchini, potatoes, and garlic. I tried two different kinds of garlic for the first time, and the plants are doing well. We picked a lot of strawberries and we'll have a lot of raspberries, gooseberries, black currants and red currants. I'm especially looking forward to harvesting the black raspberries; they always take longer to ripen than the regular red and yellow raspberries. 

As far as flowers go, I experimented a bit and put together flowers that I might not have put together otherwise. I cut down on vegetable growing since our growing season is so short, and used the extra space to plant an allium garden, which the bees love. I also planted astilbe, anemones, cornflowers, dahlias, lilies, sanvitalia, and rose mallows in the vicinity of the allium plants, and bladder campion flowers (wild) have grown up in the vicinity as well. It's a nice mixture of different flowers. Plus I had planted loosestrife a few years ago, and it has just taken off, so I'll have to control its growth in the coming years. But it's lovely. 

My garden is my happy place, and it's where you'll find me most days when the sun shines. Here are some recent photos......

the beautiful loosestrife

black raspberries growing in a cluster 

From winter to summer, just like that

We're now in summer mode here in Oslo, even though the summer season hasn't officially begun. All it takes is a few warm days when the sun shines brightly and the temperatures hover around 70 degrees F as they have done for the past few days. That's the signal for everyone to exit their apartments in order to be outdoors. Restaurants, cafes and bars with outdoor seating are packed and the lines of people waiting to be seated are long. 

I always enjoy this time of year--May and June--because those are the months when my garden takes off. Up until around two weeks ago, we were still experiencing chilly winds and chilly temperatures. And then suddenly, whoosh, they're gone, replaced by warmer temperatures that define summer in Norway. We rarely if ever get temperatures in the 90s, nor is it very humid here. That's good in one sense, because even though summers in New York were/are warm, they could often be brutal due to the humidity that made it hard to breathe. My family and friends in NY keep me updated on the weather there, among other things. Interestingly, we've had similar unstable weather patterns this year, especially in April--some chilly and windy days, followed by warm days, then chilly again. It's rained more there than here; last year we had a very wet July and August. We'll see what this year brings. 

I worked in the garden for the entire month of April, cutting down dead plants, pruning the fruit trees, cleaning and raking. I did some planting as well (potatoes) as well as starting seeds in the greenhouse. I'm always amazed each year at the miracle that is a garden. The perennials return at the same time every year (hence their name); you see the new growth amid the dead stems that have been cut down very low. The snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and forsythia make their appearance in April and usually bloom until around mid-May. The forsythia bushes are now turning green. The magnolia tree is blooming, and I see buds on my wisteria. This past week I planted my zucchini and pumpkin seedlings outdoors; so far they're doing well. Night temperatures hover a round 45 degrees F, which is fine. As long as there is no frost, they'll survive. 

Here are some recent photos of the garden. Enjoy.......

Snowdrops are the harbingers of spring

I can't wait for this miserable winter to be finished, done, over, caput. Hopefully it will soon be a distant memory, once spring comes and I can return to my garden. Today is a beautiful sunny day that reminds of spring. In the garden, the harbingers of spring are the humble snowdrops--so beautiful. It will be a while before they pop up in the garden (most of the snow has to melt first), but they don't seem to mind the chilled ground. 

I'm posting a a very nice little poem about snowdrops and a photo of them that I took some years ago. 

Have you heard the snowdrops ringing

Their bells to themselves?

Smaller and whiter than the singing

Of any fairy elves.

–Sydney Thompson Dobell (1824–74)

Autumn garden update

Autumn is upon us. In truth, it was already upon us at the end of August in terms of how the garden behaved at that time. The pumpkins, potatoes, and tomatoes were finished growing by then. I've never had pumpkins turn orange that early; they were however quite small. I think the plants understood that there had been too much rain this summer and not enough warmth and sun. In order to grow in size, vegetable plants need warmth and sun. Not this summer.

The perennials and annuals did well, however. I'm not even sure why, because we had so much rain in July and August that I felt sure that there would be a lot of root rot, problems with mold, and other similar problems. There wasn't. Of course I'm very happy about that. The flowers grew quite high and seemed to do quite well. Go figure. Every time I think I understand how it all works, I understand that I don't. The old adage is true--you learn something new every day. 

Bird tales

The arrival of spring means the return of birds to the garden, birds of all kinds. Sparrows, brown and black thrushes, crows, magpies, wagtails, robins (the European ones that are smaller than the American ones), ring-necked doves, and (Eurasian) blue tits. Sparrows are most prevalent and spend most of their time in one of two huge bushes in my garden, the kaiser bush and the red currant bush which are more or less opposite each other. When I am working in the garden I can hear them quarreling and chattering; they fly back and forth between both bushes, with stops at the birdbath to drink water and to take a communal bath. Watching them flap around together in the birdbath is a hoot. And when it's really been hot during past summers, they share the birdbath with the bees that line up on the rim to drink water. 

This year there is a large crow that saunters around the garden like he (she) owns the place. My garden neighbor calls her Clara, so we assume it's a female bird. Clara struts and shows off for us; she is not afraid of very much. It is the neighborhood cats that are scared of her; she has chased them out of the garden on numerous occasions. This year she has discovered my neighbor's small stone birdbath that has been placed at ground level. Clara and several of the magpies enjoy drinking water and plucking insects from this birdbath. It's amusing to watch them. She sometimes walks around my garden as do the brown thrushes, looking for insects (mostly earthworms) to eat. The brown thrushes remind me of little dinosaurs; I call them the little raptors. They have a menacing look in their eyes that strikes me as primeval.

As I walk to and from the garden, I pass Kiellands plass with its large pluming fountains whose water descends via small successive waterfalls into at least six small pools lined with smooth medium-sized stones (NLA - Alexander Kiellands plass (landskapsarkitektur.no). Oslo's birds have discovered these pools, sharing them with small dogs and toddlers who like to wander down to the water's edge. Sometimes the dogs take a dip, but mostly the birds have the pools to themselves. They include mallard ducks, pigeons, and seagulls for the most part, but also thrushes and smaller birds. This morning on my way to the garden, a mother duck crossed the sidewalk in front of me followed by her five little ducklings. The UPS driver who was delivering a package nearby stopped to watch them as well, and we commented how sweet it was to see them. Here we are in the middle of a large city, and the ducks are raising their families here. Nature adapts to all sorts of situations and seems to do so readily; that is definitely the case for mallard ducks. There must be a reason that the ducks stay put; one of them must be that people feed them bread. But there are also droves of insects surrounding the water pools that you can see in the late afternoon summer sunlight, flitting about in the warmth. There are probably also a lot of earthworms and other ground insects. The ducks also eat seeds and the nearby plant matter (roots and tubers) that abound.

A less happy story is what happened to the magpie nest outside our bedroom window. The magpie couple spent a lot of time earlier this spring enlarging last year's nest of twigs and branches. The nest seemed to double in size and looked to be spread over two levels. This pair of birds comes back every year to raise their young. Alas, this year it was not to be. Last Wednesday, I heard a crack and took a look out the window; I had already guessed that it had something to do with the branch. The branch holding the nest had cracked off and fallen to the ground. My best guess is that the nest was too heavy and that the birds had built it too far out on the limb. This year's addition to the nest certainly did not help. I felt so bad for them; they don't always assess the situation correctly and this year they lost out. We don't know if there were eggs in the nest, but if there were, they were destroyed along with the nest. The birds disappeared for a few days, but yesterday morning I heard them chattering in the yard again. They'll be back next year, but there won't be any baby magpies this year unless they overtake an abandoned nest. 

We are moving toward summer now--the season of sun, warmth, growth, new life, and easy days. I look forward to lounging in my garden and dozing off to the sound of bird chatter. It's a wonderful part of summer. 

Spring report from Oslo

It seems as if spring is finally here. Dare we hope? Each time that we've had a few consecutive days of nice warm weather, it's been followed by the return of winter's cold, as was the case for the past week. I read the weather forecasts religiously now, because having a garden makes one more attentive to the weather (and lack of good weather). My fellow gardeners and I share our frustrations about the lousy spring we've had so far; the only spring flowers that have bloomed are the snowdrops, crocuses and violets, and they didn't bloom until mid-April. The tulips are in wait modus, and even the forsythia has not bloomed. The one plant that has grown and will bloom soon is the Helleborus Snow Rose, which has lovely flowers as I remember. The grass lawn is another story. A thick layer of snow topped by ice covered the garden until mid-April, compacting the grass to the point where I am unsure if it will grow back during this season. Time will tell. I am prepared to reseed the small area of lawn that I have in my garden. 

It's pointless to be irritated at a season, I know, but I have been so irritated that winter just keeps hanging on. It won't let go this year. Weather is the main topic of conversation in the garden; questions arise about global warming. We are worried that the growing season will be too short this year. The joke is that we'd love for there to be more global warming in Oslo so that we had shorter winters and longer summers. The reality of course is that global warming will lead to cooling in some parts of the world due to the changes in weather patterns caused by the melting of the polar ice caps. Who knows where it will all lead or end? As one of my friends in the garden says, we can talk about all the problems in the world, and there are a lot of them, but in the end, she looks forward to going home to google 'how to prune a rose bush'. That's her way of relaxing. Mine is similar; I love looking at online garden catalogs and some of the ones that arrive in the mail. I love going into garden stores to wander around. Sometimes I have specific plans about what to buy, other times no. And I do google a lot of garden-related issues; right now I'm reading about how to aerate a lawn and how important it is to do that.  

Today is one of those lovely sunny days in Oslo that foretell the imminent arrival of summer. But again, I, like the tulips, am in a wait-and-see modus. In some parts of the country south of Oslo, where there are often two growing seasons for the farmers (e.g. grains), it snowed yesterday. Luckily it didn't snow in Oslo, it only rained. The garden needs water, so I won't complain. But it seems odd to me that I leave the garden after a few hours work, come home and make myself a cup of hot chocolate--a winter drink if ever there was one. I worked for two hours cleaning and cleaning out the greenhouse yesterday, throwing away old baskets and plant containers, since it was too chilly to do anything else. I noticed that there is a different type of spider that has taken up residence in the greenhouse; these spiders look like tiny brown crabs scuttling across the floor of the greenhouse when they scurry for cover. There are not a lot of them. The usual spiders are the larger white ones with spindly legs that remind me of daddy-longlegs; they run away at the slightest sign of trouble. There are also the pill bugs that spend most of their time hiding; you find them in the compost bin if you turn the contents, but also under watering cans and the like in the greenhouse. They eat decaying plant matter, which is a good thing. I've also begun to turn the earth in the planting beds; there are a lot of big earthworms this year. During the few warm days we've had, the bumblebees and honeybees were out foraging for pollen. The insects are doing their jobs, and the garden underground is teeming with life. The garden is just waiting for the 'go' signal so that the plants can bloom and do their jobs. 

What a difference a week makes

What a difference a week makes! This is how the garden looked on March 29th--still a lot of snow on the ground and ice patches here and there. Pretty, but I was getting impatient because I wanted to get started in the garden. As luck would have it, we've had nothing but sunny and warm days this past week. So the snow and ice are gone. Next week it's supposed to rain every day, so I'm glad I used this week to rake leaves and dead plants and fill the compost bin with them. I'll have a lot of good compost to add to the soil in the autumn. 

The snowdrops are blooming and the crocuses, daffodils, grape hyacinths and tulips are starting to poke their heads up from the soil. Spring is here, and soon it will be time for planting this year's vegetables and flowers. 

And this is how it looked yesterday, April 7th--

April garden update

Today, the first day of April, was an absolutely beautiful day in Oslo. No joke (since it's April Fool's Day); the temperatures were in the forties, the sky was blue and cloudless, and the sun shone down and warmed everything it touched. That's a good thing, because the garden has gotten a late start this year due to all the snow and cold we've had. I cannot remember a winter during the past thirty years that has had so much snow as this year's. There are still snow patches in the garden, and ice in the places where the sun hasn't reached yet. But if we have a week with the temperature we had today, the snow and ice will melt and we'll be on our way toward a real spring. And from what I can see of the weather forecast for the next week or so, no more snow is predicted, thankfully. I hope that is the case; you never know. 

I sowed out seeds in the greenhouse this past Wednesday and Thursday--pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber, cherry tomato, sunflower, cornflower, pot marigold, nasturtium, and rose mallow. I will sow out string bean seeds on Monday. I decided to sow out now rather than wait two more weeks. The greenhouse is nice and warm during the day, even though temperatures at night still dip to around freezing. But the seed containers are on raised benches, nowhere near the ground. So they'll be fine; that has been my experience in previous years. Some of my fellow gardeners call me an optimist because I sow out so early. But last year I waited too long--to mid-April--and the vegetable plant seedlings were a bit too small when I planted them outdoors. So it took time for them to grow large enough, which delayed their vegetable production. 

When the ground is completely ice-free and I can work the soil, I'll plant my seed potatoes. That will probably be somewhere around mid-April. I've already started cutting down and removing dead stems and leaves, and I've pruned the rose bush that adorns the garden arch, as well as the ninebark tree near the greenhouse. I'm hoping that pruning the rose bush will force growth on the stems growing on the sides of the arch so that when the roses bloom it doesn't look like a bouffant hairdo at the top of the arch--piled high on top and little on the sides. 

The snowdrops are finally blooming, and the grape hyacinth and daffodils are starting to come up. I haven't seen any crocuses yet, but I guess they'll bloom soon. I'm looking forward to my forsythia blooming; I have three bushes planted in different areas of the garden. They are one of my favorite spring flowers. The cherry tree and lilac bushes survived the winter, as did my wisteria and magnolia tree. The berry bushes always do well--black currant, red currant, blueberry and gooseberry. They come back each year without fail. 

I'll post some photos soon. In the meantime, for all the gardeners I know and for the gardeners who read my blog--happy gardening!

The Gifts of a Garden

My gardening philosophy

I saw this today and had to laugh. This is my gardening philosophy exactly and my standard comment to my fellow gardeners in the allotment garden when we discuss what plants have grown and thrived and what plants haven't. The quote is by Janet Kilburn Phillips, an environmental educator, gardening expert and coach (Plant Harmony); I am not sure who took the photo. 

 

The Gifts of a Garden is available on Amazon

My latest book, available on Amazon in three formats: e-book, hardcover, and paperback. 

The Gifts of a Garden: De Angelis, Paula Mary: 9798435180572: Amazon.com: Books

(front and back covers shown; design by Paloma Ayala) 

Late summer garden--photos

As promised, some recent photos of my garden (August and September). Autumn is approaching here in Oslo, and gardening season is winding down. I went to my garden today after having been traveling for almost two weeks. The summer asters are in full bloom, the climbing rose bushes have bloomed for the second time this summer, the coneflowers look beautiful (see photos), likewise (some of) the gladiolas (see photos). The giant sunflowers grew very tall while I was away; their height is impressive, at least eight feet (see photos). The other photos were taken during mid- to late-August, when gooseberries, red currants, black currants and raspberries were harvested. The Folva potatoes were harvested at the beginning of September. 

yellow coneflowers

coneflowers and gladioli

giant sunflowers

the (mostly) perennial garden

garden project for this year--assembling and painting a garden bench

a lot of zucchinis (as usual)--they're easy to grow

a good year for gooseberries

pumpkins 

a lot of potatoes (one type--Folva)