The garden in June

It's been a while since I've posted photos of my garden. It got a slow start this year due to a very rainy and chilly May. About the only plants that loved the rain were the strawberry plants; I've never seen them so tall as they are this year. But since June started, the weather has been warm, with temperatures in the mid-70s, and most of the days have been sunny. We've had very little rain so far in June. So now the plants are taking off, and I hope there will be a good yield of zucchinis, butternut squashes, and pumpkins. The potato plants (two types) are doing well; they are also quite tall already. I planted the tomato plants in the same area as last year, since it gets a lot of sun. They did well last year, so I'm hoping for a repeat success. I have a few bean plants that are just sprouting, some onion plants, and two cucumber plants. Most of my perennials came back after winter, but not all. We did not have a lot of snow this past winter, mostly cold temperatures and frost, and that does a lot of the perennials in. Snow actually protects the roots of perennials by keeping them insulated. I'll have to remember to cover the plants with mulch/dead leaves in order to protect them for next winter's cold temperatures. 

My lilac bush, wisteria tree, magnolia tree, potentilla (cinquefoil) bushes, and my ninebark bush all survived the winter and are doing well. The wisteria (planted two years ago) has even produced two purplish-blue flowers, which surprised me because I remember reading that it can take three to five year for wisteria to bloom for the first time. But it's in a part of the garden that gets full afternoon sun, and that part of the garden is less open/more protected. That could have something to do with it. I planted two forsythia bushes around mid-May, and they have just taken off. I love forsythia; it reminds me of childhood when we would pick forsythia that grew wild and put it in a vase when we got home. My autumn aster is also very happy. I got some Columbine plants from a garden neighbor, and some hollyhock seedlings from the neighbor across the street from the garden. Both are growing well. Otherwise, I've planted sweet pea flowers and one cathedral bell (Cobaea scandens) plant. 

My peony plants will have a lot of flowers this year. My Japanese maple tree has also grown taller, and is so pretty. My rose bush and my climbing roses have produced new stems that are growing taller each day. The irises, which are such elegant and beautiful flowers, are starting to bloom. All the berry bushes have produced berries that are starting to ripen. We will get a lot of strawberries, black currants, and gooseberries this year. It will be interesting to see if we get a lot of raspberries, blueberries, and red currants. 

I bought two new Coral bells plants to replace the two that died after the winter cold. And then there are the pansies, which are such great little flowering plants. They do well in most types of soil and tolerate most temperatures and weather that the Norwegian climate tosses at them. 

So the garden is blooming, and it always does my heart good to see that. It is a reward for all the hard work that goes into a garden. It makes me feel good to know that I've learned enough to know how to care for my plants. I cannot control how tough winter is on my perennials, but I do my best to prepare them for winter. The rest is out of my hands. 

Wisteria bloom

Wisteria tree

Magnolia tree

Rhododendron bush--so many blooms this year

Beautiful irises

Snapdragon plant

Potato plants growing

Strawberry plants--two patches

behind the greenhouse 

Bumblebee on rhododendron flower

Honeybee on flower

A garden update

I've been working in the garden since mid-March, about the time lockdown started here in Norway. Apart from working at home and remaining indoors, the garden has been the only free space available to me when I am outdoors, and I am immensely grateful for that. I have taken the occasional walk around the neighbourhood, but ran into too many people for there to be safe social distancing. And that's not so strange considering we live in a city. So it's been nice to escape to my garden, and there's been plenty of work to do since March--raking, clearing away dead twigs, turning the soil, cutting back a number of trees and bushes, spreading grass seed, sowing out vegetable and flower seeds in the greenhouse, cutting away the dead canes in the raspberry patch, weeding the raspberry and strawberry patches (this can take hours), and transplanting some bushes from one place to another. Plus I've bought more plants, mostly perennial flowers, to round out the garden, and they needed to be planted. It may not sound like enough work for a couple of months, but it is, especially since I am not in the garden full-time. If I was, it might go faster, but since I'm still working full-time, it all takes time. And that's ok for now.

We finally got the roughly 12 square meters behind the greenhouse 'returned' to us last summer, and I decided to make this space another 'room' in the garden. Last autumn, I planted allium, tulips, scilla, spring snowflakes, grape hyacinths, regular hyacinths and narcissus (a type of daffodil), all of them bulbs, and they have all come up. We also bought a wisteria tree and a magnolia tree and planted them in this space, as well as a lilac bush. The magnolia tree is blossoming now, and its blossoms are a lovely reddish-pink color. I decided that I wanted a stone path leading from the vegetable garden area up to and behind the greenhouse, so I bought some slate stones and embedded them in the soil, and sowed grass seed around them. I bought pachysandra plants and planted them along the path, in the hope that these hardy plants will begin to thrive and spread out.

There is always a new project to work on in the garden, and I love each one--both the planning and the execution. Whenever I think I'm 'finished', I realize shortly thereafter that I'm not, and never will be. Gardens are works in progress.