This is the second summer when I can enjoy sunflowers blooming early.
Happy that I found Ruby. It grows fast and starts blooming as early as in July. About a month earlier than any other variety I have tried.
The color of the flower is nearly brown when it opens and it changes to a mixture of yellow, red and orange when days go by.
This is the first summer that I have planted irises. I do not know why I have not tried them before. To my surprise I managed to keep them alive.
Well not exactly all of them made it. I planted some in the autumn and some in the spring. Unfortunately none of the ones I planted in the autumn made it through the winter. It seems that the varieties I used were not hardy enough.
Luckily the spring planting proved out to be successful. The blooms are beautiful.
I guess I just need to find varieties that tolerate cold winters.
My first Xanthos started to bloom today. A new cosmos variety I have tried for the first time and I think it just became a longtime acquaintance.
Yellow is a totally new color to me when it comes to cosmos.
This year seems to be dedicated to annuals. I lost so many perennials last winter and had to quickly replace the empty spaces with something. Luckily had tons of cosmos seeds available to hide the damages.
My geranium finally started to bloom! It took months from the flower to recover from the darkness of a long winter.
The poor thing looked pathetic in the spring – pale and dry.
I started it from a seed and managed to enjoy its beauty last summer. Nice thing about the nano series is that it remains quite small. So in the autumn I took it inside and to my big surprise it survived.
That usually does not happen to my geraniums. The flat is simply too hot and dry. Happy that this little thing made an exception.
For the first time I managed to keep all my three chilies alive over the winter. Usually the long period of darkness and the cruel central heating is too much for them.
It means that I get an early harvest this year. The first chilies are already ready for picking.
And as I already learned last year the Hungarian yellow wax turns red when ripe. I guess I need to find another variety if I want other colors. Sadly do not have much space for wintering them. Need to figure out a solution for this limitation.
Sometimes it is just fun to enjoy nature’s own creations. Waterlilies are blooming beautifully and all you need to do is to enjoy the show.
Nothing you need to do. No planting or watering just an easy part of the garden that takes care of itself.
Waterlilies are a natural part of the nature here like in so many other places.
About ten years ago I bought my father a snowball tree. One of the most successful purchases I have made.
Ever since the tree has produced beautiful snowballs each year. Growing larger and larger each summer and producing hundreds and hundreds of white flowers.
Now I am considering to buy another since the tree has survived the winters and it simply looks stunning when blooming.
I do not know why but I have always loved columbines. I used to have only one pink variety which my grandmother had had for many years. I started to calculate that the variety must have been here more than seventy years.
As a child I used to like collecting the aquilegia seeds. That must have started my enthusiasm for columbines.
Currently I have several different colors and shapes growing. Not as many as I would like to have but I guess there is no limit to my greed.
All of them have been grown from a seed. Up here in the north it always takes at least two years to see the first blooms. Well, I guess waiting just makes it more worth while.
One of the early bloomers is snowdrop windflower. Six were planted last year and only two made it through the winter. Not sure that I will have any next summer.
It is nice to try new flowers but you do not always succeed.
Snowdrop windflower has beautiful white flowers and when they are gone decorative seedcases remain.
It would be nice addition to the garden. Just need to wait and see if it decides to remain here.
Spring came early this year. Normally we can enjoy tulips early June. Purple Prince started to bloom few days ago and it is just mid May!
It is a new variety I bought last year and one of the few survivors!
I can now see that I have lost most of my tulips. The winter was hard on tulips and only a handful of them could take minus 33 degree Celsius we had in January. The thin layer of snow could not give them the protection desperately needed.
Well a good reason to me to shop more in the autumn.
Gardening in the North 