Simply Too Busy

That is what I am, simply too busy to blog a lot. I can manage 2 posts a week, just about, but visiting other blogs and comment too? Well, not so much. I used to be able to visit my favourite blogs twice a week but there are so many of them now that that is no longer possible and I have to be content with visiting most of them about once a week. There is just so much to do at the mo and hardly enough time to do it all. How are you guys managing with the blogging and the commenting?
The potager has more or less become a jungle thanks to all the rain and sunshine we've been getting lately.
This week I had to trim all the hedges and arches of the potager, I do this by hand. Then I had to clean everything up. Then I had some fiddly jobs to do: tie in all the sweet peas, sugar snaps, peas and capuciner peas.
And the branches of the grapes needed to be tied to the pergola too.
And of course, there had to be some harvesting done too this week such as radishes, lettuce, rocket salad, many herbs and rhubarb.
A major job at the moment is creating the new border in my back garden. It is situated between the potager and the garden cottage. This border is going to be 14 meters long and 4.5 meters deep. I'm going to call it the long border because that is what it is, looooooooong.
It's a lot of work creating this new border, not only do I have to do a lot of planting, a new path also needs to be laid and a nice box hedge along side the path has to be planted as well.
The new border starts right next to the potager and it's colours are purple, pink and burgundy. Then the colours change into white, burgundy foliage and silver. Next it will turn white, yellow and silver and when we get close to the garden cottage its colour palette will be yellow, white, apricot and blue.
But speaking of the garden cottage ............ well, you see that there is still a lot of work to be done before the border on this side is finished. I'm half way there now but the former birdbath bed has to be taken apart, a tree stump has to be dug out, a lot of wood needs to be chopped, a path needs to be laid, a lot of rubbish needs to cleared out and the soil needs to be prepared with a generous helping of compost before I will finally be able to start planting.
I think it will take me another two to three weeks before the new border is finished. With all this going on in the garden I've hardly had time to
smell the roses. And such lovely roses they are. This one is Magenta with the kind of scent that you dream of when you think of roses. Utter Bliss!
Calypso has very little scent but she is such a pretty and colourful rose, that she is forgiven for not producing a stronger fragrance.
But Madame Alfred Carriere and Guirlande d'Amour are producing an enormous amount of scent. You can smell them from 20 meters away and when I open the front door huge waves of scent waft in. Magic!

Not only the roses are producing wonderful fragrance, this humble and old fashioned Pink is too. I bought it more than 20 years ago for the huge amount of 75 cents (in guilders) which translates into 35 cents in USD. Amazing don't you think?
And it is still going strong and its fragrance is simply wonderful. I like the silvery blue foliage too, it forms very nice clumps and it is very easy to take cuttings, most of them root almost instantly. I think this is one of my best buys ever.
I have no idea which variety of Pink this lilac beauty is but she is the best IMO.

Have a great weekend!

copyright 2008 Y.E.W. Heuzen

Flowers and butterflies are delicate,
but also suprisingly strong.
Simon Vinkenoog