Splish Splash

Tara and I go to puppy school at Multidog every week, I think it very important that Tara should be a well behaved doggy when she grows up. I watch Dog Borstal ( a TV programme on the BBC about a sort of boot camp for extremely misbehaving dogs and their owners) regularly and that is so not going to happen to Tara and me. A world of no to that as some dogs are so bad that their owners are considering putting them down. So puppy school it is for Tara and me. A well trained dog is a happy dog!

The pic above is of most of the gang at school. We had our last lesson of the year last Wednesday. It was nice and sunny but the field was rather muddy and wet.
Aukje (left), Tara's sister, attends the same lessons as Tara so that's fun for both of them but not us. Hanny and I have to keep them separated the whole time otherwise they will distract each other and learn nothing. Kooiker puppies are a bit of a handful in case you hadn't noticed.
We train the puppies outside and at this time of year it's pretty cold out so we are glad of the break when we can get a hot cup of tea or coffee and slowly defrost. After the lessons we usually play a game of footie (not really).
The sophisticated redhead is moi, the cute pooch Tara and the blond is our dog trainer Arno.

Because both puppies had not been able to play with each other at all during the lessons, we asked if Tara and Aukje were allowed on play on an enclosed field afterwards, seeing it was the last lesson and all that. They said yes so then the fun started. Tara and her sister played for half an hour and when we finally broke them up it was hard to tell which was which as they were unbelievably filthy. It had been more of a doggy mud wrestling match then anything else. I'd never seen puppies that dirty. Guess what happened after we got home?
That's right, splish splash, Tara had a bath and it was her first one in a real bath. (To get in the mood, click on the vid bar on the right.) As she is not afraid of water she thought the whole experience was great fun.
Before
Her coat is pretty wet as you can see but that's not from the bath but from the grass she was playing on earlier with her sister.
After
One soaking wet doggy after I had bathed her. You're left with only half the amount of puppy you had before or so it seems.
Just look how dirty the water is after her first rinse. When she was clean again I rubbed her dry with a big fluffy towel and then used the blow drier on her until she was dry. There are no pics of that as I needed both hands for drying her.
Tara was not the only one that day that took a bath. Russian Blue kitty Willow thought she needed one too.
But just her tail. Cats are very clean, you know, much cleaner than dogs ever are. ;-)
And little Tara? Well, completely dry she looked like her sweet fluffy angelic self again, see?But she's no angel as we all know far too well.
More a fallen angel, don't you think?

copyright 2008 Y.E.W. Heuzen except for the pics made in puppy school, they're copyright Rob Schagen

Let There Be Light ... and Flowers!

The days are very short now; it gets light around half 8 and it turns dark again at half past 4 in the afternoon. No fun when you are suffering from SAD as I do. Fortunately I have only a mild form, but the acronym certainly fits the bill.
And not only are the days short, they are pretty cold too, ranging from minus 4 to plus 8 C. It's no wonder that many members of the Bliss team are huddled together for warmth in front of a roaring fire. How we all miss our friend the sun!
It's not so bad when there is show, as white is very good for reflecting light. With snow there is much lightness and brightness. Unfortunately the snow we usually get here lasts only for a few hours and then we're back to dull, dark and dreary. What we need, very much need in North-Western Europe is light, so let there be light ......
lots of light
all sorts of light
to chase away the doom and gloom.
The sun gives life by providing us with light and warmth. It's not for nothing that the well known tradition of decking out an evergreen tree with lots of lights and decorations is old, very old in this part of the world.
Those primitive tribes from long ago were starved for light and warmth at this time of year and unlike us, they were not all that sure that the sun, that harbinger of life, would really come again and shine down on them next spring. So they did the tree thingy on Winter Solstice and hoped that the Gods would smile down on them and let the sun return.

It's not only the light and warmth I'm missing, I'm missing this too; the beautiful flowers from my garden that brighten up the dullest day with their cheerful colours and wonderful scents.
A while ago I got this lovely present from a dear friend who knows how much I love flowers.
Pretty, aren't they? And you haven't seen the best bit yet. Pop a tea light in, light it and .............
Bob is Kylee's uncle, erm I mean
and there is light
and flowers too.

Winter Colour

Winter colour could be just white all winter long if you live in an area where there is snow for most of the winter months. And if you've made sure that there are enough visually interesting shapes in all sizes to be covered in snow, your garden will look great all winter long.
Earlier this year I went for a walk in my village to see what winter colour other gardeners had provided for their gardens. This is what I saw last January:
Colourful Brassica's in white and pink. They are edible but taste rather bitter.
Red dogwood (Cornus alba spp.) with an underplanting of Gaultheria procumbens. I like how the red of the stems, leaves and berries echo the red of the brick wall. Gaultheria is acid loving, great for ground cover ( rabbits don't eat it ) and the birds don't like the berries so they stay on for quite awhile.
Viburnum tinus, with an under planting of boxwood.
A close up of Viburnum tinus.
Heather (Erica)
And here another Viburnum, very different from the first one. This is Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn' which flowers on bare wood and its pretty pink flowers are scented. There is also a white flowering one Viburnum x bodnantense 'Deben'.
Close up of Dawn.
Bergenia cordifolia with beautiful purple red leaves, looking great against that green hedge.

And how is the Bliss garden doing for winter colour? Pretty well, I should say, thank you for asking. ;-)
This is how my part of my front garden looked quite recently after 4 inches of snow had fallen and this is how it looks at this time of year without snow:
Stripped down to its bare bones the front garden is still visually interesting because of the strong lines of the boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) and Berberis thunbergii Atropurpurea hedges. Colour is provided by the box and conifer hedges giving us lots of green during winter, some of the box beds are stuffed with white lavender (Lavandula intermedia 'Alba') which adds a lovely silvery grey to the winter palette and the Berberis hedging provides us with a splash of purplish red.
An added bonus are its bright red berries.
In the back garden a hedge of Fagus sylvatica around the potager is stealing the show at the mo. Fagus is great as a hedge; it's green in spring and summer, then it changes into a pretty mosaic of green, yellow and brown in autumn, and
finally its leaves turn completely brown and they stay on during winter. In the Bliss garden the fagus hedges looks pretty good against a backdrop of evergreen hedges and green lawn.

What would the winter garden be without a splash of colour? Here lots of violets and pansies (Viola) are dotted about in pots and hanging baskets all over the garden to cheer the winter gardener up with their colourful, happy, smiling faces. Who would want to do without pretty winter violets at this time of year? Not me, that's for sure.
copyright 2008: Y.E.W. Heuzen

Bulb-a-licious Dutch Bliss

Designed by Jacqueline van der Kloet for the Efteling.

If you haven't planted them yet, there still is time to stuff your garden full of bulbs as long as the ground isn't frozen solid. I'm still in the process of planting mine. I've put in quite a few so far but need to put lots more in. I don't know about you, but every spring I feel that I should have planted far more bulbs than I actually did. For some reason there are never Too Many Bulbs but always Not Nearly Enough.
Bulbfields in South-Holland

I was born in Leiden and lived in next door neighbour Oegstgeest (I know, impossible to pronounce but not to worry even Dutch people have problems pronouncing Oegstgeest) for 15 years. And every spring my heart would leap up at the sight you see above. It has its advantages to live close to bulb farmers; fields stuffed to the gills with tulips, daffodils and hyacinths, as far as the eye could see. Just a spin on the bike away from where I used to live. Utter Bliss!
Designed by Jacqueline van der Kloet for the Keukenhof

And Lisse, where you find the Keukenhof, the world largest spring park, was very close by then too. If you want to see millions of bulbs in flower (and who wouldn't?), this is the place to go. Next year will be its 60th birthday and the theme for 2009 is New Amsterdam/New York, 400 years. Amongst the many displays there will be a statue of liberty made of 250,000 bulbs.
Jacqueline van der Kloet

Now that you've seen what I have been exposed to from a very early age, as far as humongous amounts of bulbs are concerned, you will forgive me for being totally underwhelmed when a fellow garden blogger, who shall remain anonymous, ordered 20,000 bulbs, or when other fellow garden bloggers bragged about having put hundreds of bulbs in her/his gardens. A piffling couple of hundreds of bulbs? Rank amateurs, the lot of them! ;-)
Dutch garden design

Most of you have heard of the Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf but does the name Jacqueline van der Kloet ring a bell too? If not, then you've missed out on something good. Take a close look at the pic above. Gorgeous isn't it? You can find this wonderful flower display in the Keukenhof and it's one of my favorite designs by Jacqueline. Why? Because it reminds me of this:
a beautiful wild flower meadow.
But if you can't come to the Netherlands (how very remiss of you, really, you should try harder) then you could perhaps visit Battery Park in New York (pic above) and the Lurie Garden in Chicago to admire some of Jacqueline's work.
The Tea Garden in Weesp, is Jacqueline's own garden and very much worth a visit. I've been there myself once or twice. ;-)

Favourite bulbs

I'm Dutch so perhaps you're thinking that my favourite bulb is the tulip but frankly, my taste is not that glaringly obvious. ;-)
This is what I love most of all, zillions of snowdrops,
drifts of wild daffodils and
blankets of winter aconites.
The winter aconite is such a cheerful flower and brightens up even the dullest, bleakest day. And days usually are pretty dull and bleak in January/February when the winter aconite flowers. If you haven't got the winter aconite in your garden, please go away and hide in the nearest broom cupboard. Really, what where you thinking of ? Buying loads of bulbs and no winter aconites at all? What a sad person you must be. But, all is not lost, there is still time to put a few (and by a few I mean zillions) bulbs in. If you don't, you'll be sorry.

Some sound financial advice

Yes, yes, I know, buying zillions of bulbs is not cheap but what else could you possibly do with your money that would make any sense nowadays? Buy a house, or bonds and shares, put money in the bank? Don't make me laugh! Investing in bulbs makes far more sense because each spring you will be guaranteed a great return on your money: lashings of joy and gleeful rubbing of hands while your inner smugness level goes up a notch or two at the glorious sight of spring flowers galore in your garden. You know I'm right.

copyright 2008: Y.E.W. Heuzen

The farmer looks at winter with spring in his eyes. So does the good gardener.
Ministry of Agriculture, Allotment&garden Guides, October 1945