How Now Brown Cow Meets Piet Oudolf

That's right, it's time for an elocution lesson. As a garden connoisseur you are bound to have heard of  Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf but if you are non Dutch speaking do you also know how to pronounce his name correctly?

When I talk with non Dutch garden geeks who are raving about Mr Oudolf I often have to ask them to repeat that name as it's mostly so badly mispronounced as to leave me clueless of whom they are talking about.

Joe Swift from Gardener's World is a prime example of how not to garble Piet's name. Last year in June he presented a GW programme about Prairie Gardens where he mentioned a well known designer by the name of &^$# gobble (**&^ dy *&#@ gook. What? I am Dutch and have heard his name mangled in unbelievable ways before but this was really bad to the power of über cheese.

So here goes, please pay attention and that goes for you in the back as well:

Piet is difficult to pronounce when your native tongue is English, I readily admit it, but lets have a go at it anyway: Piet is pronounced as ....... Pete.  Sorted!

Oudolf is slightly more difficult but I think you will be able to pull it off if you put your back into it.

Oudolf has 2 syllables: Ou - dolf

First syllable  sounds exactly the same as ou in house or ouch. Now say ouch, now say it without the ch. Done.

Second syllable: dolf. Say dolphin, now say it without the in just dolfff. Let's put those two sounds together Ou-dolff. Piet Oudolf. Done and dusted.

This free elocution lesson was brought to you courtesy of your friendly Internet neighbourhood gardener Yolanda Elizabet from Bliss!

O, and if perchance you know Mr Swift personally, please put the man out of his misery and direct him  Bliss-ward.

NB all the pictures shown in this post were taken in June 2008 at Piet Oudolf's garden and nursery.

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

Egg, Bacon, Spam, Baked Beans, Spam, Sausage and Spam

Spammity spam, wonderful spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam! That seems to be on the menu lately and frightfully often too. Is it me or has there been an influx of spam recently?

Comments is something we bloggers love so please dear reader, keep them coming.  But spamments? Not so much!

It's very annoying when your blog gets hit by spamments. At one time a fully paid up member of the SadPeopleRUs society left 12 spamments on 1 of my posts. Twelve! How silly is that? Of course I removed them all forthwith. Fortunately this doesn't happen all that often. What does happen with nauseatingly regularity is spam left on older blog posts. The reasoning behind this tactic is probably that you are too lazy to search for that old post and remove the spam. Ha, how little do they know me. 

Blogger has been busy developing new thingumabobs and has given us, apart from the word verification thingy that stops spam bots, a new little tool to help fight evil spam! And fight it we will for the sake of Christmas, puppydogs, and fluffy kittens and stuff!

If you haven't discovered the latest Blogger Fight-That-Evil-Spam thingy yourself here's how you do it:

-go to Settings

-Click on Comments

- scroll down a bit till you reach comment moderation on posts older than ..

- fill in how many days you want

-save settings

This way you'll never have to hunt for spam on older posts ever again.

Of course you could also opt for moderating all comments before they appear on your blog but I personally am not that keen to spam-sit (simply can't be bothered) so I've chosen not to go that route.

Copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

WeR3

Outdoor space, the final frontier

These are the voyages of the Bliss Gardener

Her continuing mission to explore strange new worlds

To seek out new life

and new civilisations

To boldly go where no gardener has gone before

Quite some time ago it struck me that embarking on a journey in space is strangely akin to starting out as a gardener as you never know what will happen next, who you'll meet and what new things you will discover. Thought it might be fun to do a post about it, especially as quite a few of my USA garden blogger friends are Trekkies as I am. I discovered Science Fiction when I was 11 years old and have never stopped reading and watching it since.

Last week I finally got a new computer, a notebook this time. My old desktop pc was so decrepit it had oak cladding and was as fast as very thick molasses. Now I've embarked on a new journey of discovery; how does my new notebook work? In the process I've discovered unknown depths in the use of both my own and the English language. Fortunately you were not there to witness it.

Today is a bit of a special day for me as I am using my new notebook for the very first time to write a post for my Bliss blog and today it's also 3 years ago that I started this blog, which explains the tittle.

Never thought that blogging could/would be so much fun and it would be such a great and fun way to explore new gardening worlds, to seek out new garden friends and encounter strange new media such as blogger and twitter.


copyright 2010, Y.E.W. Heuzen

Bad

Dolly: I can't watch this anymore, I really can't, that dog is so bad. Bad, bad, really, really bad!

Tara: who's bad?

Tara: when we went shopping the other day I just popped into the butcher's while Yolanda wasn't looking and helped myself to a string of sausages.
It is self service in there, isn't it? So who's bad?
Dolly: but stealing sausages is not the only bad thing that pup did. I won't look but have a good look yourself. I hope you have a strong stomach because this is bad, bad, really, really bad.





Honest, I kid you not, that pup is pure evil.







She's bad.





Bad, really, really, bad!






Who's bad? Well, that dog is.






See?










Been hitting the bottle lately.
Often! That dog is a lush. And if you think you've seen it all, think again.
Still not looking, but if you keep your eyes peeled you can probably catch that dog doing something very, very bad. Oh yeah, at one time in her life she must have been a fully paid up member of Fagin's gang.
See that hankie sticking out of Yolanda 's pocket while that bad pup is pretending to look the other way?
Here she is, still pretending not to look. Yeah, right!
The bad, bad, really, really bad dog lifted the hankie without Yolanda noticing a thing. And if being a pickpocket isn't bad, really, really bad enough, she added insult to injury by shredding it to bits.
Who's bad? Well, that dog is. Ladies and gentlemen of the blogging world jury, I rest my case.




Yolanda: in case you are wondering what Tara's favourite tipple is:
What else did you expect?
Tara: who's bad?


On a more personal note:
Also bad was that I had to go to the dentist yesterday to have a tooth (molar) out. For the past 2 years I've had an infection in my lower jaw and even after 4 root canals and antibiotics twice, the infection kept returning. It was a bad, bad, really really bad infection so the tooth had to come out. Today I'm feeling ever so slightly sorry for myself as I now have a gaping hole in my mouth, which is bad, really really bad. It will take 6 months before that will be sorted with an implant and some bridgework which is too bad, really!

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

Indulging in a Spot of Indoor Gardening

Gardening outside is not an option when my garden is covered in 15 cm of snow so I've opted for a spot of indoor gardening today.
First off I went to buy a nice bouquet of tulips. After I had turfed out the Christmas tree I felt in dire need of some floral therapy.

Gorgeous, are they not? I think so anyway, and they seem to get even more beautiful as time progresses.
I've put my tulips on a pedestal, literally, so that they are the first thing you see as soon as you enter the living room. You need this colour boost like a shot in the arm at this time of year.
I also bought this bright pink Azalea and some Hyacinths to brighten up the living room and kitchen. See?
Well, you will once Vita has made herself scarce.
It's not always easy to take pictures of plants and stuff when your home is filled to overflowing with cats that feel that they should be the centre of attention. Always! But I digress.
A lot of indoor gardening can be done in my kitchen as the windowsill is chock a block full of plants,
herbs,
bulbs,
and lettuces and rocket salad.
And then there's my conservatory, at this time of year better known as the jungle, for obvious reasons.
There are several Palms, one under planted with Agapanthus,
2 Olive trees,
1 Aloe Vera,
3 Citrus trees,
a collection of Orchids and several other plants that keep me busy indoor gardening during the bleak winter months. What with the watering, feeding, pruning, potting up and very much enjoying my indoor garden this gardener is kept busy and happy.
The citrus trees are starting to flower now and fill the conservatory with their heavenly scent. Isn't it simply wonderful that they bear flowers and fruits at the same time?
As soon as there are enough ripe citrus fruits I'll make marmalade with them. There's nothing better than to start a bleak winter's day in the light and airy conservatory with a fragrant cup of tea, some hot buttered toast covered lavishly with your own homemade marmalade. Mmmm. It's one of the very the best recipes for staving off those winter blues!

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

Do Not Disturb!

Snow...................
gently falling inch by inch, transforming the dreary, bare landscape into a magical place
where any moment now, the Ice Queen will make a frosty appearance.
Wreaking havoc, polar bears and all, on the purity of the driven snow.
Stop this nonsense immediately Ice Queen, so we can enjoy this pristine blanket of snow that has turned our dull and drab winter world into something sparkling and new.
But no, even if you would put up notices saying: Keep Off the Snow, would anybody pay a blind bit of notice?
Of course not. There is a veritable army out there just chomping at the bit to spoil the utter sublimeness that is the driven and untrodden snow.
With their humongous sized feet they trample all over the place, leaving not a bit of snow unscathed. This rather uncouth behaviour is displayed by the usual suspects:
Snow is, rather regrettably, magically pretty for only a very limited period of time, before you know it it has been crushed, bruised and pounded all over and turned into a rather unsightly mush.
So whatever you do, do NOT disturb the snow, keep off it, especially with that giant sized pair of feet of yours. Just stay indoors and simply look at it and be blown away by its breathtaking beauty.

Also not to be disturbed are the plants, trees and bulbs in your garden. Let them gently slumber under their cozy blanket of snow dreaming about the arrival of Spring.

In my cupboard there are 3 hyacinth bulbs who also do not want to be disturbed. When I first put them on water they looked like this.
Now, after a long sleep in the dark, they look like this.
Soon it will be time to disturb them and move them to the living room where they can flower their hearts out and their socks off with gay and fragrant abandon.

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

For those of you who were expressing concern for stray kitty Jeeves:
Jeeves is doing great. Here he is (on the right) with his arch nemesis Merlin in a rare moment of truce on the living room couch. Now that it is so cold outside Jeeves is popped into the utility room every evening just before dinner and turfed out again, on his request, every morning after breakfast.

People who don't like cats, simply haven't met the right one yet.