Floral harmony in the garden

I make no secret of my preference for growing vegetables to flowers, but I love the buzzing sound of bees too, and I like to attract them to pollinate my plants, so you will find plenty of flowers in my garden too.

Yesterday was such a nice warm day and as we knew that the weather will change we wanted to enjoy it outside. We were both tired and didn't want to do much, so we simply went to the garden and spent there most of the day doing almost nothing. We finished some tasks that were long overdue because it's impossible just to sit there and look around. Eventually, you get up and do something 😊 While my husband was cleaning our storage, I planted some flowers that I bought on Saturday.

Today, I will take you around our garden to enjoy the colourful plants that are growing at the moment.

Let's go!

The soil last year was rock hard which made it too difficult for me to dig deep holes, but a year later (and endless hours spent in the garden), a little bit of love, and it changed so much! I love digging holes now! It would take me ages and a lot of sweat to plant such a big plant last year, but now it only took about 5 minutes and it was fun.

I chose to buy Argyranthemum which is a tender perennial that attracts wide range of insects. I planted it close to my vegetables, so that they don't have a long way to fly over there 😊 Although it doesn't look like it, it is only one plant with both white and pink flowers.

When we were in Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago we didn't manage to go to the market to get new tulip bulbs, so we will have to go there again before autumn as I want to get some interesting sorts with various textures and layers. I can't have just simple tulips when my husband is Dutch.

Right now, we have these pink tulips which are my favourite. This is how they look in the morning.

And this is how they open up when it's hot during the day. I didn't know that tulips were opening up during the day and closing back again in the evening. You need to spend one whole day in the garden to observe that 😊

The orange ones open much more. Honestly, I thought that they were almost done for the year until...

...they started to close back towards the evening.

I didn't notice these tiny yellow ones last year. They have pointy petals and I'm curious to see if there will be more of them next year. Did you know that tulips multiply? If you take care of them properly you should have more and more each year.

Looks like this one was recently visited by a bee as there is not much pollen left...

Some of them are only about 15 cm tall, so I will wait until next year if it's sort of a dwarf variety or if it is a 'baby bulb'.

They are planted so randomly, and I hope to find time once they're done blooming to remove the bulbs and place them somewhere together to create a beautiful arrangement for next year.

If you're planted under a plum tree you'll get lots of tiny petals on you when you open up...

Our very last daffodil and the only white one...

My aunt who passed away last year always had Dianthuses in her garden. They have a strong scent that I love. When I saw them in the shop on Saturday I couldn't resist and bought a few plants. I'm not sure if this particular Dianthus is a perennial, but they should be fine for 2 years anyway.

It takes ages for Peonies to open up and then they wilt way too fast. Even though we can't enjoy them for long I love seeing them grow. The bud becomes bigger and bigger until it opens up and a beautiful large flower appears. It looks like this year they will be pink, but I can't be sure yet.

Gooseberries are a big success this year. I only planted them in autumn last year, but they have tons of flowers already. If they become pollinated we will have a great harvest in summer.

When you look at cherry trees they are completely covered with blooms before you can see some leaves. It's very different with the quince as first you get leaves and once they are quite big the tree finally gives us some flowers too.

They have little hair on them and look kind of fluffy...

We have plenty of flowers, and I hope that the tree won't get sick again, so that we have more to harvest than we had last year.

Hydrangeas are not blooming yet, but we had some tiny visitors that I want to show you...

I find it fascinating to look at their eyes. They are so tiny!

We didn't go to the garden for a few days, so we were surprised to see our mustard 'field' 😊 It is so pretty! Our neighbours keep asking us if we will keep it or if we plan to plant something else too. They don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of green fertilizer. We will cut it down and work it in the soil once it's time to plant the seedlings. By then we will simply keep it as it keeps away the weeds.

Lilies of the valley are coming so early this year. Soon there will be tiny fragrant flowers everywhere.

My husband didn't trust me when I cut down the fern. I removed all stalks from the last year and he was afraid that it would never come back. And here it is! All new and fresh.

I showed you our blooming rosemary bush last time. I have finally managed to take some flowers home. I will probably sprinkle them on baked potatoes or add them to salads. I didn't take a lot as there were plenty of bees that didn't find amusing to have me around 😊

I'm happy that we got some sunshine yesterday as we will not see much of it for at least a week. The temperature dropped already and it will drop even more. There is some snow predicted towards the end of the week and I hope that the weather will not destroy all the work that we did in the garden already. We will see...

Happy gardening and see you next time!