Organic Garden Dreams

One weekend in April last year I woke up and my husband told me that he just read in the newspaper that that day would be the "Gardens Now and Then" garden tour of the Horticultural Society of San Diego, which I am a member of. For some reason I missed that info, but decided on the fly to change my plans for that day and have a look. I couldn't make it there before lunch time and out of the twelve gardens that you could possibly see, I was only able to visit three, but one of them was absolutely amazing. I stayed there for a long time simply admiring the beauty of this garden and couldn't stop taking photos.

In the program for that garden tour, which was organized and sponsored by the Horticultural Society of San Diego and the San Diego Floral Association, the garden was titled as Cozy Casita, which says more about the house, a beautiful 1938 Spanish Mission Style home, than the garden itself, so I had no idea what to expect. But let me tell you to visit this garden was a real treat. It belongs to the President of the San Diego Horticultural Society and his partner and was created over the last 17 years. They certainly poured their love, creativity and hard work into this garden and I am sure on top of that a lot of money, too. I wanted to blog about this garden forever and I am happy that finally the day has come where I can share it with you.

Isn't that a stunning scene that greats you when you are approaching the house? They used a lot of heat and drought tolerant plants in this part of the garden.

I love these blue glazed terracotta containers!

A terracotta bowl planted with succulents can be quite fascinating, if it is done right.

The house itself is beautiful, but there is a lot of garage and very little front yard to garden with, when you analyse the photo closely. But this tiny front yard is so well designed that it really grabs and holds your attention.

Have you ever seen a succulent in this color and form? I actually didn't. I think this is an absolutely fascinating plant.

Imagine these blue containers wouldn't be there. They are really such eye catchers.

Here is a look at the second grouping of the containers. The combination of the different shapes, sizes and proportions is so well done. Here was someone at work with a truly artistic eye!

I think this is a container usually used for growing strawberries. Planted up with succulents it becomes a totally cool thing!

A closer look at the small island bed in front of the house. I think it is so well planted and I love the use of the palms together with the succulents.

I found the color of this succulent quite fascinating!

This gray green palm is so beautiful and another eye catcher in my book.

Totally love this agave. The combination with the blue lobelia really make both plants pop. I wonder though, if the lobelias just have been planted for the garden tour event, since I assume that agaves and lobelias have very different water needs.

Last view of the whole front yard. I think it so incredible well done and maintained. Are you hocked by now? If the answer is yes, then please come back for more. I will try to do the next entry about the courtyard that lies behind the lovely white wall soon. It was equally fascinating.

See you in the garden!

Christina

This year I want to try again to participate in Helen's from The Patient Gardener's Weblog End of Month View meme. Last year I joined by featuring my White Garden Bed and I felt it was extremely helpful to blog about that bed at the end of each month and document the changes. My White Garden Bed has really benefited from being so closely looked at. Unfortunately I fell of the wagon in July and didn't continue to post about the White Garden Bed anymore. Hopefully this will not happen this time around!

For this year I have set myself a real challenge. I have decided to choose the side bed in our front yard for the End of Month View meme. This is one of my most difficult areas to garden in for the following reasons. The bed is very narrow and therefore difficult to plant. As if this wasn't enough at the left side are growing two mature Queen Palms that suck up a lot of water and nutrients that are meant for the other plants. Because the bed is surrounded mainly by concrete it is getting very hot in the summer.

The bed lies on the right side of our front yard and is part of the first thing that you see of our house and garden. So, of course, you want it to be as pretty and interesting as possible. I hope that if I make a concentrated effort this year, that I can improve its look.

What has happened already is that I took out 'Sweetness', a lavender colored Hybrid Tea rose, that was planted the closest to the Queen Palms, because it couldn't withstand the root competition with the palms anymore. I substituted this rose last month with 'Charles Darwin', a vigorous Shrub Rose bred by David Austin and hope that this rose will be more successful in this location.

On the right side of the bed there was also still some grass growing, which was taken out. The grass was very hard to maintain in the drought that we are having. It was also difficult to mow and edge, since you can't really operate a mower properly in such a small space. Last but not least I always found that it looked out of place, because it was just a tiny patch.

This photo shows a frontal view of the bed with the two Queen Palms. Just last week we had the palms trimmed. Old brown palm fronds where removed and the palms was limbed up. They look a little naked right now, but new fronds will grow in no time and the palms will appear more full, again.

Besides the palms there are only three other plants growing in the bed right now. The before mentioned soft yellow 'Charles Darwin' rose. At this point I am not even sure if this rose is growing or dying. It is a little suspicious that the rose is not leaving out since the transplant in December. But time will tell soon, if it will make it or not.

Then there is alstroemeria 'Little Miss Sophie'. A beautiful dwarf light pink/white flowering alstroemeria.

And in the foreground is the light pink flowering Floribunda rose 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' planted.

In the very front of the bed is a "lovely" utility lid that houses the water meter, which to be honest is a real eyesore. The middle of the lid needs to be kept open since the person who reads our water meter needs to have access to it. But my idea is to plant something that covers the lid from the side, so that it is at least partly hidden and not so in your face anymore.

If you look closely at the photo you can see the mulch and then in the foreground soil that is lighter in color. This is where the grass had been growing that was removed.

So here is my initial plan for what should happen with this bed. First the irrigation has to be checked and if necessary repaired. There is definitively a new sprinkler needed to the right front side of the bed. The remaining grass in the back of the bed will be removed, too. The bed has to be well fertilized to green up the Queen Palms and to provide nutrients for the existing plants to grow despite the competition with the roots of the palms. The alstroemeria will be removed since it goes completely dormant in the heat of summer and just leaves an empty spot in the bed and will be replaced with another rose. I am debating with me if I take out 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' as well, the rose in the very front, because it suffers from powdery mildew each year when the conditions are right and frankly I am sick of that. But on the other hand it is an established rose in this bed and it is a very prolific bloomer. So something to ponder...

Please hop over to see what Helen's garden and other gardens over the world look like at the end of this January. I am sure it will be an interesting read!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to
The Patient Gardener's Weblog
Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

May I present to you the first new rose bud of the year 2016? It belongs to rosa 'Bewitched' an older, tried-and-true Hybrid Tea rose, bred by Lammerts (United States 1967). The photo below was taken on January, the 31st in between rain showers. When I say new rose bud, I mean it comes from a rose that is planted into the ground and has been pruned this winter and is not part of a rose that is flowering through the winter season here, but that has not been pruned by January. Still I am cheating a little bit, since this rose was planted into the ground in October and has only been slightly shaped at that time.

I had hoped that the flower of 'Bewitched' would be fully open by the end of last month, but that obviously didn't happen. In any case it started the new rose season in my garden and is a promise of many lovely rosy things to come.

Just on a side note: Boy, did we have a storm on Sunday. I think it was the strongest storm that I have ever experienced, since I am living in California and with winds estimated to be 30 mph and gusts up to 50 mph, it was really not fun. From some roses the leaves seem to be ripped of, but other than that there was surprisingly little damage in my garden, for which I am extremely thankful. The storm also brought some rain with it, I guess in my garden an inch or so came down, which is such a blessing.

The photo above shows the bud of rosa 'Bewitched' again one day before the opening photo of this post was taken.

But besides some exceptions like 'Bewitched', this January most of my roses looked like rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' above. Deleaved and pruned they are just a shadow of themselves in comparison to spring.

Rosa 'Old Fashioned Girl' is a rose that would keep flowering through the winter, if I let it. It is growing in a very protected location and had a full nice flush in January. Too bad that I didn't take a full bush shot at that time.

'Old Fashioned Girl' again, showing proliferation. Even though considered a fault in a rose bloom I think there is some beauty to a bloom like this, too.

Most of the roses that weren't pruned in January, yet, had pretty unsightly foliage and just looked tired, like the two 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' roses on the photo above. They continued to flower, but were really not a joy for the eye, so it was definitively time for them to get a hair cut.

Rosa 'Iceberg'. Love the red tint on the petals that occurs when temperatures are relatively low.

Here is an image of the full bush of 'Iceberg', growing happily since years in a big container.

My other rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard'.

Rosa 'Moonstone' had many lovely, huge, globular flowers in January,...

...but my joy about the flowers is really spoiled by the rust that plagues this rose. Can you see the rust on the back of the leave situated directly above the rose bloom? I am seriously thinking about replacing this rose with a healthier white one, maybe another 'Pope John Paul II' or I can also imagine to try out 'Sugar Moon'.

That is how my Hybrid Perpetual rose bed appeared in January, after the roses were deleaved, but not pruned yet. I have taken them down more by at least a foot or so, after the photo was taken.

Rosa 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' was the second rose carrying a new bud already in January. I love how the water drop is trapped in the tips of the sepals of the rose bud and almost acts like a magnifying glass.

Here is the rose bush to which the bud from the previous photo belongs too. Rosa 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' is one of my new acquisitions that I got delivered in the beginning of January from Chamblee's Rose Nursery. Of course, it is a fairly small plant still, but it is making plenty of new leaves already. I am very excited about this rose, since I ordered a band of this variety many years ago, but it died within weeks. Many consider 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' to be an exquisite rose and I hope to enjoy her first open flower soon. Of course, I will try to fetch a photo for you to see, too!

Today I picked up the organic fertilizer that I ordered over the San Diego Rose Society and I am looking forward to feeding the good stuff to my roses as soon as possible. Honestly I can't wait for the spring flush. In about eight weeks from now on it should start.

Wishing everyone a good rest of the week!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Rose Garden Malevik

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

All dogs love to shake their body from time to time, especially when they are wet to get the water out of their coat. Skylar, our red Doberman Pinscher, is no exception. My husband recorded one of his shakes after Skylar had played in the water at the beach. There is a lot going on! Please click on the video to see it in slow motion.

Hope you enjoyed watching the video as much as Skylar seems to enjoy his shake!

Wherever you are I hope that the winter is not too hard on you. Here in Southern California we are having a heat wave caused by Santa Ana winds and temperatures are supposed to rise up to 89 degrees Fahrenheit/32 degrees Celsius today! Really unbelievable even for San Diego!

Christina

My green cymbidium orchids, variety unkown, are in full bloom and I enjoyed cutting two flower stalks for the house lately and would like to share them with you. We had a strong storm recently and even though the flower stalks with buds where already fully build out then, there is hardly any damage to the orchids, which seems like a miracle to me.

I just love the light green color of the orchid blooms, which says spring to me in a subtle way. I put the orchids in a vintage apothecary glass jar, which is a present from a dear friend in Germany many years ago and is my favorite vase to display cymbidium orchids in. But the glass jar alone looked a little bit too sleek and modern to me, so I decided to place a vintage creamer to its side, which gives it immediately a more romantic look that fitted my mood of the day.

The flower stalks of the cymbidium orchids are so densely packed with blooms.

And each flower is a little piece of art in itself.

I love the little creamer, which keeps the orchids company. I bought it in an antique store in Georgetown, Texas on our trip there in July last year. The delicate pale blue, green and brown floral decor is so charming. The china is very thin, it is almost see-through, if you hold it up against the sunlight.

The creamer is marked and it says S&S Carlsbad, Austria. And there are also some numbers handwritten underneath the stamp in gold and the brown color the floral decor is painted with. I just did a quick internet search, but couldn't find any accurate information to determine the age of the creamer. My best guess is, that it is made around 1900. If you know something about it, I would be happy if you would share it in your comment with me.

I am not a serious collector, but I admit that I have a weakness for vintage and antique china. Maybe I show you some more of my pieces here on my blog in the future.

I really had fun photographic the orchids indoors, but was also very challenged, since I rarely do indoor photography. It is a totally different ball game in comparison to outdoor photography and requires much more precision and technical photography knowledge.

Just a few more pictures...

Hope you liked my photos! I feel inspired to go out into the garden more often and pick something for a vase to bring indoors. The rose season is not far away here anymore and there definitively will be a rose or two to fill a vase...

Wishing everyone a wonderful week.

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden
Holunderbluetchen

Hard to believe for me that it is already the end of February and it is time again to participate in Helen's (The Patient Gardener) End of Month View meme. Where did this month go? I was very busy in the garden this February and yet it doesn't show much in the comparison between this month photo of the Front Yard Side Bed, the area of my garden that I have chosen for this meme, and last month photo. The reason for that is that in February my main effort is to fertilize and mulch all the roses in the garden and when that is done to fertilize and mulch all other plants in the yard. There aren't any resources for the time consuming digging to plant something new. That's being said, let's have a look at the progress, that is made in this bed in the last month.

February 2016

The most visible changes are, that the two roses in this bed have leaved out, that the rest of the lawn to the very left was removed completely and that the bed is mulched, which gives it this nice dark look that you expect from fresh good soil. What you can't see though, is that the whole bed is fertilized, which helped the roses and the alstroemeria in the middle of the bed to gain momentum and grow vigorously and the palms to green up.

January 2016

Here is the photo from January for a comparison.

But there was more work done that is not so obvious. The whole irrigation system in this bed was checked and sprinklers that didn't work anymore replaced and others adjusted so that the water is distributed over the bed in an optimal way. In the right front corner there is a new sprinkler installed. I started to mulch over the utility lid a little from the sides, but I think I can cover it up more to the first "real" lid. The problem is though, how to keep the mulch in place. I am thinking of trying to place bender board into the slid between the outer rim and the first inner lid and see if that could work.

One thing that makes me really happy is the sight of this rose, 'Charles Darwin'. Last month I wasn't even sure if it would survive, but now it has leaved out nicely and there is no question that it will make it. It is a truly beautiful soft yellow rose with very full and luxurious flowers. I can't wait to see it blooming in my front yard for the first time.

The Front Yard Side Bed shown from another perspective.

Even though not so obvious in the overview photos the alstroemeria 'Little Miss Sophie' has bulked up nicely. Unfortunately it hasn't started to bloom yet, like my other variety in the back yard. It would bring some much needed color to this bed!

Rosa 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' is a mature rose that has made the most progress in comparison to the other two plants within the last month. Since it is so established it is growing like gangbusters. It is also a very early bloomer...

...and, zooming in with the camera, you can see that it is already setting buds!

This is the area where there was still lawn last month. We are completely lawn free in our front yard now. I actually like lawn, but grass is simply not climate appropriate in our area anymore, since the climate change is to dramatic and we are in a four year drought. The other thing is that in this bed the lawn always looked out of place since my neighbor took his lawn out and replaced it with a drought tolerant landscape. My remaining strip of grass was simply too small to have a pleasing impact, which made it easier for me to let it go.

Here you see the area, where the lawn was removed from a different angle. Now the question is what to plant there. I am not decided yet, but I have given up the idea of planting one more rose to the left side of the palms also because of our drought. I am now contemplating to plant some bluish agaves around the palms, which hopefully also can keep up better with the palm root competition than a rose ever could.

My plan continues to remove the alstroemeria completely and to plant altogether three roses in this bed. I would like to place the rose nearest to the street closer to the utility lid than 'Our Lady of Guadalupe is in the moment, so that ideally it would drape elegantly over the lid and cover it partly to make it less of an eyesore. For that reason 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' needs to be either lifted and moved forward or be replaced by another variety. I have not made up my mind, yet. Stay tuned, next month most likely the decision will be made. Another thing I need to ponder is which rose variety to plant in the middle of the bed and in case I remove 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' with which rose variety to replace it. I have plenty of roses in my pot ghetto, so I have definitively enough roses to choose from. Rosa 'Charles Darwin' will stay where it is (rose closest to the palms), since it was planted in December last year already in foresight of the make over of this bed.

Do check out Helen's post about her End of the Month View and also visit the other participants of this meme (you find the links to their blogs under the comments tab of Helen's post). Many of these garden transformations are very inspiring to watch.

Wishing everyone a lovely Sunday. I will certainly be out in the yard tomorrow and enjoy myself to the max!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

The front yard, particularly the walkway to the front door, is already looking really nice! Of course, there are always things that can be improved, but in the moment I am pretty happy with this part of the garden. Let me take you for a quick garden tour and show you around!

I am especially pleased with this little corner bed, which is closest to our front door. From the left to the right: Daylily 'Gentle Shepherd', salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue', rosa 'The Prince', Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty', Martha Washington geranium seedling, white cyclamen, variety unknown. Most of the front yard was fertilized and mulched at the end of the winter and that really made a difference in the vigor of the plants this year. Let's have a closer look at what is growing in this bed.

White flowering daylily 'Gentle Shepherd' is said to be slow to bulk up, and that is true for mine, but at least it is growing happily and has made one new fan. I can't wait to see it blooming for the first time this year. Do you notice the small plant to the left of the daylily?

Here is a close up of it. That is a paperwhite narcissus! I didn't get them in the ground before February, which is way to late to plant them according to the book, but I could either let the bulbs die or put them in the ground then and I decided to give it a try. There are about fifteen bulbs of paperwhites in the front yard. I am curious to see how many will come up and maybe even bloom.

Rosa 'The Prince' looks as good as never before. I am really hoping for a great spring flush.

I still love my hand painted Portuguese jar, but it is covered a little bit more than I would like by the Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty'. Maybe I should prop the jar up a bit, so that it is more visible. The geranium is doing great and I expect to see many blooms this year. It has a truly wonderful dark purple color.

Judging by the leaves this is another Martha Washington geranium (it is growing to the right side of the one in the photo above), but I haven't planted it. I guess it is a seedling or the Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty' has found another way to propagate itself. I am anxiously waiting to see what the bloom color will be.

My white cyclamen is blooming generously. It grows for years in this container and blooms reliably each year. A happy no fuss plant. You can't ask for more.

Opposite to the bed shown in the first photo of this post I have two other Martha Washington geraniums growing in blue containers. The name of the variety is 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor' and it is also a very lovely one.

I wasn't aware of it before I took the photos, but this one has set buds already. It only will take days for them to open and I am looking so much forward to seeing them, again.

This is an incredible narrow and therefore difficult to plant bed called "The Hell Strip" to the left side when you leave the house. It is doing well so far, too.

In the very front corner of the photo above I have planted stachys monieri 'Hummelo'. The snails are going after it like crazy and didn't give the plant a chance to grow new leaves. So I put out Sluggo (the little white kernels), an organic snail deterrent, to keep them in check.

I have a second salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' growing in the "Hell Strip Bed" opposite the salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' in the corner bed featured in the first photo of this post. This one receives more sun and warmth and the plant is much more developed than the other one. Both salvias grow through obelisks to prevent them from flopping over later in the season.

This is a kind of miniature pelargonium, which I cut back only in February. Sorry, but I can't remember the name. Hope it will come back properly. It also lives in the "Hell Strip Bed".

The middle of the bed that runs along the walkway to the house is planted with two roses 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' to the very right and left. I had added two verbena bonariensis between the roses and the Pygmy Date Palm last year in autumn, but one died almost instantly, the other was struggling for the longest time, but seems to have grown in now.

Here you can see the verbena bonariensis more closely. I tried to find a replacement for the one which died, but so far no luck at the local nurseries.

You walk up to this island bed as you leave the house and walk towards the street. A pretty Pygmy Date Palm lives here. At the feet of the palm is blue flowering penstemon planted. It is struggling because of the root competition with the palm,...

...but since I have fertilized and mulched the bed, I hope I can get one more year out of the penstemon, but eventually it has to be replaced.

Right before you leave the house you pass by this scene. To the left there is rosa 'Pretty Jessica' planted and to the right rosa 'Marie Pavie'. The latter is full of buds, even though you can't see it well on the photo, and is about to bloom very soon. The white flowering pelargonium in the container on the column looks pretty ugly with its brown leaves.

Close-up of the white pelargonium. I never could get it to look better than on this photo and I don't know the reason why it constantly is making these brown leaves. After two years of trying I am seriously thinking to get rid of it and replace it with another Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor', that I still have on hand.

Looking at the middle part of the bed running along the walkway to the house from another direction. I like the height that the obelisk adds to the bed.

View from the street towards the front door. The front yard is mainly green at this time of the year, but I like it this way.

Besides the cyclamen and the white geranium, the dianthus 'Floral Lace White' is the only other plant blooming right now. I thought dianthus would be an annual, but they came through the winter like a charm and were flowering more or less prolifically since they were planted last spring. Pretty amazing!

This last shot shows the walkway to the house as you enter it from the street. Do you see the white dianthus that I just discussed blinking through the trunks of the Pygmy Date Palm?

To me it looks like the front yard is off to a very good start into the season. Now I sit back and enjoy watching things filling in more and wait for the roses and other plants to start blooming. Life is good!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

Roses were flowering sparsely in February this year, but at least a few had produced the first new bloom of the season. Other roses have set plenty of buds, but they didn't open last month. Altogether it looks like I will be getting a great first rose flush this year and it will probably start at the end of March already. Because there were only a few blooms in February, each of them was even more dear to me. Here is what I was able to capture with my camera.

'Belinda's Dream' knocked me off my feet with her lovely first bloom.

I couldn't help, but taking photos of the different stages in the development of that flower...

...and want them share it with you.

'Belinda's Dream' is classified as a Shrub rose, but to me it looks like a very fully petaled Hybrid Tea rose.

This rose is very healthy in my garden and really easy to grow. Definitively a rose that I would recommend at least for a similar climate like mine.

As expected 'Marie Pavie' started to bloom early this year, as she did in the previous years. This rose is also super healthy in my garden.

Here is a bush shot of 'Grandmother's Hat'. This rose is six to seven feet (180 cm - 210 cm) high and has grown into a very nice bush. The foliage is marvelous and completely clean. You can't see it on the photo, but 'Grandmother's Hat' is loaded with buds. I am looking so much forward for them to open.

'Climbing Devoniensis' is a rose that I seldom show, but here is a rain drenched elegant bud of it.

First bud of 'Pierre de Ronsard' reaching for the sky.

Another rose with beautiful foliage in February was 'Yolande d'Aragon'. That can not always be said of this rose since sometimes it suffers from disease problems, but so far so good.

'Madame Alfred Carriere' is the biggest rose that I have growing in my garden. After being generously fertilized it has started to bloom again and I am in love with its flowers. It is one of my all time favorite roses.

New foliage of 'Chandos Beauty'. As you can see it is also very healthy.

Last but not least a bloom of 'Souvernir de la Malmaison', one of my newly acquired baby roses.

We had another strong storm, which unfortunately slightly damaged the foliage of a few roses, which are planted in locations very exposed to the wind, but it brought some much needed rain. I think the developing rose buds will benefit from it and I am very excited about the March blooms, which, of course, I will share with you. I would be delighted if you would come back to have a look.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

Honestly, I can't remember for how long I wanted to take part in Carol's (author of the blog May Dreams Gardens) Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day meme, which takes place on the 15th of each month. Never got it done so far, but the stars seem to have lined up properly, so today is the day!

I am completely enchanted with Narcissus papyraceus or more commonly known as Paperwhites. Aren't the little flowers incredible charming?

I have forced Paperwhites indoors before, but never put the bulbs in the ground until this year. They are supposed to be planted in autumn, but I didn't get around to do it and only planted them in February, fully prepared to see never ever anything of them, again. But to my big delight four have come up so far and gifted me with these lovely wonderfully fragrant bloom.

My Martha Washington geraniums just started to bloom. This is the variety 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor'. They really brighten up my front yard.

A post about my garden wouldn't be a post about my garden without roses. I simply love roses! Many varieties are just opening their first blooms. Here you see 'Climbing Iceberg'.

My trusty white cyclamen is in full bloom. Each year it flowers that prolifically. In the foreground you see another Martha Washington geranium. I think it is a seedling that mother nature planted there, it wasn't me for sure.

Here is a close-up of the blooms of the Martha Washington geranium plant shown in the photo above. I think the color of the flowers is very pretty!

'Old Fashioned Girl', a miniature rose.

I really love the blue flowers of Ajuga reptans 'Catlin's Giant'. Despite its beauty, so far it has proven to be a pretty tough, no-fuss plant for me in my garden.

These flowers of rosa 'Marie Pavie' are hidden deep in the bush, but there are many more on top of the plant that just seem to wait for a warm day to spring open.

My favorite alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire'. The snails have damaged many blooms, but here I caught one cluster that is not touched by them, yet!

Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' has produced some blooms of a giant size. The relatively cool March days enabled the rose to do that.

Another bloom of 'Pierre de Ronsard'. They are just gorgeous!

My favorite rose at the moment: 'Madame Alfred Carriere'. Because of the cooler days she has taken on a very muted apricot hue, usually she is plain white here in summer. Just love the color and old fashioned bloom form of this Tea Noisette.

'Georgetown Tea' flower bud unfurling.

Iris 'Platinum' kissed by the spring sun! I had trouble growing irises for the longest time in my garden, but now it looks like that I have finally gotten the hang of it. Acidifying the soil slightly around the irises with soil sulfur and fertilizing them with organic rose fertilizer seem to have done the trick.

I am curious to see what flowers others have blooming in their gardens at this time of the year. So I will pop over tomorrow to Carol's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day meme and have a look at her and other bloggers gardens. Why don't you join me? Just click on the link!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

May Dreams Gardens

Are you ready to see more gorgeous Old Garden Roses and fabulous borders filled to the brim with beautiful and interesting flowering plants? Well, then you have opened the right post. I am continuing my series about Mottisfont Abbey, one of the most beautiful and interesting rose gardens in England that I know.

The scene above is probably one of the most photographed ones in Mottisfont and some of you may recognize it. And for good reasons, it is is just so lovely! Even though, when we were there, the roses trained on the arches were not in bloom, it makes for a pretty darn beautiful picture. The garden was well visited. I tried hard, but unfortunately I couldn't get a shot without people.

In this part of the garden the paths were made of gravel and often lined with lavender. I really like that and can imagine, in case the drought in California doesn't cease, to take the grass out in our backyard and put gravel down instead.

I also liked the rustic climbing structures very much that they use in Mottisfont. They just fit the space very well.

Lovely blue flowering plant, but unfortunately I don't know its identity.

White, pink and blue my favorite color combination. It never disappoints!

The white bell flower from the last photo in a close-up. Just wonderful!

More nice blue flowering companion plants!

'Gloire d'un Enfant d'Hiram', a Hybrid Perpertual bred by Rose Vilin (France, 1899). Beautiful cupped bloom form in a carmine red color with violet undertones.

'Ards Rover', a climbing Hybrid Perpetual. Another rose that I had never seen in person before I visited Mottisfont. It is bred by Alexander Dickson II (United Kingdom, 1898). The large double blooms in a crimson color fading to a distinct purple tone were just stunning. Definitively one of my favorites in this post!

Another shot of 'Ards Rover'.

I am not certain of the ID of this one, but love the mottled pink color. Very unusual!

Sorry, no ID either! The rose has kind of the same mottling on the petals than the last one. Also really like how the petals fade to a lilac hue as the flowers age.

Absolutely loved this rose! This is rosa 'Dembrowsky', a Hybrid Perpetual, bred in 1849. Unfortunately the breeder of this beauty is unknown. To me the pink blooms with the darker center and the button-eye in the middle are irresistible.

Single bloom of rosa 'Dembrowsky'.

White flowering rose companion plants always catch my attention.

Rosa 'Sidonie', also a Hybrid Perpetual, bred by Frinck Dorisy (France, 1846). The light pink blooms have a very unique charm!

One of the many wonderfully trained climbing roses at Mottisfont. I believe this to be 'Ards Rover', which I featured a few photos above already, but I am not a hundred percent certain.

Again, no identity on this one, but wonderful nonetheless.

I don't have an identity on this one either, but I believe it to be 'Reine des Violetts'.

Another shot of the same rose of the photo before.

This is 'Comte de Chambord', a Portland, bred by Robert and Moreau (France, before 1958). I always wanted to grow this rose, but didn't get to do it, yet. It is supposed to have a very strong fragrance and I love the color and quartered bloom form when the flowers are fully open.

This sundial I would have love to take with me and set it up in my own garden. So pretty!

Another lovely scene!

Really like this rose together with the purple colored bush in the background.

There were so many different climbing structures in Mottisfont Abbey, something for every taste.

I leave you for today with a combination that is tried and true: Lamb's ear and pink roses! It just works!

Hope you enjoyed this entry in my Mottisfont Abbey series. I still have many more photos, so I will be continuing to blog about this amazing garden in the future.

If you are interested to take a look at the previous installments, here are the links:

Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise I
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise II
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise III
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise IV
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise V

Wishing everyone a great week!

See you in the garden!

Christina

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Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

Each time I do a stroll through the garden at this time of the year, I see something new. The garden is rapidly changing from day to day. One rose after the other is starting to open its flowers and many perennials have begun to bloom as well. It is simply a joy to be outside and take it all in and often I can't help but just being in awe of the beauty of nature. Spring is definitively my most favorite season of the year here in Southern California!

Hardy geranium 'Biokovo'.

Rosa 'Georgetown Tea' flirting with the spring sun.

Rosa 'Marie Pavie' spilling over the decorative wall in the front yard.

Close-up of the blooms of rosa 'Marie Pavie'.

This is rosa 'Marie Pavie' again, shown from the other side. This photo is taken at about the same time as the photo two pictures above. This side of the rose gets more shade and most buds haven't opened, yet. But this shot shows well how full of buds this rose is.

To my big surprise my 'Verbena Bonariensis', which I planted last autumn, has started already to bloom. The label said that the plant was supposed to flower in summer, but in Southern California you never know.

Rosa 'Climing Iceberg' glowing in the sun.

Same 'Climbing Iceberg' rose. It is also incredible full of buds this year.

Rosa 'Captain Christy'.

Another bloom of rosa 'Captain Christy', a little bit more open.

My humangous rose 'Pierre de Ronsard' in the backyard. This year it is very healthy and is also bearing loads of buds.

The color of 'Lavender Crystal' is almost surreal.

But this extraordinary color comes with a price. The little bush is suffering badly from blackspot. Almost the only rose in my garden that is plaqued by this disease.

Of course, even though this is a wonderful time of the year, not everything is perfect. I am not completely happy with this combination here in the front yard. The Martha Washington geranium in the blue container seems to be too garish and it is badly clashing with the lavender blooms of rosa 'Lavender Crystal' to the very right. This part definitively needs some tweaking.

This is also an example where not everything was going according to plan. The lanzett shaped leaves in the background in the middle of the photo are purple flowering gladiolus coming up. The scragly plant in the middle of the circle of gladiolus is another 'Verbena Bonariensis' that almost died on me. Maybe only one fourth of the original plant is left. It was supposed to fill out the circle of gladiolus but, oh, well....

One of the first flowers of rosa 'Grandmother's Hat' hiding deep in the foliage of the rose.

This is a scene from my White Garden Bed. I finally planted five white flowering gaura lindheimeri 'Belleza White' behind the white column and they already are starting to bloom. The rose to the left is 'Pope John Paul II' and to the right is 'Chandos Beauty'.

Close-up of gaura lindheimeri 'Belleza White's' first blooms.

This is my third trial to get this area "right". First round I planted in place of the gauras white flowering irises, which died on me. Next attempt was to plant white flowering amaryllis belladonna, which only bloomed for a very short time in July or August and pulled in their foliage most of the time, because of the heat that we are having here. So the area behind the column was simply bare dirt. Hopefully I am more lucky with the gauras. So far I like the way they look!

Wishing everyone who celebrates it a very Happy Easter!

See you in the garden!

Christina

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Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

Well, I guess I am the last person to participate in the March End of Month View meme, hosted by Helen, at The Patient Gardener. Sorry, my dear readers, but life has interfered with blogging again and I was only able to finish this post today. I sincerely hope that despite the delay you are still interested in following the process of changing my Front Yard Side Bed.

March 2016

So lets get right to it. If you compare the photo above, taken March 29th, and the photo below from the end of February, the biggest visible changes are, that the roses have started to bloom and that the alstroemeria 'Little Miss Sophie' is missing. Between February and the end of March the bed has been weeded over not only once but twice, since the weeds thrive on the new mulch and the fertilizer that was put down in February. Especially dandelions are having a ball and, as every one knows who has been dealing with them, they are very hard to remove. But in addition to that, in this bed their roots are entangled with the roots of the Queen Palms to the right and it is almost impossible to get the full root of the dandelions out. And, of course, if that can not be done, you turn away from the bed for a second and the next thing you know they are back. Well, I know I will be busy playing this game with them for quite a while...

February 2016

Rosa 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' is blooming her head off as usual and for that reason probably none of your will understand on the first glance, why I have made my final decision to remove this rose.

Before I move on, I want to apologize for the quality of the photos in this post. I was only able to take the pictures for it around noon on March 29th. It never leads to great images if you photograph in the middle of the day with the harsh sun light that we are already having at this time of the year, but I had no other choice.

Yes, it is true that the blooms of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' are very pretty. I myself have to admit that in the first place I fell completely in love with the silvery pink flowers, which show up in great profusion with each flush.

But if you look closely at the foliage, you see it is very infected with powdery mildew. It doesn't seem to prevent the rose from blooming prolifically though, which is a miracle in itself, because usually if mildew is that present in a rose, the flower production is affected. Still, this diseased foliage bugs me tremendously. And it happens every year, when the climatic conditions are right, means cool nights and warm days, which we have very often here in San Diego. So even though it is hard, rosa 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' will go into the trash bin.

I do have two more plants of this variety in the front yard though and I will keep these for now, so the separation from this rose is not as painful as it would be, if I would completely eradicate this variety form my garden.

If you aren't convinced yet, here is one more "yucky photo". See the powdery mildew not just on the leaves but also on the buds? You have to admit it is really disgusting.

This is alstroemeria 'Little Miss Sophie' on March 19th, the day it was taken out of this bed. But don't worry, I didn't get rid off this one.

The best parts of the plant where potted up carefully in five gallon containers using good potting soil. I got five new plants out of it, like pictured above, but I gave one to my faithful and hard working gardener already. I am sure it will not be difficult to find a new home for another one and the rest I intend to transplant to the backyard.

This is rosa 'Charles Darwin', which has nicely bulked up between February and March and has produced a lot of buds.

Unfortunately there was a little mishap with this rose. If you look at the shot above, which shows 'Charles Darwin' from the back, you see that in the center of the rose and in the center of the outer lower side of it there are "holes". For reasons unknown to me a couple of canes just died back last month. I thought about rodent damage, but I couldn't find any traces, like holes in the ground or bite marks on the canes, of them. I hope, that the rose won't loose any further canes by now and that it will fill back in eventually.

There is another catch with this rose, though. I don't know if I really like the color. I had it in mind as a much darker muted yellow, at least in spring when the temperatures are still relatively cool for our circumstances and not as this very pale almost whitish yellow color. The rose may change color as it gets established, so now is not the moment for a final judgment, but I am curious what you think. Do you like it or not?

This month I intend to remove 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' and make a decision which two roses out of my pot ghetto should go into this bed. Finding rose colors that will go well together will be a fun and challenging task at the same time. But also the mature bush form and growth habit has to be taken in consideration. I hope that I am able to make pleasant rose matches and that I get at least one new rose planted, ideally two. But since my soil is so hard to dig I probably have to be realistic and only expect one new rose to be in ground by next End of Month View post. I hope you stop by again and see what roses have made the grade.

Until then, if you haven't done it yet, I urge you to stop by at Helen's End of Month View meme and take a look what has happened in other people's gardens in March.

Wishing all of you a great week!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

The Patient Gardener
Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

The roses have been doing really well last month. I think they appreciated the rain that they got in March and also enjoyed the, for our climate, relatively cool temperatures. One variety after the other started to open its blooms and some reached their peak by the end of the month.

Rosa 'Chandos Beauty' was one of the most beautiful in my eyes!

I just show you some random shots of the blooms of this great Hybrid Tea rose.

It is now the third year in the garden and has reached some maturity.

The blooms are huge and...

...the fragrance is very strong.

It is also a good cut rose with long stems, if you are into something like that, and it lasts a decent time in the vase.

On the photo above you can see rosa 'Chandos Beauty' to the right and the reliable lovely rosa 'Pope John Paul II' to the left.

The flowers of rosa 'Pope John Paul II' are always special to me.

I just can't resist the beauty of these wonderful and fragrant white roses.

Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' is also well loved in my garden. The heavy globular blooms are just so charming.

Here they are in the bud stage.

And this is one of my two bushes or 'Pierre de Ronsard'. It has gotten humongous and you can see on the photo how loaded the rose is with buds.

I am also very fond of rosa 'Auckland Metro,' growing in my White Garden Bed.

This rose is relatively healthy and I love the cream colored flowers.

The blooms of rosa 'Reine des Violettes' are truly one of a kind! Their shades from crimson to violet are simply exquisite. The bush on the other hand is pretty scraggly one in my garden.

Close-up of 'Reine des Violettes'. Don't you just want to disappear in the silkiness of these petals? Loose yourself in the subtle refined colors?

Rosa 'Marie Pavie' reached the peak of her spring flush by the end of March. She is such a delightful, healthy and charming rose, always very willing to bloom.

A rose that also convinced with her good looks, her old-fashioned charm and her fragrance is 'Grandmother's Hat'.

Rosa 'Iceberg' always blooms her head off here in California. Two climbing varieties flank the sides of our garage. I keep the bushes relatively short, though.

Closer look at the 'Climbing Iceberg' blooms. They always look cheerful to me with their white petals and yellow stamens exposed as the blooms open fully. Bees love them, too.

Rosa 'Captain Christy', an old Hybrid Tea rose.

Even though I tried really hard (and often!) it was impossible for me to get a good shot of the white rosa 'Madame Alfred Carriere', because of the light conditions she is growing in. Parts of the rose are getting quite a bit of shade from my towering Queen Palms and a Pine Tree from my neighbor, but the tips of the canes are reaching into the sun.

The rose is in the ground for the third year and this spring she leaped. My photo does her beauty no justice at all, but at least you can see how profusely 'Madame Alfred Carriere' is blooming under the difficult light conditions she is living in and also considering the root competition from the palms and the Pine Tree.

The last beauty that I show you in this post is Rosa 'Belinda's Dream', a very carefree rose in my garden with lovely, big, full, pink blooms.

It is hard to believe, but from Thursday to Sunday we had rain on and off. Altogether a substantial amount came down, maybe about two inches, and that will carry the roses a long way this spring. I am so thankful for it. The downside is, that of course, it turned some of the rose blooms into a brown mushy blob, so lots of deadheading to do right now. I hope that I can whip the garden back into shape this weekend.

How are your roses doing? I guess, for the majority of my readers, who have a garden and grow roses, theirs are not blooming, yet, but they are well on the way to produce their first flush. Do you think you are expecting a good spring flush? I certainly wish that for you, as I feel that there is hardly anything more lovely out there in the garden then a rose bush starting to bloom the first time in spring again, after the long winter rest. But of course, I am biased...

See you in the garden!

Christina

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Rose Garden Malevik
Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

The main reason why my blogging has come to an abrupt hold around the middle of April is this: Three four week old rescue Doberman puppies, all little girls, have found their way into our home...

...and have turned our life upside down.

All photos in this post were taken spontaneously the first evening when they arrived with an iPhone, so please overlook the not so great quality of the images.

Since the puppies were constantly moving (at least one of them always was) you neither got all three of them in one photo,...

...nor did you get a sharp shot.

Here is Skylar, our red Dobie boy, testing the new x-pen, the afternoon before the puppies moved in. He seems to approve of their new home!

'Can I find some mother milk here?'

Cuteness overload?!

The puppies have been rescued by Susan Kelber, Los Angeles, who is involved in Doberman rescue for the last twenty years. She got them from a backyard breeder, who was selling them individually over Craig's List at the age of four weeks. According to Susan, he claimed their mom was hit by a car and dead, and that was the reason why he was selling them at such a young age.

Puppies should stay with their mom until they are at least eight weeks old. If the mom is not available anymore, they at least should be brought up together until they are eight weeks old to keep each other company, play together and teach each other important things like bite inhibition etc.

When Susan got in contact with the backyard breeder he stated that it was a litter of ten puppies and that he had already sold four. According to Susan she explained to the man that puppies should not be separated at this age and tried to convince him to relinquish the puppies to her for rescue purposes, but he didn't want to do that. So Susan bought the remaining six puppies from him with the help of two generous and dog loving friends, to keep them safe and make sure that they stay together at least in groups of three until they can be separated at a more appropriate age.

Our friend and dog trainer Alexandra Gant, who is heavily involved in dog rescue, was looking for a second rescue Doberman for us and heard through her rescue contacts about the litter and connected us to Susan.

And so it came that three puppies went to a Doberman breeder in the Los Angeles area for fostering and the remaining three ended up at our home.

Our job was to raise and take care of them as good as we can until they are at least eight weeks old and can be adopted out.

First of all, we took them on, because we wanted to adopt one for ourselves. As I said earlier, we were looking for a Doberman companion for Skylar and we were searching for quite a while by then. But, of course, we also wanted to help these little puppies to get the best possible start into their lives, after obviously a very bumpy early beginning.

'This is a fun toy to play with!'

Skylar: 'Yes, but this one is mine and will stay mine, no matter how cute mom and dad think you are!'

The decision to take the puppies on had to be made rather quickly and I freely admit that we had no idea what we were getting into and how much work and time was involved to raise these little girls.

As luck would have it, I was taking part in a Vedic Chant workshop in Ojai, California and on the way back to San Diego, it was easy to stop by at Susan's home in Los Angeles and pick them up.

Not knowing anything about Doberman puppies, I was shocked how little they actually were when I saw them in person for the first time. But still, moments later I had them loaded up in a cardboard box into my car to take them home.

'My nose tells me that there is water!'

Crashed on my husbands leg after the long drive from Los Angeles to San Diego.

They really craved human contact.

Another one crashed in my arms. They seemed to either play, sleep, eat or poop and pee.

They were so little, they were fitting into one hand.

'Yum, puppy gruel!'

'Shall we eat some more?'

I just wanted to show you the little Dobie girls the way they looked the moment they arrived. By now, about six weeks later, they have grown so tremendously, they are hard to recognize.

If you would like to follow their story, please come back soon. I will try to post more pictures of them in the next couple of weeks and let you participate in their development!

Thanks for stopping by, as always I really appreciate your visit! Hope you enjoyed seeing some photos of the little Dobie girls!

Warm regards,

Christina

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Rose Garden Malevik

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

We are on vacation in England right now and I would like to take you on an early morning walk through the beautiful ancient village of Blockley. Blockley is located in the Cotswolds, an area quite famous for its outstanding beauty of the landscape, in the county of Gloucestershire in England, where we were renting a self catering cottage for a week. Usually we started the day with a healthy breakfast at our cottage but that morning we felt like having a traditional English Breakfast and decided to head out to the local village cafe and explore the village in a leisurely morning stroll by foot. The photos which are following I took on the way.

Leaving the cottage you step into a tiny but very lovingly planted cottage garden. The raised small terrace offered a very nice place to sit and enjoy the moment.

I especially liked this plant, I believe it is a Geum, which up to now I only was able to admire on photos from other garden bloggers.

Looking back through the garden gate towards 'Alice Cottage' to the right.

There was certainly no shortage of pretty cottages in Blockley.

Many of them build of the famous honey colored Cotswold stone that was quarried in the area.

Looking down the High Street of Blockley.

I love the climbing roses that were grown on many of the cottage walls. So pretty!

Here is a particular nice example of a climbing rose.

Looks like Mother Nature took over this front yard. All the rain that they have in England makes it possible that plants can thrive, even if they are not tended to by a gardener.

I loved the beautiful detailed stone work around the door.

Many people make an effort to prettify their cottages with plants grown in containers.

The Crown Inn & Hotel looks nice from the outside, but the dinner we had there during our stay was disappointingly bland and boring.

Cottage garden charm! There is hardly any space to garden in, but British gardeners work their magic anyways!

My husband noticed the planter to the left of the door and commanded me to take a photo. So I happily obliged.

This was my favorite scene from the High Street. The pink climbing rose is just amazing and it smells very strong. Unfortunately I don't know what variety it is.

I will continue the walk through Blockley in my next post. If you want to see more scenes from this lovely village and also what our traditional English Breakfast looked like, stop by here soon.

In case you have read my last post and wonder about the Doberman puppies. Two of them have been adopted out before our trip to England. We have decided to keep one puppy, and this one is very well taken care of by our wonderful dog sitters. Still, it was a little hard to leave her behind, but we have booked this vacation six months ago and didn't had one last year, so with a little heavy heart we decided to go. We see our puppy over FaceTime almost every day though, and she seems to do very well. It looks like that we miss her more than she misses us, which is a good thing.

Wishing everyone a lovely rest of the weekend!

Warm regards,

Christina

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Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden
Rose Garden Malevik

By now we have moved to our second cottage located in Turleigh, Wiltshire in the county of Wessex. The area belongs still to the beautiful Cotswolds.

Yesterday, after having a lot of fun exploring the pretty old town of Bradford on Avon and doing some fine hat shopping there, we treated ourselves to the first full English Afternoon Tea in this vacation at The Bridge Tea Rooms.

The cottage that houses the tea room is quite old and charming, like so many houses in England. Originally it belonged to a blacksmith and is dating from 1502. The front of the house is lovingly decorated with planters and window boxes. By the way, we had our tea behind the window to the right on the second floor.

There was a beautiful display of vintage, possibly antique blue china on the window sill. Just lovely!

In the background you can see the old town center of Bradford on Avon and the building in the middle with the round cupola I believe is the Catholic Church of Bradford on Avon.

Now we have been served tea! I chose the Guv'nors Tea and my husband had the English Breakfast Tea. Both teas had nice well balanced flavors. I was so pleased, that they served the tea in really elegant and delicate fine bone china. The maker was Duchess, England.

Tadaaa...! And here is the three tired tea stand. What a delight!

Who is able to resist an English Afternoon Tea?

This is the fireplace in the second story, very close to the table were we sat.

Attention to detail is what made this tea so enjoyable besides the edible treats. Each of us had an own tea strainer, that fit into a small metal bowl, so that it didn't leave a mess on the saucer with the little doily.

We chose the Queen Victoria Afternoon Tea to share, which contained a selection of four finger sandwiches, a scone with strawberry jam and organic clotted cream, and two small slices of cake: chocolate and lemon. Traditionally you eat the scone first, then the sandwiches and save the cake for last as a kind of desert. Let's have a closer look at the food items.

The scone was delicious and had the right texture, not too crumbly, not too moist. I loved the little bowl they served the jam in.

The cakes were also very good. The chocolate cake was rich and moist, exactly as it should be, and the lemon cake refreshing. You hardly can see it on the photo, but they were serving small wild strawberries with the cake and very small red grapes, so that the fruits were more in proportion with the small size of the cake slices. I loved their attention to detail.

The selection of sandwiches included salmon, ham, egg and cucumber. All sandwiches were very tasty, but the cucumber sandwich stood out. It was super delicious and one of the ingredients was mint, which was new to me in this context. It just gave it that extra special memorable taste that stays with you for a long time.

The china was delicate and beautiful and I appreciated the fact that each of us had our own tea pot. If you serve an English Afternoon Tea at home, I think that would the ultimate treat for a well appreciated guest.

One extra detail that some may find over the top touristy and cheesy, but others a delight, is that the tea is served by staff dressed in Victorian costumes. Our waitresses were very friendly and one agreed that I could take a photo of her.

The fireplace in the first story is much more elaborate than the one shown a few photos above in the second story.

Since we had read mixed review, we asked some locals about The Bridge Tea Rooms. We have been discretely told by them that the owner has changed about two years ago and that the quality has gone down a bit from really exceptional to "people still like it and go there". Hmm..., were they talking about tourists? The Bridge Tea Rooms has been awarded two times the UK's Top Tea Place by the prestigious UK Tea Guild, but maybe that was before the ownership has changed?

Well, we don't know what the quality of the English Afternoon Tea was like at The Bridge Tea Rooms before the owner changed, but we certainly did not regret our visit there. As a matter of fact we enjoyed our experience quite a bit and think it is still absolutely worth having an English Afternoon Tea in this establishment.

So when you are in the area, maybe you stop by and check it out yourself and come to your own conclusion. I hope your experience will be as pleasant as ours has been!

Warm regards,

Christina

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Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

My husband and I are back home from England since about one and a half weeks now and I can't believe that I still haven't posted about one of the many private and public gardens, that we have visited during our England vacation. And oh my gosh, did we see incredible gardens this time!

I came home with wonderful memories full of the beautiful gardens that we have toured, tons of inspiration for my own garden, and literally thousands of photos. I hope, I can find the time in the following weeks and months to share at least some of them with you.

The very first garden that we visited the day after our arrival in the UK was Nafford House, located in Eckington, Worchestershire. It is a private garden, owned and cared for by Janet & John Wheatley, that opened in the context of the National Garden Scheme (NGS).

I was in heaven the moment when my husband and I walked through the garden gate and saw this beautiful white house conquered by climbing wisterias and the lovely garden beds framing the gravel path leading up to the front door.

The planting style in parts of the garden was what I would call wild romantic. Unfortunately my photos don't do these flower beds above and below justice. They look almost a bit weedy on the pictures, but in reality they were just packed densely with roses and many small plants that were allowed to spill over the edges into the gravel path.

The abundance of late spring!

This rose caught my eye and I asked Mr Wheatley about the name. Kindly he went back into the house to ask his wife. Upon his return he said that it is 'Penelope'. The rose, a Hybrid Musk, had a very subtle intriguing coloration and a lovely, distinct scent.

Getting a glimpse of the surrounding gardens to the left.

Besides gardens another thing that makes my heart sing: Dogs! This one, who lived at Nafford House, greeted us and brought a toy with him to play. Doesn't he look like he is happy?

In this garden many planters and containers of different styles have been used, which I loved. With all the rain that they get in the UK, I guess it is a little bit easier to keep them watered and looking good than here in Southern California.

I found these petunias particularly pretty. As far as I can recall, they were a bit more lavender in reality than on my photo, though.

Liked the contrast between the informal flower beds in the background and the more formal planter and its circular flower bed in the foreground.

I would be interested to know what kind of tree this is with the chartreuse colored leaves. Does the leave color stay like this or is it just the case in spring? Anyways, at the time the photo was taken, it picked up the yellow hues in the flower bed to its feet perfectly.

I realized that in this garden they made great use of interesting flowering shrubs and beautifully colored trees.

This clematis was particularly pretty and looked great growing on the rustic climbing structure.

I have seen these cerise red flowering plants often in England and believe they are a kind of gladiolus.

Does anyone know the name of these beauties?

This pale pink flowering shrub was just stunning. I think it is a kind of weigelia.

Here is a close up of the blooms.

Another example of the flower beds filled to the brim.

This burgundy colored shrub/tree is such an eye catcher. It looks really great together with the pale pink flowering shrub in the background and the chartreuse tree further to the left and the other burgundy tree to the right.

Another neat planter.

The overhang protecting the front door. So beautifully done!

Not only were the flower beds packed densely with plants and flowers, but the containers as well.

The foxgloves looked like they were allowed to grow where they had planted themselves. This informal style gave such a romantic feeling to the garden. The delicate white garden furniture go very well with this atmosphere.

A rose that I could not identify. When I asked the friendly Mrs Wheatley about the names of a couple of her roses she replied, that some have been already planted by her mother and the names have long gone lost. How wonderful must it be to take over your parents established garden and continue on to further develop and care for it.

As you can see on this photo, the garden was quite large. In one of my next posts I intend to show you the long border in the center of this image a bit closer and also different parts of the garden, that we haven't visited, yet.

Thanks for stopping by on my blog today! I wish everyone in the US a wonderful 4th of July weekend!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Usually I am pretty reluctant to cut roses for bringing indoors and prefer to enjoy them in the garden, but with the summer heat upon us, things have changed a little. A rose bloom that is lovely in the early morning easily is fried by noon, so by cutting them and bringing them into the air conditioned house I actually prolong their life and have a better chance to appreciate their beauty up close.

So on Thursday last week I went out with the secateurs and came across these two flowers of rosa 'Bewitched'. All I needed to do is putting them in a simple glass vase and place them on the mantle of our fireplace and they brightened up my day.

The blooms of 'Bewitched' are ideal for cutting, if you like the classic Hybird Tea rose flower form.

Almost each bloom of this rose comes out perfectly and has the great damask fragrance, that I love so much.

A day later on Friday, the roses looked like this. They were so much more open and had reached the perfect stage. I was surprised how fast they unfolded even in the air conditioned house, but we don't turn up the air condition very high, so our house does get warm.

Rosa 'Bewitched' has a lovely shade of clear pink, that is not garish in any way, just soft and feminine...

...and very elegant blooms.

I got such a ridiculous amount of joy out of these two roses, that I had to share them with you. They are still sitting on the mantle today, but are fading beauties by now. Considering the pleasure that they brought me, I intend to change my attitude and cut some roses for indoors more often.

Talking about this, it reminds me that Cathy from the blog Rambling in the Garden each week on Monday encourages people to go out into their gardens and cut some flowers for the house. My roses are cut last week Thursday, but I hope she and the other participants of this meme don't mind. Because of my work I am never able to cut flowers, photograph and do a blog post about them within a day. So today I take my chances and will take part in this meme for the first time.

I am off now to Cathy's blog to see what she has in her vase today and also admire the creations of the other participants of this meme. Would you like to follow me? Please click on the link above or below this post.

Wishing my American readers a happy 4th of July!

See you in the Garden!

Christina

I am linking to

In a Vase on Monday - Rambling in the Garden
Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

As promised, today I will show you more photos of the three rescue Doberman puppies, that we took in on April, 24th this year. On the pictures published today they are about five week old and at that age they seem to grew visibly every day.

After play they often liked to huddle up with each other in their little den, a plastic box padded with towels, for warmth and comfort. On a whim at dinner with a friend we had given them their puppy names. So from the left to the right you see Lily, Princess and Elsa. The two black sisters looked so similar that we had a hard time telling them apart at that point. We solved this problem by putting little collars in different colors on them. Here you see Princess showing off her red one with white mini paw prints.

Even though all puppies were terrible cute, Elsa had the little "special something".

The black ones, Lily and Princess, were much stronger than Elsa and bullied her at times badly, which was not always fun to watch. They even didn't seem to mind teaming up against her. Doberman puppies can be so incredible rough with each other.

But there were many peaceful (means mainly sleepy) moments as well. But the visible scratch on Elsa's head tells about the other times.

Lily in play mode.

Princess and Lily having a go at each other.

Lily looking mischievously: "Mom, all these bones are mine."

Lily crashed after play.

Lily, deep asleep at one moment...

... and ready to go again in the next.

Drop dead tired sisters, Elsa can hardly keep her eyes open.

Because at that time Lily was such a rascal we got her a black collar with skulls and cross bones on it. At that age we had the puppies wearing the collars only every second day to be easy on their skin. That is why you always see only one puppy with a collar in all the photos where we captured all three of them together.

The pups ate like nothing else. At that age they got their puppy gruel five times within 24 hours. That meant feeding them about every five hours, day and night, because they were still so little without a mom providing a constant food source when they were hungry.

And of course shortly after they had been fed they needed to pee and poop. It is still unbelievable to me how often and how much these little puppies had to go potty, which required constant clean up.

You can imagine that was a quite intense time for my husband and I. It was equally wonderful as it was tiring. The constant sleep deprivation was the hardest for us. It didn't took long and it became clear to us that we needed help to raise them, otherwise it would have been impossible to keep doing our professional jobs.

It was really touching how eagerly they were seeking physical contact with us, I guess because my husband and I became a substitute for their mom.

Here you can see how hard the two black ones were to tell apart. That only goes for their looks, though. Temperament-wise, they were very different even at that young age.

Look at these cute paws and and nails!

In the meantime we tried to make sure to not neglect our two and a half year old red Dobie boy Skylar. While I took care of the puppies my husband went with him to the beach as often as possible. On this photo he is waiting impatiently for the tennis ball to be thrown, again.

Skylar wading through the cool water proudly carrying his tennis ball in his mouth.

Back to the puppies: They always fell asleep in the cutest positions.

Line-up of all three: A curious looking Elsa, a skeptical looking Princess and Lily in the back sound asleep.

Very typical for Princess, after being skeptical for a moment, she gets curious and comes over to investigate.

Cute, but at that time skinny and weak Elsa. We found out what most likely the cause for this was: She was full of roundworms! The backyard breeder told Susan Kelber, the woman, who initially rescued the puppies from him, that he had de-wormed them. But Susan was skeptical and decided to de-worm them herself just to be sure and we repeated the procedure 14 days later. Under our care alone at least six big nasty roundworms came out of Elsa's body! No wonder that the parasites limited her ability to take up nutrients. Things really got better from there and she started to catch up with the weight of her sisters. In the beginning we were really worried about Elsa, so you can imagine how relieved and thankful we were.

Cute...

...and cuter!

I always found that Elsa was the one with the most expressive features.

Gosh those eyes,...

...but she knew too, like her sisters, how to put her baby canines to good use. After all they are Doberman girls!

A sleeping Princess.

Elsa feeling safe and content in daddy's arm.

At the age of eight and nine weeks Elsa and Princess got adopted. Both went to good homes and Elsa has an adult Dobie brother and Princess an adult Dobie sister to keep them company in their new life.

We kept Lily for ourselves, since we were looking for a second Dobie for us and a companion for our Doberman boy Skylar for a long time.

Hope you enjoyed my second post about the rescue Dobie litter! If you have missed the first one please click here and it will take you there. I will continue to post about the rescue puppies and show you how they grew and matured.

As always thanks for stopping by! I also would like to welcome my new followers, I am very happy that you have decided to read my posts on a regular basis!

Warm regards,

Christina

I am linking to

Rose Garden Malevik

Because of the three rescue Doberman puppies (if you have missed the two posts about them and would like to take a look, please click here and here) that we took in on April 24th, my garden was greatly neglected from that day on. But even though I love my garden dogs come before plants in our house, so I have made my peace with that.

The one puppy from the litter that we adopted, still keeps me very busy, since at that young age they need a lot of time and attention, but slowly I am starting to work in the garden, again. It feels like I have to care for each plant individually and nurture it back to health and beauty. That we are in the middle of the summer, which is very hot here, is also not exactly helping.

But each time I am out in the garden doing a little something I feel happiness welling up in my heart. It is so wonderful to be able to get my hands dirty, again! Here are some photos from my garden taken in July.

The plant that is my absolute favorite this summer, besides the roses of course, is 'Verbena bonariensis'. I tried to shoot a close-up of the delicate flowers in the photo above.

Even though I see this plant all the time on blogs now, the first time I consciously noticed it, was at HORTVS, Peter Jankes' garden in Germany that I visited last year. I immediately fell in love and when I was back in California, I tried to source it here.

And I was lucky! I found three plants for a reasonable price at Home Depot. I planted them in front yard, but one died immediately, the second barely escaped death and the third one also struggled to survive. Almost a year later though, one has become a wonderful big plant and the second survivor has grown into a very decent specimen as well.

In the photo above you see 'Verbena bonariensis' right behind the Pygmy Date Palm in the middle of the picture. It is about six feet tall, a very light and airy plant. It blooms for a very long time, attracts plenty of bees and other pollinators.

It doesn't take up much space itself, but adds needed height to my very small front yard. It mixes nicely with other plants and weaves through them, without casting too much shade or taking up too much room. Once it is established it has proven itself to be a wonderful addition to my garden and I intend to get more plants of it. The difficulty for me has been to get it going. But the moment the plant had accomplished that, it has been a pure delight. I simply love, love, love this plant!

'Verbena Bonariensis' has been a real challenge to photograph for me and my images don't do it justice, but trust me it is a very beautiful plant!

Another plant that surprised me positively this summer is stachys monieri 'Hummelo'. The leaves have a wonderful, fresh, light green color, that is so well received by the soul in the heat and drought that we have here during the summer months. I have three plants and non of them has bloomed, yet though. I wonder if this will still come?

My roses are all in desperate need of fertilizer. Roses are heavy feeders and without regular food they are just not able to bloom well in my garden. I started my second serving of fertilizer with 'Bewitched', which obviously doesn't look that great right now, but has given me already the most beautiful cut flowers. I featured two blooms that I brought indoors recently in a post, if you are curious what they looked like, just click on the link.

I enthusiastically bought the dahlia 'Thomas Edison', I believe in early spring, but never got around to plant it. Recently when I searched the garage for it to throw it away, because I thought the tubers were dead, I was very surprised that they had sprouted at least three green tips, which looked pretty much alive.

Even though July is totally the wrong time to plant a dahlia, I thought that they deserve a chance to survive and decided to pot them up. When I unpacked the tubers they looked like this.

I potted them up in five gallon containers and just watered them lightly in. I had read that you should be very easy on the water until the dahlias have started to actively grow, because otherwise the tubers will rot.

'Thomas Edison' looks like a very beautiful dahlia. Is someone of you growing this particular dahlia? Is it as pretty as the photo indicates? And, do you think I have any chance to see some flowers this year even though I potted it up so late?

My reliable salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' dazzles me like each year with its wonderful blue color. Bees appreciate it very much, too.

Even though a lot of other plants have shut down, because of the summer heat, most of my roses are continuing to bloom and add lots of color to the garden. One more reason why I love them so much! Here you see an unfolding bloom of 'The Prince', a David Austin rose with an incredible strong and pleasant fragrance.

This is what the bloom looked like when fully open.

'The Prince' had a nice flush in July. In the background of the rose you see the former mentioned second specimen of 'Verbena bonariensis'.

I love this shot of 'The Prince'!

But unfortunately I am not the only one who likes this rose. This huge grasshopper munches on its rose petals. Aaargh...

It was really a humongous insect and even though it has a right to live too, I am not a fan!

I hope that I will find the time to blog more regularly in the future. I really do miss it! Unfortunately I also don't get around as much to read all my favorite blogs and leave comments. Please bare with me, things will get better as the puppy grows...

See you in the garden!

Christina

'Gardens Now and Then' Spring Garden Tour 2015: Cozy Casita - I, The Front Yard

End of Month View - Front Yard Side Bed

January Roses

Skylar, the Doberman: The Big Shake

Green Cymbidium Orchids And a Vintage Creamer

End of Month View February - Front Yard Side Bed

Early Spring In The Front Yard

February Roses

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - March 2016

Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise VI

The Most Exciting Garden Time of the Year!

End of Month View March - Front Yard Side Bed

March Roses

Three Little Rescue Doberman Puppies!

The Beautiful Village of Blockley in the Cotswolds, England I

English Afternoon Tea in Bradford on Avon, England

Nafford House, A Lovely Private Garden In Worchestershire, England I

Bringing The Roses In

More From The Rescue Doberman Puppies

And What About My Own Garden?