Looking back at my notes, I see that the first crocus bloomed on 20 Feb in 2013, always the first blooms in our garden. The fruit trees were pruned and spray with dormant oil in the first week of March and I cut back the masses of periwinkle, of which I have far too much!
The Cherry Dogwood (Cornus mas) started blooming on 23 March and I have heard of some people here in Europe using the Dogwood bloom as a sign to start pruning their roses. I have always waited for the Forsythia, which is usually not that far behind.
By mid-April, it looked as though spring had well and truly arrived! The roses had been pruned and the lawn fertilized after the second mowing ....
And then this …..
Very heavy wet snow on 20 April which caused quite a bit of damage to trees – lots of broken branches that just couldn’t take the weight – but it was all gone two days later.
The last weeks of April were busy. We scarified, top-dressed and reseeded the lawn. I sowed cutting lettuce, beans, carrots, radishes, romaine lettuce, pumpkin and started some potatoes. To add some colour to the garden, I sowed poppies, nasturtiums, calendula and dahlia seeds which I had collected the previous year and planted the dahlia bulbs which had been stored over winter.
In May we decided to install a robot mower. The grass cuttings were just too much for the compost pile and the cost of getting rid of garden refuse here is just ridiculous! The mower was installed in the bottom section of garden and from then on in our lawn cuttings were reduced by half.
The garden looked great in June.
The building on the neighbouring properties had progressed to roof height and our foresight in growing the ivy as a screen had paid off. The only problem was that they had dug down so far to build that our border was no longer secure. The developer had assured us the matter would be attended to.
The rose canes grafted the season before had bloomed. However, in my haste to see the blooms, I had made a typical beginner error of not pinching off the first buds so I landed up with single canes, each with one bloom. I had grafted two different roses onto one cane.
My interest in propagating roses continued. On June 17 I bought a bunch on NOID florist roses for my second attempt at grafting on to the root stock canes that I had staked. And it worked. By the end of September I was able to cut 6 blooms from the grafts for my own little bouquet.
Original bouquet .................................. Blooms from 2 grafts
My first attempts at hybridizing roses were done in June 2013. I selected Deborah (aka Playrose) and Compassion as hip parents and used Arthur Bell and Westerland as pollen parents. The anticipation of seeing if the crosses would take was almost unbearable but a couple of weeks later the hips started forming and I knew that they were successful.
Around the end of July, beginning of August is typically the hottest time of the year for us and 2013 was no different. The lawn was patchy due to the lack of water and the odd thunder shower just wasn’t enough. After one particular storm, I discovered our apple tree lying on the ground. We had six fruit trees evenly spaced along the back border. Losing the apple tree was not a tragedy but now the spacing was all wrong. Quick decision to remedy that was the removal of the cherry tree which hadn’t born fruit in all of the years we had been here. My little red pick-up proved its worth once again.
Our main project in August was laying the edging around all the beds in the bottom garden because the ‘bot-mower’ didn’t get to the edge. I think it actually looked pretty snazzy afterwards.
Bad news in September!! I discovered the boxwood caterpillar in our garden!! It was actually rather funny. During my morning stroll around the garden, a Sunday morning (Sep 1), I noticed a boxwood with a lot of leaves that had been eaten by something. On closer inspection I discovered one bright green caterpillar with a black head and a whole lot of pupae. My solution: suck them all off with the vacuum cleaner. I wonder what my neighbours thought, if any of them saw me vacuuming my plants but it worked. The boxwood caterpillar has become a real problem in Europe with first reports in Switzerland in 2008 so I suppose I was lucky that they only showed up in 2013. Their numbers have increased and although I continue to spray with products containing ‘Bacillus thuringiensis’ the results are limited if your neighbours don’t do the same. A never-ending battle! Slowly but surely, I am getting rid of my boxwood. Such a pity!!!
As I recall, the roses in our garden totalled 23 in September 2013. As my fascination of roses continued to grow, I decided that it was time for more and placed my first ever on-line plant order with a grower in Germany for 22 bare root roses. They arrived in November and after a night of soaking were planted into the prepared spaces in the raised beds on the roof. 22 good reasons to look forward to the coming year!!
And there it was again, the end of yet another SunnyValley season, not exactly in a nutshell but almost.
Do you also have garden years that stand out in your memory?
2012 was one of them for me! It started out ok but then in February we experienced one of the coldest periods in a long time!
Not much snow but temperatures around -16C during the first three weeks.
Really, really cold for this part of the world! The lowest we measured was -19C!
Even when it’s so cold, I find getting out on a nice sunny day, bundled up in my warmest winter coat, camera in hand and DH (reluctantly) in tow, is great and very invigorating!
The gardening season 2012 started off in March when we trimmed our maple. It wasn’t that big but was starting to give a bit too much shade for my liking. An added bonus was there would be less leaves to rake come autumn. The help of DD and her partner, with tractor to cart away the branches, was highly appreciated.
Another memorable event for me in March of 2012 was the acquisition of my ‘little red pick-up’!!
I got quite a few laughs from neighbors and colleges at work but boy did it come in handy with the garden!! Of course it was in need of much attention which it got in October when my folks came to visit. Kept my dad busy for almost the entire three weeks of their visit and the results speak for themselves. ‘Bright and Shiny’ almost like new!!!
By the end of March spring had arrived in earnest. The first blooms of the season were out, the first seedlings had been planted in the veg-patch, the fruit trees had been pruned and the lawnmower already in use twice weekly.
DH started a project of his own in April: The grill or as we South Africans say the ‘braai’ area. I must admit that it definitely required attention. The previous owners had obviously not water-proofed the wall before they back-filled. So even after the coat of paint in 2009 it looked terrible again. I only have myself to blame for not using a sealer before I painted. He also wanted to build in the gas grill. And so it started …. and kept him busy on and off until the end of August.
Before, during and after
Note: the cement mixer has since been modified into a compost sifter!
We got someone in to do the stainless steel covering on the top of the walls but that was later.
The lush green of a garden in May is always a delight and whatever’s blooming is an extra bonus!
Helianthemum - Columbine - Iris ‘Tatiana’
June was busy according to my diary but, for whatever reason I didn’t take any photos. In July, however...
I mentioned at the beginning of this post that 2012 was a year to remember.
2012 was the year I truly discovered roses!
The sad result of the extreme winter temps in February was the loss of 5 roses! One of which was a yellow standard NOID which was here when we bought the house. All that remained was long lush green rootstock canes!
It got me thinking! The internet is a wonderful invention which gives you immediate access to articles on any imaginable subject. I started reading up on rose propagation and rose grafting!
I did my first rose grafts in early September 2012. Within 3 weeks I had callusing and the bud eyes were still green which was very promising. When November arrived I wrapped them up really well and hoped for the best. Spring 2013 seemed a long way off .....
The garden in August then September and wow!! snow in October
Snow at the end October is very unusual and it was only a week of cold weather. We didn’t see any again until the end of November which gave us enough time to clean up the garden and put the season 2012 to bed.
I used the winter months to continue reading up on all aspects of roses. I was absolutely fascinated and had big plans for the next year!
So glad I do because my diary and chronological photo filing system are making looking back at the progress of our garden over the past few years so much easier!
In April 2011, water marks appeared on the ceiling of the garage which is below our terrace! So, not even two years after replanting the terrace troughs, everything had to be removed so that we could repair yet another leaky roof.
Terrace trough in 2009 then during and after repair
The roof was completed in three weeks flat but the terrace was then devoid of all plants. That was remedied with a couple of pots and some new garden furniture.
We started the garden year 2011 off with small jobs. Spreading 3cubics of compost and placing some stepping stones up to the path on the west slope.
The bottom lawn got scarified, reseeded, fertilized and top-soiled.
The top lawn sown at the end of the previous season looked great, the veggies in the raised beds on the roof were growing like crazy, we harvested our first strawberries.....
and the west slope plantings were growing nicely and starting to cover.
By the end of May 2011, after 4 years, we could finally say that we had sort of ‘arrived’ at where we wanted to be!
No more big landscaping projects planned – just the normal gardening activities and buying a plant here and there.
In June of 2011, we got word that the two empty properties on our east border were going to be developed. Soon we would have two-legged instead of four-legged neighbours. In preparation we added a trellis to our side terrace wall which would provide a bit of privacy when the ivy covered it.
July arrived and the veggies were flourishing albeit some were a bit weird but a carrot is a carrot and tastes the same no matter what it looks like.
August saw the garden in full colour. The lighter patches in the lawn were a bit irritating but any actions in that regard were put off until the following year.
The rest of the year was uneventful and as it happens every year, the days got shorter and the leaves started falling – winter was approaching and another season was over.
Taking a timeout here to share some photos from our visit with my folks in Johannesburg, South Africa during the Christmas break.
My parents live in a retirement village on the outskirts of Johannesburg – an absolute paradise!
Some pictures of their garden...
The retirement village is actually a bird sanctuary and the two ponds/dams attract many different birds ..
Malachite kingfisher .......................... ... White-thoated swallow (baby) ........................ Reed Cormorant
Red Bishop ...................................... ..... Blacksmith Plover .............................................Red-knobbed coot
Southern masked weaver
It was only a short visit mainly to see the folks but who can go to Africa and not visit a game reserve?
The Pilanesberg games reserve is north-west of Johannesburg not far from the ‘well-known’ Sun City and is only a 2 hours drive.
Although we didn't see all of the boasted Big-Five, we did see a lot ...
Black-chested Snake Eagle ..................... Hartebeest
Giraffe
Zebra
White Rhino
African Bush
Hippo ........................................................Impala...............................................Waterbuck
Kudu .........................................................Wildebeest .......................................Steenbok
Elephant
We had a great time and really enjoyed getting away to the warmer weather in Johannesburg, around 36C. It was actually quite a shock arriving back in Zürich to -10C and snow ....
One consolation about winter is that it will give me time to carry on with the story about the progress of our garden over the years - next post will be 2011!
slow progress is better than no progress
By April 2010 we had managed to move a couple of the retaining wall stones from the driveway to their final resting place.
all work an no play makes Jack a dull boy
Or in my case a dull girl – my new toy! Boy was our lawn going to be something to look at! We had to import the reel mower from England because they are not available here in Switzerland.
Things were coming along nicely! We hadn’t had much time to continue the terracing on the west side of the property but the garden was growing and filling out.
it is never plain sailing
And then in June, the bad news! Leaking roof! Our house is built into the slope and the top floor has a green/planted roof. It was a terrible mess when we bought the place in 2007 – covered in bind-weed which took nearly all of the three years we had been in the house to eradicate.
We hadn’t really gotten round to doing anything except plant some squash and pumpkin so having to have it repaired was actually a blessing in disguise which forced us to make some decisions.
All the soil removed from the roof and new drainage behind the back walls of the house and roof re-done.
It was slow going but it gave us time to enjoy the garden through July while we came up with a plan about what to do with the roof.
August arrived and our plan was................raised beds!!!
After the beds and paving were in place, we sorted out the soil levels and laid a row of paving along the border to our neighbour.
It was quite a job levelling out that amount of soil ourselves but with the help of a long plank we accomplished it in the end. We rolled the soil and sowed the lawn seeds on 26 August 2010!
Now I had a temporary spot for the plants that a neighbour had promised. The final touch to the raised beds was the overlapping u-channel to help combat the umpteen slugs. The sectioned off part was intended for raspberries notorious for suckering – time would tell!
Then in September, we finally admitted defeat!
The palettes of retaining wall stones had been sitting in the driveway for over a year – a constant reminder what still had to be done on the west slope!!! The after much consideration – calculating the time it would take to do the terracing of the slope ourselves and what it would cost to have it done – weighing the pros and cons! It was clear! We needed help!
A grader and three men accomplished what would have take us an iternity in under two weeks and our headache was finally out of the driveway!
Having the job done so quickly meant that we could still get some plants before winter arrived.
October 2010
And then, in a flash, it was December and the 2010 was over!
