November Garden

The garden season comes to an end but there's still some beauty to discover. The reduced vegetation makes you notice the little things … I particularly love the various forms of seedpods and plant silhouettes that provide good inspiration for floral/ nature designs.

The spikey Lion's Tail stems look like spines, and sometimes like strings of pearls.

Delicate Bluebeard Seedheads. I love their soft colours against the greys and greens of the roof.

 Dramatic silhouettes and shadows of wild Yarrow.

Last Hyssop blossoms and seed umbels.

Two sweet guys that guard over our rooftop garden :-)

Our garden dragon can spit fire and is the work of my potter friend Baerbel.

 

This little forest scene was a fun discovery on the roof!

 

 

For the head gardener and his feline assistant it's time to sit in the sun, read a bit and just relax …

End of Season!

Goodbye blue-green September!

We had some gorgeous late summer days in September, with lots of greens and blues everywhere … they made me feel a bit like living in a fairytale :-)

 

Now it looks like autumn is here …
But sorting through my sunny photographs I just can't help posting some more garden pics!

House and Garden at the beginning of September …

… and mid September. The Morning Glories are growing …

… and that's at the end of September!

I have been asked quite a few times if the plants might bring a lot of insects into the house? Amazingly (and fortunately!), that is not the case. Maybe it's just more attractive for them outside, with all the pollen of the many blossoms ;-) And maybe these chaps help too:

We have many of these, forming a kind of second veil in front of the morning glory curtain. I find them a bit spooky, but interesting to watch nevertheless. And their webs are just beautiful, like mini works of art! (So far I refuse to think about where they might retreat to when it gets really cold …)

Some more blue September blossoms …

The Bluebeard is always humming with bees.

A little Toad Lily.

… and other colours are there too:

Hibiscus …

… Clary …

and Brown Sunflowers.

Plus lots of green foliage that add to the jungle feeling:

Dwarf Tamarillos and Caiguas.

The Dwarf Tamarillo umbels form beautiful silhouettes against the afternoon sun.

 Now we are hoping for a mild October, we just want to enjoy all this a bit longer!

Wild August Garden

Thanks to the head gardener's efforts and to a summer sprinkled with rainy days we now have our own piece of jungle! And this year it's as lush as never before. My own under gardener contribution is not that big: mainly watering (lots) and listening to the head gardener's plans and ideas (lots too). And well, ok, taking photographs and admiring it all!

"Project Overgrowth" from mid July to mid August! A cloth woven by blue Morning Glories and Nasturtium.

The green curtain leads to an amazing atmosphere inside and gives good shade too. Here's the view through the bedroom windows … well what is left from the view that is!

The head gardener loves to introduce unusual and exotic plant species. Here are this year's new inhabitants:

Pepper Leaf, or Hoya Santa, a native plant of Mexico. Our black Dikkertje is a normal sized cat … it's just that these leaves are enormous!

And below there's Dwarf Tamarillo, from South America, with little orange fruits that taste very sweet but with a hint of bitter, a bit like Physalis.

Our little Elderflower Tree is in it's third year already and growing fast. This is the first summer that it has got fruits.

The Hyssop plants have established themselves very well. They are a favourite of the bees, so there's often a humming cloud of insects around them.

Brown Sunflowers just because (they are so beautiful!) and Salvia Officinalis, another fave plant for the bees.

As all our plants grow in pots on the rooftop, there's a lot of watering to do on hot summer days. The garden hoses are everywhere! Tripping over a garden hose is one of the most likely accidents over here …

Dikkertje loves to lounge near to the Cat Thyme.

Below is another traveller from far away: Tree Spinach is a native plant of Nepal and South-East Asia. It can be cooked and tastes similar to leaf spinach. The young leafs are fab for salads too.

With sunflower greetings :-) I hope you enjoyed this little garden tour!