Early Summer in Denmark

We visited my wife's mother in Sverdrup yesterday, and I had the opportunity to pick some tools of her late husband's, and, among other things, I was lucky to be able to bring home an electric chainsaw, very useful for a job I had to do in the garden today.

I had to cut down a large rose bush, which had toppled over across the driveway to the back yard when we had some high winds this spring - and the chainsaw was a welcome help in this!

I still need to trim it a bit with branch cutter, but the job is well done

I used the offcuts to cast a Wall of Brambles, and I expect the Mana drawn form our more than 4000 sq.m. garden to be sufficient upkeep.

Later today, I cleared the north and east edge of the veggie garden and rolled out some weed control fabric.

It has proven too difficult to keep all kinds of weeds (especially goutweed and grass) from spreading into the garden, so I have decided to border it with this fabric on three sides (we already covered the ground under the blueberry bushes last year).

Lea procured the stones for keeping the weed control fabric in place - luckily we have a lot of stones on the slope behind the buildings.

I am planning to tidy up the outdoor fireplace behind the house this week, as the summer seems to have arrived for good, and it is time to get the Oseberg pan working again.

I also have to remove some of the stuff in the actual fireplace, as it will be hazardous to set fire to that pile of crap. Some of it can be added to the barrier I am building among the trees in the back yard, to prevent dog walkers and playing kids straying onto the lawn.

The picture taken out there today better shows the blue Me-nots than the one I took a week ago or so. I shall be very careful, not to mow the area before they have shed their seeds, as I want them to thrive and multiply, and spread even more.

Springtime in the Garden

The sun has been shining and temperatures rising over this past weekend, so I have not been indoors stooped over miniatures all the time.

Our early potatoes are sprouting nicely, and it is soon time to earth them up, as a lot of weeds are also benefiting from the weather.

Around our fireplace, a lot of me-toos have been spreading over the last couple of years, and I refrain from mowing the area where they grow, allowing them to develop seeds and spread even further.

I took the photos at a bad time, as the sunlight was reflected by the petals, so the delicate blue colour does not show, but i can assure you, it is a lovely sight!

I shall make some other photos of them one of the next days.

Our tulip tree is also in full bloom - as is the sorry remnants of our japanese cherry, which I have not taken a picture of, yet - I need to find an angle that lets it look nice, and the light came form the wrong direction this evening.

The Lily and Flower Bed, The Beginnings

I was not aware that I had not posted these pics before, but this is how the lily and flower beds beneath the veggie garden were created last summer.

The outer bed is the one I am going to expand out to the tree at the right edge of the second photo, because my wife planted flowers all the wa out the the edge, notr leaving place for lining with the boulders.

This project is on hold, while I make the re-arrangements in the front yard, but shall be finished later this summer!

The Lily and Flower Bed, Take Two

Last year, I readied a patch for my wife to plant lilies and other flowers, partly for decoration purposes, partly to have plenty of flowers to pick and put in vases inside.

It was my intention to line the bed with boulders, but before I could do so, my wife had filled the bed with flowers, without leaving the 15-20 cm along the edge necessary for placing the boulders.

I have now decided to extend the patch out to the tree (the one to the left above that I have placed some of the boulders around on a temporary basis), and then place the boulders before anything gets planted.

I could not simply clear another 15-20 cm along the edge for placing the boulders, as it would not leave sufficient space between the tree and the boulders for my lawnmower to pass,

More Work Done in the Garden,

The last part of the rose bed I started creating last autumn was prepared yesterday, and my wife moved a lot of the remaining roses from the other part of the garden to it today.

Also, in the middle of the lawn where our flagpole used to sit (it broke in a storm a couple of years ago), I created another bed for roses. The big, square concrete block in the ground is still there; we shall need a powered breaker hammer to remove that, but roses could be planted around it.

Combined with some lawn-mowing, this work took me most of the afternoon (I slept to about 11 a.m.), so I did not get to do much work on my hobby projects, but as has been reported in another post, I did manage to assemble a couple of Xenomorphs for my 15mm GoB T'lekkan proxy army.

The girls played croquet in the background, and later almost killed each other over it.

Took some yelling and reprimanding to restore peace, but now at least Lea is sleeping tightly (Anna is probably devouring another book, although it is long past her sleeping time).