I have fallen for the jasmine one more time

Some 3 winters ago I forgotten to keep track with autumn frost dates. When I came back from a few days away, I found the 4 years old Jasmine plant had turned into ice sticks. The plant's pot had been empty for a while. Since no other plants took over the pot, I replanted a new jasmine in it.

This is a warm climate plant. Its doing extremely well in the heat at the moment, releasing fantastic fragrance from the clusters of tiny white flowers but its real home is in the conservatory. For 3 months a year, Jasmine get the chance to be outside enjoying the outdoor fresh air on the patio of the moonlight garden.

This jasmine thrive well all over the place in the mediterranean part of Europe. Seeing it in bloom in my garden, even though not so grand in stature because it is living in a pot on wheels, the wafting fragrance reminded me of all the romantic warm places down south and the warm asian countries.

While visiting India, I remembered seeing a lot of jasmine blooms stringed together with fine thread where temple devotees put it around the neck of the temple deities. It is probably the same one I saw during an Indian wedding.

I guess I'm incurable. What is a garden full of fragrant roses without the wafting sweet smell of jasmine to make the evening double heady?

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Savaged Garden

Gardening as a hobby, especially in my case with zero farming background, means I depend a lot on my childhood memories growing up observing my parents and grandparents tending their backyard garden, and recalling all the chores and the workflow of things the way they managed their gardens. Those days, there was no such thing as online shopping or glossy catalogue, so they usually start their plants from seeds or air layering, cuttings and other propagation techniques which was quite fun for a kid to try, sticking a twig into the soil, patiently wait and see if it takes root or not. It was a lot like playing in the sand box and trying to grow sun flowers in it.

When I became a teenager, I was not very much into gardening. I always like flowers but at that time, I had other interests, was very active in school's extra curiculum activities, and burying myself with music scores over the weekend. Those musical notes did looked like sprouting seeds though. I didn't go for summer holidays with my parents because every summer break I was involved with students' exchange programme from all over the world, which means which ever school around the world I was sent to for the 3 months, my mother always asked that I bring home some plant seeds and even brought home a tiny lemon grass from Peru. Mum was ecstatic and that lemon grass was growing in her living room throughout winter months! Then I started college and off to the university and during those years, whenever my parents went on their short break or holidays, they left me in charge to water their garden and pot plants. That was quite a task, because my mother collects mediterranean plants, and whenever she comes back from the warm south, without fail, there are cuttings of all kinds of oleander and other plants and all of them are thirsty plants in summer but need special winter care which usually dies off during winter months because the air indoor is too dry.

While my mother collects flowering plants, my father was collecting trees! All kinds of trees, from fruiting trees to ornamental trees that after some years, their house disappeared amongst the amazon like woodland. There's a saying; "Teach your children by examples" and I think my parents did exactly just that. Today, I see myself becoming more and more like my parents, collecting plants from all over the place and my kitchen backyard is now a part-time nursery because the green house is running out of space.

It felt as if spring just started a few weeks ago but BANG! suddenly summer is here. Today was 27 degrees celcius but the moment the sun goes down, the quicksilver dived down to the 9 degrees. I haven't even finish digging up planting holes for the bareroots which arrived last February and some of them are already blooming in their temporary pots. Time move so fast, and I have too much things to do and the garden is now lining up the top 10 priorities. The tasks are almost endless.

Blaze Superior, which I started as a cutting taken from mum's garden, is blooming for the first time this year.Another one I rooted as a cutting, taken from my mother's garden many years ago, is also an early blooming rose. My mother can't remember what rose this is, so that kind of left me in the dark over the identity of this rose. It could be Clair Matin but it can also be something else. It has gotten quite tall. All I can afford is a side profile. Will try to climb the nearby tree for a full face picture. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, a 3 metre tall rugosa rose, excellent for hedging because he is very thorny. Exquisite fragrance. Etoile de Holland, seen from my dining window. A typical tea rose that nods but the fragrance waft in the air, and when I open the window, the house smells wonderful. Best use for arch or pergola where the beauty can be enjoyed by looking up. I probably will move this rose again for the pergola late autumn this year but I'm not sure how I'm going to do that without shortening its canes. Its already 3 metres tall. Once matured, it can reach 6 metres tall. Butterflies are very dreamily pretty floating in the air, but their larvae are very destructive.



Even though gardening is just a hobby, to be very frank, at times I do feel overwhelmed by the list of things to do in the garden especially due to my climate with very short growing season.

I don't really have much time to walk around the garden and hand pick those horrible pest, not especially when I have too many plants. I cannot control nature and since I understand the fact that when I started the garden, I am putting, adding and inviting lives into it. If the bad guys thrive and damages can be seen, that means the good guys are also around but they probably over ate and too chubby to move faster and catch up with the baddie destructive larvae that don't sleep and ate the garden around the clock.

I also notice, at certain time of year, depending on weather phenomena, while their predators are still incubating or sleeping, certain critters, bugs and insects became extremely active very early in spring, especially when the temperature is warmer than usual and their population tend to explode in numbers because these insects lay dozens of eggs after each mating season .

There are options lining up the garden stores with array of portions for quick and fast working ingredients to combat the garden invaders, but I am most reluctant to employ these products. It maybe the easiest solution but in long run poisonous application of insecticide can lead to an imbalance of the garden’s natural bio diversity.Tipping the balance of the nature will lead to an irreparable long term damage to the environment in general. Anything that destroy the irritating bugs, will also destroy the good predator bugs and other wild life in the garden environment.Last winter was a hard one and this spring, and the garden allies predators that eat up those pesty bugs showed up very late.

This metallic predator bug above and the silver gold bug below are good allies but if only these bugs can multiply like rabbits and eat up all those nuisance pests.

The leaf roller bug is getting more and more bolder this year. I have so many rose bushes that look like they are rolling up tobacco with their leaves. That snail on the rose cane is probably trying to hide from the snail eating birds. Interestingly, they cleverly manouver between those thorns....

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Where there's a will, there's a way

Finally, after 2 years I am delighted to see the blooms of this rhododendron Yakushimanum Anuschka for the first time. The flower heads reminded me of the pink candy floss from the funfair and they fade to a lighter pink when the petals unfurled.

I wish I could plant more rhododendron for the shady part of the garden, especially at the edge of the woodland clearing where I'm creating a new outdoor garden room surrounded by tall trees, unfortunately the soil test in that area revealed pH 5.6 and not acidic enough to fill in the requirement of rhododendron. Clematis on the other hand thrive in this kind of soil pH reading as sweet soil suits them really well.
I really like this Rhododendron Yakushimanum family. The blooms are big, showy and can bee seen from far away. The colour of Anuschka really shine on grey days during early spring. This one really cheered up shady corner behind my kitchen which receive only 2 hours of direct sunlight in late afternoon.
Like Hydrangea, pieris and many other plants which requires planting medium higher than pH7, changing and amending the garden pH reading is going to be a continuous effort because there are natural lime rock up above the garden slope which probably leaches the calcium into the garden soil.


They are shallow rooted plants and they like peaty well drain but damp acidic soil. At the moment, this Anuschka is growing in a big planter with a special mix of soil for rhododendron but I'm going to try it anyway and plant it in the woodland by adding alot of humus into the ground until the area where its going to be planted feel spongy.

....if I don't try it, I'll never find out.

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Patron Saint of young seedling and flowers

Yesterday, 12th of May was the Holy Pankratius day. According to the Swiss folklore, Pankratius is the Patron Saint of the young seeds and flowers but I haven’t found any record which states that the Saint is a hobbyist gardener of horticulturist.

As I read further, I found out that St. Pankratius was born in 290 A.D and at the age of 14, he died of martyrhood under the Emperor Diocletian in Rome. So, I’ll let him rest in peace.

According to the local farmer’s almanac;
If it freezes on St. Pankratius day, the garden will be ruined but if it is a nice day on St. Pankratius, the wine (grapes) will be fine.

The weather wasn’t that great yesterday. Half of the day was dry but cloudy, cool,
and raining from midday onwards.
In pictures above and on the left, I thought the rain drops looked a lot like cut diamonds on the Ladies Mantle or Alchemilla Mollis leaves.

There was no freeze or frost last night, so my prediction this year will probably be the same like last year, with lots of rainy days, bindweeds and other unwanted weedy plants will be growing at the speed of light. There will be plenty of flowers with notorious roses ball expected throughout the seasons.

With the amount of rain falling down from the sky at the moment, the horrible dreadful yucky Iberian Slugs are back into motion.
There was a time I forgotten to sprinkle some wood ash around the Iris patch, within days these slugs wiped out the entire row of iris down to the little stumps.

They even eat roses blooms from the low growing ground cover bushes.

This Arion lusitanicus Mabille (Stylomatophora: Arionidae) is very destructive to the garden plants.

Here you can see its already on the leaves of the rose bush. They are very clever at choosing the bushes with the least thorns to begin with.

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Iris - The eye of the garden

I have read several articles regarding Bearded Iris being high maintenance plants because they must be divided every so often to encourage blooming or if planted too deep in heavy clay soil, the rhizome will rot and so on and so on.

What those articles did not mention is that this plant is a favourite food for the slugs, which happen to over populate my garden because the birds don't like eating them compared to earth worms, garden spiders or whatever other insects.

......but I really like the flowers so much that I gave it a try anyway. Every autumn, as I divide the other perennials, I divided the Iris too. Let's call it fun chore, and yes, sometimes I found the rhizomes rotted after the winter months because I had accidently planted it a wee bit too deep and the winter snow added the insults by pushing down more soil on top of them. Garden casualty happened, but it is not a disaster. We live to learn, everyday....

As long as the soil is free draining and the rhizomes is half way exposed from ground level, and the exposed part of the rhizome is dry, they will be fine. This is one plant you don't need to dig the planting hole deeper than a few inches. A bit like planting cactus, the roots goes into the soil and the flesh part remain on top.

I find not only the flowers are beautiful, the shape of the leaves are also very interesting to provide some contrast to other plants whose leaves are generally rounded or oval shape.

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Spring first bloom

This is a new comer to the garden and the second Banksia rose I've collected so far. I wish I had planted it long ago because she is so simple yet so beautiful, even the overall leaf shapes are beautiful, and healthy looking. It took me so long to make up my mind partly because I wasn't sure if it is able to survive my cold alpine winter. I have never seen this rose grown locally too and it's not available here anyway. I had to get it from Italy, whose climate is ermm....mediterranean!

After years of reading about it and up to my chin with my own drool, I decided to give it a try. Worst comes to worst, I'll roll it in and out of the conservatory. Height of 9' 10" to 18' (300 to 550 cm). Width of 10' to 12' . (305 to 365 cm) I must be out of my mind, especially I've already got the other Banksia Alba that's already growing in the conservatory, but this Banksia Purezza is a hybrid with ability to withstand cold temperatures down to -17 to -20°C that is -5 to 0°F
That means, I am really pushing the limit of this rose, because my garden's location and elevation is exactly at that limit. So, I'm really keeping my finger, hands, toes and knees crossed for this rose this coming winter.
She is so beautiful, and the only one of all the Banksia that repeat bloom.

The first spring bud from Rosette Delizy was looking good until it fully opened.

Pests are my number one suspect which caused such a deformation. This is just one of those tiny disappointing thing I have to live with since I decided to garden without using chemicals. Organic gardening is very much dependent on bio diversity and at this time of year, the garden predators are still out numbered by the destructive pests.

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Rainy day roses

More first blooms opening up.....

Spring Magic, and the first drop of rain. It is also known as Frühlingszauber, is a Hybrid Spinosissima, documented as once bloomer but in my climate it repeats in autumn though not as much as the first flush.

Gertrude Jekyll first bloom showing side effects of yoyo temperatures which leads to serious proliferation

Rosette Delizy, looks like a very interesting coloration. This is from the bareroots which arrived in the garden 3 months ago.

oops...it's pouring.....

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