Thanks a lot to Slottsträdgårdsmästaren for the chance to win tickets to the first garden fair of 2012 in Stockholm Rum & Trädgård! Now I'm looking very much forward to this garden fair. Last year it was a very inspiring fair.
January 19, 2012
WOW! I won two tickets for Rum & Trädgård fair!
Thanks a lot to Slottsträdgårdsmästaren for the chance to win tickets to the first garden fair of 2012 in Stockholm Rum & Trädgård! Now I'm looking very much forward to this garden fair. Last year it was a very inspiring fair.
January 12, 2012
Wild life in the garden...
...and around the garden is quite intensive. This beautiful female of cross spider Araneus diadematus lived on the window of our house last summer. She was almost 2.5 cm in size, really big and was catching wasps in her net.
Couple of weeks ago the municipality started to build a road close to us so the forest will be partially cut over. This forest is providing home for quite a lot of animals. Roe deers, hares, badger and foxes could be found here. Björn took very nice pictures of some of these animals when they were passing by our garden. Hopefully, all of them will survive deforestation and will stay around for long.
Roe deers are beautiful animals and I started to like them even more since we built a fence that keeps them away from our garden. They can't feed anymore on my tulips, coral bells and astilbes and don't spread ticks in the garden.
This fox likes to tease our neighbors dog by coming close to their fence and staying there for a while.
Every summer morning around 7:30 this hare used to pass by our garden. Here he is checking out our car on the parking.
January 1, 2012
Happy New Year!
Winter keeps the garden dormant, but new year has started and new gardening season 2012 is getting closer. What does gardener do during garden winter dormancy? Yes, planning and organizing. Last few weeks I was busy with updating the page with the catalog of my dahlia collection. And now it is up to date with photos from the past season. All varieties that have active links with their names were grown in my garden during past season 2011. Those that have not been linked yet are newcomers that I acquired recently for the coming season 2012. So far I received new varieties from 2 sources, from my Russian friend Nadezhda and from Austrian Peter's Dahlias. Here is a preview of these new acquisitions.
December 3, 2011
November weather
Passed November was unusually warm. I asked Björn to compare the temperature measurements made by our garden weather station in November 2010 and 2011. The difference is quite impressive. Here are the data for average, minimal and maximal temperatures compared:
| Average, °C | min, °C | max, °C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 2010 | 0.09 | -11.3 | 9.8 |
| November 2011 | 5.49 | -0.5 | 12.3 |
Today was +4°C, rainy and very windy, no winter signs yet. Such warm long autumn gives me hope for a mild winter and early spring. It's a lot to look forward in the garden and around...
November 26, 2011
What is still looking good in late November
No winter signs yet in the garden and some perennials still look fresh. Blue flowers are opening on evergreen periwinkle. For the first time in 3 years I see the flowering of the only Chrysanthemum that I have in my garden. It is a very late variety and in previous years it was freezing before opening flower buds. Can't say that it was worth to wait to see this flowers...
Coral bells look perfect. Lime Marmalade is the brightest. It's nicely contrasting with Crimson Curls growing next to it. Color of Marmalade turned greener than it was in early summer, but is still glowing. Sashay is not completely recovered after being partially eaten by roe-deer. I hope to see its full potential next year.
Newly planted Garden Phloxes are still green and slowely but, hopefully, surely are establishing in their new bed. Mulch of shredded leaves is protecting them from night frosts.
November 19, 2011
Storing dahlia tubers
It's late November and I finally finished preparing my dahlia tubers for winter storage. I had tubers from ~140 plants to dig, wash, dry, clean and divide this year. I dug them all back in the middle of October washed all dirt off. Here is the picture showing 1/3 of my tuber harvest right after washing.
Then tubers were kept in the outside storage until I was ready to divide them. I prefer to divide tubers in autumn. Divided tubers take much less storage space. Removing of stalks and old tubers significantly decreases rotting of divided tubers. And of course dividing of so many tubers takes time which is so precious in the Spring that you don't want to waste it on things that could be done earlier. With this mild autumn weather I was not in a hurry to bring them in the basement so it took about 3 weeks to make them ready for storage. In our outside shelter temperature still stays around 5°C which is perfect for tubers to stay fresh and firm.
How to divide tubers? First have a look at the tuber and find the place where new tubers are attached to the root crown that surrounds the stalk. On this tuber of 'Colorado Classic' there are 2 stalks visible with multiple tubers attached to each of them.
The stalks have to be removed. Red line shows where to cut to remove them. Yellow arrows are pointing at the visible buds at the crown of each tuber part. Each part of the divided tuber should contain a visible bud at the root crown. From this bud a whole new plant will develop and produce new root growth.
With one of the stalks removed there are more buds visible on other tuber parts. Red cross indicating the old mother tuber that has to be discarded.
Very often old mother tubers are getting rot inside of them. This rot can spread to the rest of the tuber.
Now the tuber can be cut in pieces with a sharp garden clipper.
As a result I got 12 tubers, which each will produce a plant of the same size as mother plant.
Size of tubers in dahlias depends on the variety. Some can be divided in 10-12 pieces some in 2-3 pieces only. Here is ~3/4 of my dahlia tuber harvest divided and waiting to be packed for storage. I store them in a sealed plastic bag with a bit of vermiculite or wooden shavings added to keep tubers dry. Bags are stored in Styrofoam boxes in the cool basement.
October 31, 2011
Last weekend in October
It's hard to believe but I'm done with planting in the garden for this year. On Sunday I planted last spring bulbs. For the first time I'm trying Iris reticulata, they should be early bloomers together with Chionodoxa forbesii and crocus followed by Anemone blanda and Мuscari armeniacum. Since we built a fence I finally could plant crocus, tulips and hyacinths without worrying for them to be eaten by roe deer. So I planted tulips 'Queen of the Night', I'm curios if they are really as dark as in pictures. My favourite spring bulbs are hyacinths. Yellow 'City of Haarlem', burgundy purple 'Woodstock' and dark violet blue 'Peter Stuyvesant' were planted together, we'll see if they fit each other.
From Germany we brought some new additions to my small collection of Garden Phlox. Last year I planted my first Phlox paniculata 'Bright Eyes' and it bloomed great. So I decided to get more phloxes. So for next summer I'm looking forward to see blooming of P. paniculata 'Tenor', 'Rainbow', 'Watermelon Punch', 'Tequila Sunrise', 'Strawberry Daiquiri', 'Piña Colada', 'Junior Dream', 'Pünktchen' and 'Uspech'.
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