English Gardening

It has been  a while since I returned from the UK, but I still recall the few rainless hours that I spent in the hidden back corner of the garden, digging upthe weeds, creating beds for flowers and vegetables in the wet soil full of earthworms and smelling of foxes.

It was a very forgotten piece of garden with a bonfire spot, a shed and old flowerpots and not much else, but I was surprised to see how nice the soil was, already full of pleasant natural helpers : )



To me, it is alway great pleasure to put hands in the soil, pulling out weeds, planting the seedlings or sowing the seeds. Being literally "in touch" with nature, listening to birds chirping around me and seeing occasional squirrels chasing each other through the trees above my head is what makes me happy and charges me with energy.

The rhubarb crown I planted is marked and guarded by sticks, while the compost bin is guarded by a forgotten little hippo sculpture. I love the hippo :)

And of course, there are many snails and other creatures in a wet English garden like this. And even the shells of those that have already passed become shelters for younger ones of the same species. Nature is just full of little surprises like this.

Speaking of surprises, I also discovered a lot of forgotten bulb plants that were bought in flowerpots, then left to flower, then put away into the back garden and then... forgotten. Now in spring they started sprouting again, so I dug them all out and carefuly repotted them into five different pots and put onto the terrace to see what will become of them. I enjoyed this job. While some were clearly daffodills, I was unable to identify others, so they still remain mystery plants, until they flower and we will finally know what they are.

To be honest, I have completely forgotten about them, until I received an email with the photgraph above. Now we certainly know that at least some of the bulbs are Muscari sp.(also called grape hyacinth). I find the strong blue colours of the flowers very unusual among spring bulb plants, so I really hope there are more of these and I cannot wait to see more photographs of them soon :)