Category: European gardens

Our garden in July

Cindy at enclos*ure5 Comments

How to convey the very, very discreet charm of our garden of rough grass and weeds?

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I often think of this other bit of German ground painted by Albrecht Dürer.

Yesterday, a repairman came over to fix the window/door behind my desk chair. It turned out to be fine; I just did not know how to operate it properly. (German windows are wonderful, but this one is a bit over-engineered.)  He pushed the handle and pulled the frame and said, “And now you can go out into the beautiful . . . looks out, slight pause. . . garden.”

You can read about the beginning of my “garden without (much) gardening” here.

The middle of the month brings Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day (the 15th) and Foliage Follow Up (the 16th). Please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens and Pam at Digging to see what’s blooming and leafing out in July.

You can scroll through larger versions of the photos above by clicking on ‘Continue reading’ below.

I grow in places
others can’t,

where wind is high
and water scant. . . .

I make my humble,
bladed bed.

And where there’s level ground,
I spread.

— Joyce Sidman, from “Grass“

Streifzug 2: blooming

Cindy at enclos*ure3 Comments
Yesterday evening about 7 p.m.
Yesterday evening about 7 p.m.

The cut-your-own sunflowers that I photographed last week are now blooming.

"Only paid-for flowers make friends." A sonnenblume is a sunflower.
“Only paid-for flowers make friends/joy.” A Sonnenblume is a sunflower.
The row of purple blooms has faded.
The row of purple blooms has faded.
Late summer sunflowers?  or maybe zinnias?
In the middle, late summer sunflowers?  or maybe zinnias?

(Streifzug means ‘foray,’ ‘ brief survey,’ or ‘ramble.’)

Like every flower, she has a little
theory, and what she thinks
is up. . . .

— Frank Steele, from “Sunflower“

Vintage landscape: Villa Doria Pamphili

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Italian villaVilla Doria-Pamphili and parterre in the Monteverde section of Rome, Italy, in the summer of 1925. Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Today, the 17th c. Villa Doria Pamphili is part of the largest landscaped public park in Rome.

Click the photo for a better view. I like the fountain at the bottom on the left.

Streifzug 1: sunflowers

Cindy at enclos*ure3 Comments

Streifzug means ‘foray,’ ‘ brief survey,’ or ‘ramble’ (if my online German/English dictionary does not deceive me).

Sunflowers.These photos are from yesterday’s ramble or, more specifically, bike ride.

"Only paid-for flowers make friends."The sign says, “Only paid-for flowers make friends*/joy.” Sonnenblumen are sunflowers. These are not quite open yet.

I will go back in a week or so to cut a few.
I will go back in a week or so to cut a few.

Blumen Selbt Schneiden or ‘cut your own flowers’ signs — with honor-system money boxes — are not uncommon sights alongside fields in the Stuttgart area. These long rows were beside a walking/biking/farm access path near our neighborhood.

(On the same ride, I also passed a house with a sidewalk shelf of already cut flowers in jars and a coin box.)

I don't know the name of these purple flowers.
I don’t know the name of these purple flowers.

The fields around the rows of cut-your-own flowers are filled with wheat, beans, corn, and grass for hay.

But the row was absolutely filled with bees.
But hundreds of bees were loving them.

Also, as you can see, our weather has much improved since Wednesday.  Temperatures are now well into the seventies.

*See the comments here about the translation.

 

Light-catcher

Cindy at enclos*ure4 Comments

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Right now — at midmorning in Stuttgart — it’s 59°F.  Our high today is predicted to be only 69°,with all-day clouds and intermittent rain.

It’s been this way since last week, and it looks like summer will not return until next Wednesday.

But yesterday about 5:30 p.m., I caught a few minutes of sun shining through my little arrangement of miniature roses, spirea, and wild strawberries.

An hour later, it was raining.