herb – Owlnature

Pictures yesterday and today

More peony flowers…

Follow the red petals! :

It was the peony flower that is the first peony flower who is dropping her petals this summer.

And we grow spinach from seeds in our garden. I made spinach soup. It’s delicious! 🙂 – Spinach, milk, some cream, a bit of butter, a bit of oat flour, a bit of salt.

Other herbs are growing from seeds with the basil in our garden, in the shelter of the house wall. There’s summer savory and rosemary, and then there’s some fourth herb – I can’t remember what it is… I must think about that a bit now… 🙂

We’ve now noticed that our grafted cherry tree has started to grow a branch on its own! High up there.

And a bit more roses in our rose garden… Rosa splendens in the pictures… the name of the rose is valamonruusu in Finnish.

And peony flowers again, because…

Bury your face in this – flower therapy. 🙂

By the lake Köyliönjärvi yesterday evening.

Love for the countryside. In the same place by the lake, where I left our car for the visit.

-Leena

More flowers, one new tree, a hedgehog…

July flowers… German iris is now flowering for the first time in our garden! We brought our German iris from Eastern Finland with us two years ago, my boyfriend’s mother gave it to us.

I read somewhere that when German iris is taken to a new spot it will flower again on the second year that it is on the new spot. And this indeed is exactly what happened to our German iris – it didn’t flower last year, it only had the green leaves. But now… and the colour of the flowers was a surprise to me – I remembered that they would be white… 🙂

Daylily, very short blooming, such a lovely scent… We’ve had many many daylilies flowering now in July, in the place where we put some of the leftovers in our garden… I’m not sure but I think that daylilies may be the ones that were growing already in the beginning of April there, at least these have been the only big flowers growing there this summer.

A bit of rose garden in the pictures above and below.

Rosa splendens, valamonruusu is the name of this rose in Finnish. The scent of roses…

And a cherry tree. We’ve had this new tree in our garden already since the beginning of June. A nice, fairly tall pole is this tree.

This tree is grafted and it should be self-pollinating. And it naturally hasn’t bloomed this year. Now just waiting… 🙂

Siberian iris flowering now as well. These came with us and the German iris from Eastern Finland two years ago, too, but these were flowering already a year ago. And they bloomed already in June last year – this year everything is a little late.

Purple-flowering raspberry blooming again, too.

This very busy little friend was like rolling there inside this tiny flower…

My words are failing me now… the first peony flowers are here! More pictures coming… luxurious days in the garden now… 😉

The first peony poppy flowers are blooming, but not in our garden, not yet. – We’ve managed to plant peony poppy seeds just outside our front yard and our driveway as well. 🙂

Basil growing from seeds in our garden, in the shelter of the house wall.

We’ve had yet another late night visitor in our garden, now a hedgehog. Hedgehogs in Finland are European hedgehogs. We gave the little friend a tiny bit of cat food. The hedgehog searches for food constantly sniffing the ground and the sniffing is very loud. An adorable creature. It likes worms very much.

By the lake Pyhäjärvi last night, 23.15 PM. It was a rainy day yesterday. I was a night driver and this was a lovely spot to stop by for a while. It was very foggy, one couldn’t see the opposite shore, the air felt very warm, it was easy to breathe, it was silent with only the light sound of the small waves… I need to be a night driver more often! 🙂

-Leena

More summer, bats again, the longest day of the year 2017…

So today is the longest day of the year 2017. Here where I’m living, the sun rose at 3.52 AM, and the sun sets at 23.13 PM – the length of the day is 19 hours 20 minutes.

The bats have now been here for the fourth time. Or, we have seen them here four times now, in the woods next to our garden and flying close above our heads in the garden. Nice and delightful! 🙂 They were here on Sunday again. They always come just before twelve o’clock at night. On that night we also saw a whole rainbow here, although it hadn’t even rained. It was the first whole rainbow that we’ve seen from our garden.

The black woodpeckers have also been frequent visitors in the woods next to our garden. One really notices when they come – they have the loud and long flight call “klee-yee” when they enter the woods.

By the lake Pyhäjärvi here in our home village on Saturday. I was standing on a dock as I took this pic.

Lilac and the big Norway maple beside our driveway once more.

White lilac flowers in the garden as well. We have loads of purple or lilac lilac flowers in big bushes, but only a few white in a small bush. I must say that the purple truly is my favourite lilac anyway… But these white flowers are charming, too, and it wouldn’t be the same without these adding up to it in our garden.

A few more of red campion or red catchfly flowers in the garden.

We found this lovely spot by the river Pyhäjoki in the municipality of Säkylä on Sunday.

Welcome to the countryside! 🙂 With this pic, too, and on Sunday as well. By the river Eurajoki in the municipality of Eura.

Oregano and sage. These two green friends are a bit different in the way that we, who usually grow herbs and everything from seeds, have bought them fully-grown – at half the price at the local grocery store. These are grown in Finland, which we naturally really appreciate. And these aren’t the usual herb pots that you can buy at the grocery stores in wintertime, these are for summer gardening outside… hmm, just to be specific, not that it should make much of a difference…(?) 🙂 But yeah, these for the garden actually are bigger, sturdier… And we have re-potted these, for better growth.

Grow some lettuce, lettuce wants to grow for you! 🙂

By our strawberry field today. There are surprisingly many strawberry flowers and strawberries growing already.

The first fully opened centaurea montana or mountain cornflower or perennial cornflower or mountain bluet flower in the garden today.

And our park lilacs or Hungarian lilacs have started to open their flowers now as well. There seem to be many more flowers in the bushes now than a year ago.

-Leena