Gardening in the Time of Covid-19, Part III: Returning Sounds, Sights & Smells of Nature

On the 45th day of lockdown (Confinement Jour 45), I find myself sitting under our urban garden's ivy-covered pergola to rest after completing a garden task, realising though always pleasant, it is even more so. Birdsong has little competition from traffic noise. True now as before, after a rain, petrichor permeates throughout, but at present, before the rain and its fragrant aftermath, the air is already wonderfully fresh.

Looking through the sous sol's potting room's window with its coloured glass bottle collection towards the ivy-covered pergola

Then there are the moles. One of their many dirt volcanoes can be seen in the below photo's upper right corner. Why have they entrenched themselves for the first time in the ten years since our arrival? My guess is the lockdown-related decrease in vibrations caused by street traffic including fewer trucks rumbling down one long side of our garden flanking a refrigeration depot's entrance has attracted these industrious soil diggers. After some research I have concluded there are three perspectives on having garden moles:

1) Get rid of these dangerous, disease-carrying, dirt-dragons/rodents as quickly as possible with poison. (Call our extermination service for an estimate.)

2) Be humane to both these annoying critters and your lawn. Trap and release them. (Where? Regardless of the lockdown, if released they will either come back or bother someone else.)

3) Co-exist. They bring benefits too like aerating the soil (those mounds of theirs are excellent with which to top up veggie beds), eating tons of detrimental grubs, and fertilising the soil. As our 'lawn' is mostly English daises and moss, and their mounds though plentiful are not disturbing the roots of bushes and plants, this perspective has become mine.

Centre: osteospermum; heucheras of varying hues: clockwise, paprika, Georgia peach & tirasmu; lavender pot: lantana

This past late winter, an acquaintance of The Calm One gave us many a potted miniature rose. At that time, the floral donation was leafless. All got a good pruning. Then I had to wait a few months to see what colour blooms they would have. Out of around fifteen, only a couple have not yet set flowers. I do not know the different varieties' names, but they are all beauties soaking up the sun on sous sol window sills facing south. During the growing season, each gets sprayed for blackspot monthly and have a few drops of liquid fertiliser added to the watering can almost daily.

Here's a close up of a deep-pink one.

And of a tiny white rose.

Also of a gorgeous coral-coloured bloom.

A tub of two turned out to have deep red, quartered roses. Such flowers look fantastic against a complementary background of deep green, so it is now fronting a patio cutout's calla lily thicket.

Such a beautifully formed rose!

That diminutive ruby stunner has big competition though. Outside the balcony entrance's front door, curving up high over the weigela, is a robust climber, Étoile de Hollande, fragrant beyond belief, so deeply red it can look almost black, and with a velvet sheen that is mesmerising.

Here's one huge, ruffled bloom.

À la prochaine!

Late Spring Garden 2019

The potager is humming along, revving up its growth rate to take on the summer push which will lead into late summer/autumnal harvesting: peas, potatoes, green beans, peaches, figs, and blackberries to name a few.

The old pear tree festooned with golden trumpet vine which borders the ivy-covered pergola marks the boundary between the back and west gardens. That soft-pink cloud off in the distance is the front garden's deutzia.

On the right of the back garden's main path is the pergola and a potted bougainvillea on an upturned planter. Before its lofty positioning, it was on the open patio across the path, basking in the sun and getting drenched in the rain. The sun part was fine, but being soaked frequently wasn't, at least not for abundant blooming. Last summer, after decorating the beginning of the path with two flanking potted plants, one being the bougainvillea, I noticed it put out many more flowers than usual even though it received less sun. After a little research I found out why. It needs drought stress in order to bloom. Being under the pergola protected it from rains. Presently, it is watered only when the top four inches of potting mix is dry.

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Its companion this season will be potted Thunbergia alata (Black-eyed Susan vine) which will as it grows be trained upon tuteurs. There were some dusty dried seedpod decorated sticks stuck in the wood cabinet under the indoors barbecue since moving here about ten years ago, and I finally found an use for them! The anticipated effect will be both height and draping over its pedestal. The pot in front which also contains the vine, but has a purple flowering ivy geranium to provide contrasting colour to the yellow-blooming black-eyed Susan, will go out to the front steps. The pot in front of that, yup, you guessed it, also filled with Thungbergia will be put on the balcony overlooking the front garden. The many Thunbergia along with trailing blue lobelia seedlings were started indoors late winter. The lobelia will graced the four, small casement window sills on the west side of the house, a basket under the pergola, and a huge pot on the shady part of the balcony. Here's hoping my grand plan works (historically they tend not to)! Since a path that goes nowhere, in this case, smack right against an unattractive back wall, begs for something to catch your eye, I plonked a garden chair at the path's end. In the future, a potted camellia and a mirror instead? At present, I love sitting in the chair, from which a very different perspective of the garden is to be had.

It is my wont to buy plants from online nurseries which often have much younger and less expensive plants than at the local garden centres. Greater choice, also. So where do these baby plants go when they first arrive as usually they are too small to make visual impact? In nursery beds of course. This year-and-half-old bed has penstenmon, moss pink, teucrium, a mum, three Mikado daylilies, and six laurels that were taken as cuttings from the existing hedge. They will be put in their permanent locations either this early autumn or next spring depending on their growth this season and the state of my muscle strength.

The front garden (looking towards a neighbour) is a pleasing jumble of drooping red weigela, overflowing pink deutzia, and exuberant lavender.

Bloom cuddle!

Peonies look good near bearded iris foliage and lavender.

If using for culinary and cosmetic purposes, it is best to harvest lavender when still in bud form.

Right by the driveway gate are pots of shade-loving plants as the terracotta roofing tile framed bed filled with our own wood chips luxuriates under cherry plum and box elder trees: three heucheras (tiramisu, Georgia peach, paprika), polystichum sword fern, tuberous begonia, hellebore, and the latest but not least, the centrepiece gardenia.

Gardenias and I go a ways back, first in California where it hardly bloomed because the soil was too alkaline but still made me fall in love with its beauty, then another specimen on our Grenoble tenth floor balcony, where it flourished for a decade while keeping me company and regaled me with its heady fragrance during long hours of day trading in a tiny room, and finally when arriving here, it was put in the ground and soon after perished in the cold. If ever a plant could be called a friend, that gardenia would have fit the bill. This one's container was filled with acid potting mix and will spend the winter in the sous-sol, thank you very much.

À la prochaine!

Fruit, Veg, Flowers & Feline

Fresh April green here and there has morphed into verdant lushness all over. The first fig crop is forming while the second and more substantial one will happen in autumn.

Little fuzzy olive-green eggs are dotting the peach tree.

The strawberry harvest at present is enough for making a strawberry banana smoothie every other day. Peak production will be reached in several weeks.

Rhubarb is being picked now, the peas will be in a few weeks, and the potatoes at end of July.

The soft green of fennel (the herb, not the bulb) cosies up to flowering sage.

Comfrey is putting out young leaves and buds. It's an amazing plant for other plants as it is used as a fertiliser tea and a compost accelerator.

The weigela's flower-laden branches are draping the front garden in crimson.

The peony is continuing to set just a few blooms as I suspect the last couple of winters were too mild to give it the cold required for abundant flowering.

Hardy miniature gladioli loves to self sow where I dare not to as in smack up to this ivy-covered pergola pillar.

The Ferdinand Pichard Bourbon rose is paying no attention to Dirac the Cat napping in the southwest sous sol window as all of its blooms are leaning directly towards the south to get as much sun exposure as possible.

À la prochaine!

Mid-Spring Garden & Potager 2018

Getting into the heart of spring, the garden is showing red and pink all over. In the front garden an Étoile de Hollande climbing rose greets us as we open the front door as it is entwined on the balcony railing. On a sunny day, its potent damask fragrance becomes an olfactory cloud upon which I descend down the stairs.

Taking a beauty bath in the rain makes the enormous blooms droop even more than they already do.

Below it is a weigela which finally got fertilised after many a year and is so happy. It is flushed, laden, festooned . . .

. . . but hardly burdened with tons of luscious deep-pink blooms. Though I fantasise about making the entrance steps all spiffy with tiles, I adore the pleasingly mottled design that moss and lichens have made on the cement. We inherited the heavy, bronze-coloured clay pot long ago when a neighbour in Grenoble hastily had to empty his apartment and said, Here. Have this. So I took it and eventually carted it to Angouleme. Besides being visually arresting—we refer to it as The Bell Jar—it has also helped to force rhubarb in the dark.

Rounding the east side of the house, leaving behind mini-gladioli, spikey iris foliage, and dusty-blue flowering sage, I can glimpse a part of the back garden with its wall of ivy, David Austin Flagstaff rose, wild area, raspberries, and lusty rhubarb.

Making a sharp turn around the house's corner, I come to the patio with its tubs of blueberries and bougainvillea. Calla lilies are thriving in a patio cut-out while mini-gladioli, Iris foliage, and abelia are just off the patio.

These smaller version of gladioli, unlike their larger brethren, need no staking, naturalise wherever their pink hearts desire, and are cold-hardy so digging up their bulbs for the winter and replanting in spring is not necessary.

Spring planting continues. Two green pea beds, one potato, one beet, and one carrot have been done.

Striped with white, the hybrid perpetual Ferninand Pichard has many blooms on one branch, is fragrant, and flourishes close to the patio.

Strawberry harvest has begun. The Strawberry Eater chez nous, aka The Calm One, has already polished off  two bowls of just picked, sliced, sugared berries, one topped with whipped cream and the other with coffee ice cream. He says they are GOOD, sweet and full of flavour.

À la prochaine!

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Fresh Garlic . . . and more May flowers

Our main garlic crop was planted just a few weeks ago, but there were some cloves sowed last autumn so the mellow sweetness of fresh garlic is available presently for the table. Very little skin and an undivided bulb makes for easy preparation.

The major planting will be harvested in July, then dry-cured for storage

Because The Calm One doesn't measure ingredients for his splendid Three-Cheese & Three-Pasta speciality, he sometimes has a surplus of cooked penne, shells, and corkscrews. The cleaned, trimmed, and roughly chopped garlic along with the cold pasta, thyme, and Parmesan got tossed with olive oil plus a good sprinkle of apple cider vinegar. A dusting with fleur de sel/freshly ground black pepper was the final touch for this easy dish boasting the health benefits of resistant starch (reheating would result in an even greater decrease of a spike in blood sugar).

Though its flavour is more delicate, fresh garlic's flesh is juicy and meaty

Our garden and potager continues to embrace spring. The ivy's new growth is brightening up the pergola.

Honeysuckle joins the ivy in another corner. Through the haze of the asparagus bed's feathery foliage, a neighbour's tall evergreen (not a church steeple!) can be seen.

Ferdinand Pichard, a fragrant, bi-coloured Bourbon rose

The wild area is not only good for biodiversity, but for beauty as it completely covers an old shed. If you look closely, you will see a neigbour's black and white, long-haired cat (Elmo is our nick for him) rolling in the sun between the raspberry patch and a dilapidated cold-frame overgrown with weeds. Perhaps this is the season I will mulch the frame with cardboard!

Iris foliage, glads, newly planted garlic & shallot bed, to-be weeded bed, pea & potato beds

Coming from the back of the garden, I always enjoy seeing this lovely melange of plants before my dipping inside the sous-sol to put back/get tools.

Creeping sedum, bee-loving abelia, perennial geraniums, bearded irises, calla lilies & roses

Along one side of our house, a path winding through flowering sage, yet-to-flower rosemary, already bloomed sweet violets, bearded irises, hardy mini-gladiolus, and roses leads to the front garden lit by the setting sun.

Our entrance includes a stairway leading up past the sous-sol to a balcony which affords a lofty view of the front garden.

Weigela, soapwort, yellow rose & lavender

Entwined with the balcony railing is the robust, velvety, deep-crimson, and potently perfumed climbing rose, Étoile de Hollande.

Dirac the Young cat left his sentinel position on the doormat to supervise my pruning.

À la prochaine!