Category: garden
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Six on Saturday | 11th November 2023
It’s supposed to rain for most of this weekend, but I’ll be ducking out during the lighter portions to harvest what I can because winter officially begins for us next week. The nighttime temps will be consistently below 0ºC, the snow will fall, and the ground will be frozen solid after a few weeks. I’ve…
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Six on Saturday | 4th November 2023
So this has been an eventful week, though perhaps not one I’d like to repeat. I came down with a rather unpleasant virus at the end of last week which lasted well into the beginning of this one, keeping me from participating in Halloween events with my students. I also lost my voice, so I…
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Garden Inventory | Ribes rubrum ‘Aili’
Before moving to Finland, I’d never met a currant bush of any sort before. The most common ones in gardens only grow in temperate climates, so they were never really an option in Southern California. Even in the rest of the US, they’re not as common as other berries — even though the federal law…
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Six on Saturday | 28th October 2023
A year and a month ago, I shared a weekend project where I added shelving to our root cellar which had been sitting unused under the house for a good couple of decades. Since I’ve finished storing most things in the root cellar this autumn, it seemed a good time to catch up on how…
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Garden Inventory | Rosa ‘The Poet’s Wife’
Finally, we have the third plant from my 2022 rose batch. I’m so happy that all three ended up being such healthy plants, allaying my fears about growing roses in cold climates. Why did it take me so long to get roses, after having so many in our garden growing up? A dumb mistake, really.…
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Six on Saturday | 21st October 2023
Our first frost arrived this past Thursday! Maybe a little earlier than expected, but still within the normal range. All the tender plants and bulbs are either (1) sitting on a house windowsill, (2) safely tucked away in the barn to dry out a bit, or (3) already slumbering away in the root cellar. All…
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Garden Inventory | Rosa ‘Scepter’d Isle’
This Austin rose, from the same January 2022 batch as ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, struggled a little starting out but has made up for it over the past year. Aesthetically, it’s probably my favorite out of the three, though it’s a close race since they have all been charming in different ways. Rosa ‘Scepter’d Isle’ (ruusu) is…
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In a Vase on Monday | 16th October 2023
A mixed vase this week with something old and something new. The white dried hydrangea is Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ (I asked the person who planted it this time to make sure since Google was giving me too many different options), and the new little pink blooms underneath it are Hydrangea paniculata ‘Living Angels Blush’. Some…
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Six on Saturday | 14th October 2023
Here’s a trip outside my garden, for a change of pace! This past week, we took a field trip to Turku to visit the Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum. It is a small section of the city with 18th-century wooden buildings preserved as a historical museum and a place to demonstrate traditional handicrafts. While there were no…
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Garden Inventory | Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’
The very first David Austin rose I bought was ‘Fair Bianca’, back when I was in Southern California. It was a small perky shrub, happy to live in a stoneware pot in our very sunny front yard. Although that garden had towering hybrid teas and extravagant floribundas growing along most of the walls, ‘Bianca’ was…
Little Blue and White House 