Category: garden
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Garden Inventory | Rosa pimpinellifolia ‘Plena’
Today we are continuing with the theme of old-fashioned garden plants that are particularly associated with Finnish midsummer! This rose is more common than the peony in my previous post and is still sold regularly in garden stores. It’s more surprising to see an established garden here without one than with. Ours came with the…
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Garden Inventory | Paeonia officinalis ‘Nordic Paradox’
Last week was Midsummer (Juhannus in Finnish) and it’s a pretty big deal out here. The entire country goes on holiday to enjoy the endless sunshine and balmy (especially this year) weather. There are a few old-fashioned garden plants that are particularly associated with midsummer here because they tend to flower around that time. Now…
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Six on Saturday | 1st July 2023
This is my first time joining Six on Saturday, but I do love making lists! It’s been super dry and warm in our corner of Finland through most of June, which has taken its toll on the younger plants in our garden. Luckily, we had the wells to draw from and we made it through…
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June 2023 Vegetable Garden Tour
It’s been a month since my last vegetable garden update, so I thought I’d take you out into the garden today and show you what’s growing! Fair disclosure – I adore watching other people’s garden tours. I’m sure they make up a good portion of my watch history on Youtube. It’s horribly nosy but there…
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Garden Inventory | Omphalodes verna
This pretty little groundcover is one of the first things I see in the mornings upon leaving the house, since it carpets the flower bed just next to our front steps. At first, I mistook them for forget-me-nots, but closer inspection showed plenty of differences. Turns out, they are Omphalodes verna (kevätkaihonkukka), also known as…
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Garden Inventory | Anemone sylvestris
I do enjoy spring ephemerals. They’re the sort of things that we could never grow when I lived in California because the springs were never cool enough. During most summers here in Finland, they’ll stick around at least until midsummer. This is Anemone sylvestris (arovuokko), the snowdrop anemone. Not to be confused with the wood…
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Garden Inventory | Dicentra formosa
This is my first Dicentra formosa (purppurapikkusydän), the fern-leaf bleeding heart, variety ‘Luxuriant’. It came in the same order last spring as my white spectabilis and seems to be slower to start growing. However, it was also accidentally covered by garden equipment for half the season last year so didn’t have the most ideal start.…
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Garden Inventory | Dicentra spectabilis
A few days ago, I stumbled upon a much more established Finnish garden at Vanha Talo Suomi and was especially impressed with her neatly organized specimen list. At last count, I have four different spreadsheets and three apps around to keep track of things, and somehow manage to not efficiently update any of them. This…
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Green garlic, where have you been all my life?
These are the first stalks of green garlic I have ever picked. Up until last year, I didn’t even know such an option existed. Everyone knows about the dried bulbs, sure. I also knew that I’d have a bumper crop of garlic scapes later this year since our climate is most suited to hardneck varieties.…
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First harvest of 2023!
That’s a bowl of baby spinach, about 6 cups worth. You can see there’s a lot more in the bed and I will be trying to use up as much of it as possible. Yes, partly because I love spinach and am thrilled that I can now get it fresh from the garden. Sadly, also…
Little Blue and White House 