a garden diary

Images of last week's snowfall

2012-01-20T21:44:00.000+01:00

2012-01-09T12:49:00.000+01:00

2012-01-02T15:17:00.000+01:00

"The Lord bless you,

and keep you.

The Lord show his face to you,

and have mercy on you.

The Lord turn his countenance to you,

and give you peace."

(Numbers 6:24-26)

2011-12-27T11:34:00.000+01:00

Wish you a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year!

2011-12-24T16:58:00.000+01:00

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:68-79)

The first snow

2011-12-21T18:39:00.001+01:00

Say Merry Christmas

2011-12-13T19:01:00.000+01:00

This American video friendly and cheerfully calls our attention amidst the great Christmas business to the fact that Christmas is the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ: "Words are chosen every year to hide it's Christmas the reason for our holiday... Come and stand out from the crowd, say Merry Christmas and be proud, Christmas isn't just another holiday."

If it's important for you that Christmas be Christmas, spread this video. The original source is here: Say Merry Christmas.

Old grape varieties

2011-12-04T16:15:00.001+01:00

The approaching Christmas reminded me of the grape with rum my grandfather used to prepare for every Christmas. He filled a jar with large grapes, and filled it first with sugar, then with rum. Then we put it on the top of the cupboard and opened it on Christmas evening. He usually used the grape sorts “Goat’s udder” or “Queen of vineyards” for this, or “Muscat of Hamburg” for a dark version.

I thought I’d see if any of these varieties are now available, and I am glad to have found a number of internet stores where they sell many old sorts of grapes:

János Kovács vine and graft nursery, Gyöngyös – also selling varieties recommended for bio production

Kert-tó web store

Nyír-Salix Ltd

Dessert grape store – They sell both dessert and vine grape, including some which can be grown without spraying. Their photos are beautiful, so you are recommended to check them even if you did not want to grow vine – at least until then, because they will make you wish to do so.

Dessert grape and graft center, Abasár – They also sell vine grapes and resistant varieties.

If you know more shops or you have more experiences in this topic, you’re welcome to share them!

Molinia arundinacea 'Zuneigung' és 'Karl Foerster'

2011-12-02T13:14:00.003+01:00

Tomorrow I want to cut back the perennials and the herbs at least in the upper part of the garden, so today I made a quick last picture of it.

In the middle there is a Molinia arundinacea 'Zuneigung'. I have just checked back – this is possible with Gaissmayer –, I ordered it from them in the spring of 2008. At that time it came in a 11 cm pot. In Hungary unfortunately you cannot buy this sort, but the 'Karl Foerster' – which is not this bending, but equally beautiful – is cultivated both by Hegede and Mocsáry nurseries. You may want to try it in any garden with at least as much irrigation that the soil never gets dry for a long period in the summer.

Side and reverse

2011-11-20T15:49:00.000+01:00

The same bush group in two different views. The two main characters are a Spiraea x vanhouttei 'Gold Fountain' and a Berberis x mentorensis.

Fifteen years

2011-11-10T20:52:00.000+01:00

Today around noon I planted before the large Sieboldiana Hostas at the walnut tree four small yellow Hostas. And with this, in all the points of the garden there is a plant which I consider good.

It took fifteen years to arrive at this point. In 1996 we planted the first trees around this day.

This is a very good feeling. But it is not like I thought fifteen years ago it would be. I do not feel that I made my little paradise on earth. But rather that I did this job, I solved this task.

Have a good day!

2011-11-06T18:13:00.002+01:00

Up the hill

2011-11-02T22:46:00.002+01:00

On the hill stands the church of my grandfather’s village, the oldest wooden building in present-day Hungary, constructed in 1670 in the honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Its icons are from the 18th century, the furniture from the 19th, and in the 20th it was transferred here, in the open-air museum. As a child, I have not seen it any more, but my brothers saw it, down the street, on the hill of Bukots, and Bandi even preserves a postcard with its image, sent to him by our mother from the village. Just now I learned that the village as well as the surrounding Rusyn villages come together here, to the museum of Szentendre on every 8 September, the feast of the Birth of the Holy Virgin, and celebrate a mass in Rusyn and Hungarian. Next year I’ll also be there.

Grasses wintered

2011-10-31T21:39:00.000+01:00

Now really do click on the picture, because it just really lives like that.

Our grasses are in full glory now. To the right, two Molinias which are beautifully colored in the autumn, a Pennisetum, and a Miscanthus which has not yet reached its total size, one of the few varieties that have beautiful fall color. I see in many gardens that they have already bound their grasses. However, a grass is either hardy at us (Z5: most Miscanthuses, Pennisetum, Molinia), and then there is no problem with it, or not (Z6, Z7: pampa-grass), and then a cold winter will anyway damage or kill it. So binding has no real effect apart from seriously damaging the plant…

A rainy afternoon

2011-10-31T21:35:00.000+01:00

I love peaceful rainy days like today. In the afternoon I made a short walk in the garden.

Unfortunately, because of the October frost arriving suddenly after the September heat, this autumn is not as colorful as in other years, but we still have some colors.

Sunday morning

2011-10-19T18:05:00.005+02:00

Early Sunday morning, the sun just starts to shine in. On the days when it is too cold to drink my tea and pray in the garden, I sit on this bench and watch the garden from here.

This is what I see before me on this Sunday morning.

Opposite, the door to the garden.

This is what I see to the left. Between the two columns, a century old pine chest, and around the door, Afghan kilims. We bought them fifteen years ago in the Afghan carpet shop in Hajós street when nobody was interested in nomadic rugs yet. Probably they are the world’s cheapest nomadic carpet shop: some pieces are cheaper than on the spot, over there. It’s their secret how they do that.

Behind the gallery bar, our library.

The carpet to the left is made of a Qasqai camel foal hair rug and two Bakthiari flour sacks which I sewed together. The Qasqais and Bakhtiaris are two nomadic tribes in the western Iranian mountains, which, just like the other tribes in the area, produce fantastic hand-woven fabrics. We received them in Isfahan, in the bazaar, from the collection of Akbar Keshani with whom we spent a day and who asked us to take care of them as if he gave us his own children. The felt to the right was painted by me. If I remember well, it was in 1991 that we visited the exhibition of the ethnographic museum of Vienna on the carpets of an Afghan nomadic tribe. I wove for years, and I know a little bit about carpets. I was totally amazed by the incredibly high quality of their works. We spent several hours at the exhibition. Before exiting the room, we found a small table on the wall which explained that this tribe does not exist any more, they were destroyed during the war in Afghanistan. I made the felt in their memory, with a motif frequently used by them.

The beam of the gallery was carved by Tamás on the model of a mosque’s beam in Swat, a Northern Pakistani valley famous for its archaic wood carving. And the gallery bar was made by us and painted with medieval Armenian cross patterns.

This is the fireplace with the footprints left by Brumi. I usually repaint it every year after the heating season. I hope that I can do this year’s repainting next week.

The cabinets were found thrown out on the street in the seventh district twenty years ago, the straw hat is from the fair of Csíkszendomonkos/Sândominic in the Eastern Carpathians. The shawl on it from Southern India – Kerala –, where we were scanning medieval Syriac manuscripts in the jungle. The lute on the wall is a short-necked Afghan rubab used by one of our favorites, the Kurdish Kamkars Ensemble, formed by eight brothers. We bought it in the Istanbul Great Bazaar from Afghan merchants who, having seen how good owners of it we would be, gave it for a low price. The copy of a Serbian icon of the Christian Museum of Esztergom was made by Tamás’ sister for the inauguration of our house.

This is the front side of the cabinets found. I painted them over. On the right one there is, instead of a door, a woven katrinca from the archaic Hungarian group of Csángós living in Moldova. The table was made on the basis of Tamás’ designs by the same Northern Hungarian village carpenters who also made our roof, and it was painted by me.

And now the sun is finally out. Have a nice day everyone!

2011-10-09T20:50:00.000+02:00

The Battery Gardens

2011-09-29T18:10:00.004+02:00

On Monday, by taking advantage of the opportunity that on Saturday we would build one of the gardens planned by me, and at the last minute I can add to the order a few plants I want to be taken to Budapest together with the rest, I checked some Heleniums over the web, and thus again I ran across the Battery Plant Database. On this occasion I decided that I would put out these few links on The Battery Gardens.

The Battery is the point of Mannhattan at the confluence of Hudson and East rivers where the first Dutch settlers landed. It got its name of the first artillery stationing here to defend the young city. The castle built here was New York’s first cultural center and later the first reception center for immigrants, converted in the early 20th century into the first aquarium of the city. After the renovation of the castle in the 1970’s a cultural and tourist center was established here again, and in recent years the hitherto quite neglected garden has been renovated, too.

The two gardens established here belong to the major jobs of the Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, a leading figure of the New Perennial movement. By entering the site of The Battery Conservancy and clicking on the Things to do above, the first option offered is the Gardens. By clicking on it, you can see a series of beautiful pictures on the park, you can check various information pages on Piet Oudolf, the details of the park and its plants, and if you think so, you can even buy plants from there.

The New Perennial movement has never belonged to the mainstream trends of gardening. In the last hundred years the main currents of gardening mostly regarded plants as objects to be used for various purposes, an element of the architectural concept, which as a living organism was of very little interest to the designer. What is important to him/her is the optical unit, the effect to be achieved with the plant as a bloc, and the individual features of the plants are completely irrelevant as long as the desired effect is achieved through it.

In modern gardens the plants often appear as an inarticulate green medium without any individual significance, whose only function is to provide a counterpoint to the concrete, metal or plastic objects placed in the given space. And when the plants are the main character in the garden, they usually create images with flowers, possibly of great size and strong colors. These images usually live only a few weeks, while in the rest of the year the gardeners dig out, distribute, cut down, force into artificial support system, tie and prune them, so that in those few weeks when in the given bed everything is blossoming and the image is ready, the plants would display the desired size and form, which is often very different from their natural size and form.

As these beds are attractive only for a short period, the gardeners often start the plants in the nurseries, they bed them out in full blossom, and after blossoming they take them out and throw them away – not only the yearlings, but also the perennials –, and plant a new set. In these perennial beds the gardeners usually adopt vivid colors, which act as a strong stimulus, and overshadow any other element.

The founder and still dominant personality of the New Perennial movement – in an interview Oudolf called him my hero –, Karl Foerster opened his nursery in 1903 in Berlin with the aim to realize his ideas which were completely opposite to the public opinion. The nursery, which today grows 2,000 different perennials on 70,000 square meters, begins the presentation of Foerster’s work on its site with the following phrases: „Contrary to the prevailing bourgeois conception, which regarded the plants as pigments, and after blossoming replaced them with new ones, to Karl Foerster every plant was an individual. Due to his enlightened, humanist intellectual character, his breeding work aimed at highlighting the inherent characteristics of every plant, without changing its essence.”

The New Perennial movement, on the wake of Foerster, unfolded this relationship to plants. Here, the gardeners do not want to demonstrate the enforcement of their will, and they do not intend to maximize the sensory stimulus, but they are passionately interested in plants. The gardener knows exactly the environmental needs and tolerances of plants, so he is able to establish in any environment ensembles which develop well and require little maintenance. The thoughtful understanding of the growing, flower and leave forms and colors of the plants, and the humility with which the gardener do not want to put himself at the center, but wants to unfold the inherent beauty of the plants, opens a very large space to creativity. The fact that today the German gardens, for example, use perennials so widely and with such a high quality, is a good indication of what a huge job has been realized in this field by the gardeners.

However, the world fame was brought to the movement by the work of Piet Oudolf. Oudolf added to the results accumulated over the decades not only the extremely sophisticated visual culture of Flemish painting, but also his extraordinary talent. The result is a series of gardens where every plant is on the place best fitting to it, which show the beauty of the plant from sprouting to withering, which give a natural impression as a result of professional color management and richness of form, and nevertheless they are in fact an incredibly sophisticated combination of plants. Which touch your heart without being sentimental for a moment, and open you up to freedom without having any moment of destruction.

While the ideologists of the leading horticultural trends aestheticize and raise into high culture the destruction labeled as modern or postmodern art, and while mass culture is flooded with the magazines and coffee table books showing almost only three weeks old beds (and even this is not enough, because they sharpen and saturate these pictures so that the reader gets the maximum stimulation and does not fall out of the wheel of consumption), there are people who do not let themselves being swept with the mainstream. I find it beautiful that in the Battery, where 8.5 millions of immigrants – who mostly had to leave their country because of politically legitimized hatred or poverty – were received by America, now there are two New Perennial gardens.

If you are interested, check the pictures loaded on Piet Oudolf’s site, on The Battery page, too. (And once you are there, have a look at the other gardens of Oudolf as well.) If you are fascinated by this work of Piet Oudolf, be sure to read the excellent articles on the Battery in the great blog of James Golden. And if you have even more time, then – back to the stove – absolutely dig a bit into The Battery Plant Database, either in order to have a look into the workshop of the New Perennial, or just to marvel at these beautiful plants.

Withered flowers in the flower bed

2011-09-25T19:53:00.001+02:00

For example, this Lobelia sipilitica withered already a couple of weeks ago on a central place of the great upper bed.

Nevertheless it fits nicely into the overall picture.

I was quite shocked when I first saw that in the beds designed by Piet Oudolf there was place for the withered flowers, too. In Oudolf’s beds these were always very nice.

I tried it several times, but in my garden the withered flowers always looked ugly out of their context. However, a couple of years ago I realized an important trick. These flowers look beautiful in beds which are not built on strong colors, but on the complexity of forms.

Our French garden

2011-09-17T21:45:00.000+02:00

I was looking for Coreopsis, this is how I found this picture and, following the link, the English language French garden blog Our French garden. Twenty years ago I was wandering just in this part of France, and I loved it very much. It was really good to see this region again, together with this creative sophisticated and elegant garden culture, which I did not yet know at that time.

Spring bulbs via internet

2011-09-11T20:35:00.000+02:00

I was looking for a tulip, and on this occasion I have found a couple of good web shops selling bulbs:

http://www.etterkft.hu/
http://www.viraghagyma.com/
http://www.tulipanvilag.hu/index.net?list=12&rc=1
http://www.tulipanshop.hu/
http://www.fexin.eu/

You are recommended to visit all of them, because the same plant is often offered for very different prices. Be sure to check the parameters of the plants over the web, because not each company has beautiful labels, but nevertheless they may sell very good plants. We, for example, bought most of our bulbs many years ago from Etter Kft where packing is not that beautiful, but they had very high quality plants for a very reasonable price. Many companies offer botanical tulips. Fosteriana, Kaufmanniana and Gerigii hybrids are just as large and beautiful as the other tulips, but you don’t have to pick them up every year, but you can (moreover, should) leave them in the soil, and they propagate well in the garden. By now I keep almost only such tulips.

After the heat

2011-09-01T11:24:00.001+02:00

I walk around the garden and take stock of the damages. Some years ago during a similar heat wave all Astilbes in the garden were destroyed. This time nothing died, but I had to realize again that I can keep in the garden only such plants which can withstand the sustained heat.

After Astilbes I also had to say goodbye to Ligularias, and now – with a terrible heartache – to a great part of Hydrangeas as well. To make these cold-loving plants look good, or at least not to get heat stroke in this heat, such an amount of watering would be needed which I cannot supply, but even if I could, it would certainly make the soil so desirable for pest fungi that it would be these latter to destroy the plants.

This extraordinary heat highlights that that there is an ecological limit which cannot be crossed: the heat tolerance of plants must be taken into account just as much as their tolerance of cold.

2011-08-20T20:02:00.002+02:00

Upper flowerbed, left side, two views

2011-07-31T21:31:00.001+02:00

I have now finally managed to make a photo of it which shows the true color. This is one of our favorite roses. It is called Jubilee Celebration, and it grows at the bench next to the house.

This is what I see when sitting on the bench.

The same from the other side. Today I planted a few anemone, and I think that with this the bed is finally ready.

If you go nearer, this is the right side of the bed.

And this is the left side. The daylilies will soon finish blossoming, but then it will be the turn of the hosta, anemone and daisy, and they will endure until late autumn.

Approaches

2011-07-24T19:22:00.000+02:00

This is a composition which already shows what I would like. In the autumn I still have to change some elements in it, but I hope that later I won’t. Erika asked last week how I’m doing that my assemblies are always successful. Well, they are not always, but I do not give up, and I do it again and again in every place until I am satisfied with it.

Some details from the same area. This is a close up of the flower of the often photographed Acanthus hungaricus.

Angelica gigas. Already in the bud it is beautiful. When it will open, it will have eggplant-colored flowers. It is short-lived, but as such perennials in general, it strongly scatters its seeds.

This is Lilium martagon. I regard it fabulously beautiful, and it is one of the easiest-to-keep lilies at us.

This is a Solidago virga aurea hybrid, called Citronella, from the Hegede Nursery. Its main attraction is that it does not spread and blooms even in part-shadow.

Eupatorium rugosum 'Chocolate'. It feels well from full sun to full shade, but it requires lots of water.

Sedum 'Matrona'. It basically fits warm, dry places, but it is so tolerant that even lives at us.

Persicaria virginiana 'Painter's Palette' is absolutely not as fastidious as one would think on the basis of its leaves. It requires semi-shade or shade, and well-watered space, but apart from this, it is very tolerant: we have the whole garden full of it. I have seen it in the Mocsáry Nursery, but I do not know whether they already sell it or just experiment with it.

Two more Angelica gigas.

And another beautiful ornamental letter: Persicaria microcephala 'Red Dragon'. Zsuzsa Hegede said a couple of years ago that they have lot of them, but nobody buys them. I don’t know whether the situation has changed since then, but it is worth to ask them.

Acanthus - Echinops - Phlox - Hemerocallis

2011-07-17T15:26:00.002+02:00

Sunday afternoon

2011-07-03T20:08:00.001+02:00

2011-06-26T20:37:00.000+02:00

2011-06-19T21:15:00.001+02:00

Geranium 'Tiny Monster'

2011-06-12T20:48:00.000+02:00

The Tiny Monster is one of the best existing Geraniums. It was bred by Rolf Offenthal - remember his name, because fantastic plants leave his nursery - by crossing Geranium sanguineum with Geranium psilostemon.

Tiny Monster maintained the good qualities of both parents. At us it has been blooming already for two weeks, and in last October it was still blooming. It blooms continuously, you do not have to remove the dry flowers. It grows about fifty centimeters high and one-one and a half meter large (!) without aggressively sprading. It tolerates drought and lives also in part-shade. Can you expect more from a Geranium? Yes! In the autumn its leaves turn into beautiful orange and red colors. And it can be bought at us, in the Hegede Nursery.

2011-06-05T14:47:00.002+02:00

2011-05-27T20:29:00.000+02:00

2011-05-06T17:44:00.003+02:00

2011-05-01T19:34:00.006+02:00

Easter

2011-04-24T05:45:00.001+02:00

"In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow ... And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said." (Mt 28:1-6)

2011-04-17T20:01:00.006+02:00

2011-04-05T20:01:00.011+02:00

Fruit-Grafting Lady Day

2011-03-25T21:22:00.004+01:00

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, “Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.” Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:10-14)

Iris reticulata

2011-03-13T20:26:00.000+01:00

Basket

2011-03-05T10:47:00.000+01:00

Brumi was born five years ago in January, the first of eleven puppies. For her mother Vidra this was the first – and as we had to admit, the last – litter, so she almost had no milk, and I had to feed the puppies five times a day as I had done to Muska.

The kids were intended for our friends, but Brumi was born with such a severe dysplasia that we decided to keep her for ourselves. Our veterinarian told us that from the age of three she would gradually deteriorate and would finally die in great pain.

Brumi slept away yesterday morning, when the computer stopped short. At the age of five, without pain, after having apparently prepared for it for weeks and having taken leave of the other dogs, with that peaceful final breathing out as newfoundlanders used to put down their head like “well, now everything is all right”.

We take leave of her and say thanks for her with the poem sent by Wang Wei at their birth.

PRIMERO se toma una mimbre,
y se la pone en agua, para que
pierda altanería, se haga dulce,
mandible, y tenga amor;
luego se la trenza como un sueño,
y, cuando ya está hecho el cesto,
puede ponerse en él la ropa blanca,
unas frutas rojas, doradas, o un gatito.
A veces crujirá en la noche;
pero así se hizo el mundo,
y así, a veces, se lamenta.

FIRST take a wicker and put it
in water so that it gets rid of its
arrogance, it becomes soft
and pliable, it fills up with love;
then braid it like a dream, and
when the basket is ready, you can
put in it the clean clothes, some
red and golden fruits, or the kitten.
Sometimes it will creak in the night
but this is how the world was made up
and this is how, sometimes, it complains.

2011-02-20T19:57:00.000+01:00

Those wonderful barberries! 3. Berberis x mentorensis

2011-02-18T22:40:00.002+01:00

Love at first sight, again. I bought it in the New Garden some 5-6 years ago as a thirty centimeters high bush, as I was completely fascinated by its Japanese habit. It soon became clear that it also develops well on the heavy soil of our cold, half-shady garden.

The barberry to the left on the picture is an already more or less grown-up bush, but still maintains its beautiful Oriental forms. This feature alone would be enough to make it a first-class bush, but there are two extras as well…

…that is, its autumn colors and its berries that remain on the bush all winter long.

It grows its berries by early autumn. In the beginning they are white, but by late autumn they gradually become red and decorate the bush until early spring. Our bush produces an abundant crop in every year.

height: 150 cm
width: 150-200 cm
lighting: sunny-part shade (At us it is on a rather shadowy spot.)
water demand: At us it grows on a well-irrigated land, but it is said to be drought tolerant. True, the same sources write that it does not regularly produce berries. Perhaps for a good crop it needs good irrigation.
hidegtűrés: Z5- Z8

2011-02-07T10:19:00.000+01:00

2011-01-28T09:31:00.005+01:00

2011-01-24T14:32:00.000+01:00

2011-01-17T14:16:00.000+01:00

Cottage Rose

2011-01-09T15:48:00.002+01:00

David Austin has found a perfectly fitting name to this rose, which is the very mirror of the country cottage. A classical pink rose with pleasant smell, and with a nice, loose bush form that stands out even among the roses of Austin. It blooms all over the summer, and it is continuously beautiful. If you have place only for one or two roses, you are advised to choose it.

type: English rose (David Austin 1991)

height: 90-150 cm - At us always 120-150 cm.
width: 75-90 cm - At us always 120-150 cm.
tolerance of cold: Z5b (to -26 ºC) At us (Z5a, to -29 ºC) it is completely frost-resistant.
blooming: several times - At us it continuously blooms even in spots of strong part-shadow.

The data of the description come from Help Me Find where you can also see further pictures.

One year of garden

2010-12-31T17:12:00.001+01:00

Late in the autumn of 2009 Algeier Wendy, the editor in chief of the prestigious Hungarian Kertbarát Magazin (The Garden Lover’s Magazine) wrote me to congratulate to my gardening blog and to ask me whether I would feel like writing about something for the Magazine. I love to write, so I gathered a few themes to her to choose what to write about. She chose them all. This is how this series of articles was born.

In the January-February edition you can read Wendy’s interview with me. I am satisfied with it, and I even told to Wendy that if I made a sociological survey any more time in my life, I would happily employ her as an interviewer. In the March-April edition I write about ground covers. In May-June about – what else – the roses. In July-August about hostas. In the September-October issue I published two articles, one on bushes with beautifully coloring leaves in the autumn, and another on alternative fruits. Finally, in the November-December edition I wrote about plants that are also decorative in winter.

Just now I received my articles also in pdf format, so from now on you can read them both here, on Río Wang and in my garden diary. Unfortunately in Hungarian only, but I hope my photos will compensate you for the mysterious content. Click on the thumbnails to read or download them in pdf, depending on how you have set up pdf management.

We have also agreed on a series of articles for 2011, to which I gave the title English garden – in collaboration with nature. It begins like this:

The English garden is similar to Chinese cuisine not only as far as it is the best in the world in its own genre, but also in the fact that in order to reach this, it does not use special and expensive materials but ingeniously simple techniques. With their help, you can create even at home a splendid garden without any particular and expensive plants, a lot of money and much work.

To be continued in the Kertbarát Magazin, in the next year. Happy New Year to you all!

2010-12-24T21:41:00.000+01:00

Wish you a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year!

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn[a] of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he said through his holy prophets of long ago, salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us – to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” (Lk 1:68-75)

Squirrel

2010-12-04T14:49:00.003+01:00

These photos were taken by Tamás from his window. In every year around this time, in early December some of the sillier squirrels appear on the Turkish hazelnut tree standing immediately at our house.

Some of them is so reckless to slip even into the basket near the entrance door where we keep for them the nuts and peanuts for the wintertime.

It’s so happy to see it here. But it is very dangerous, because it has to pass through all the garden where it always can run across a cat. So when we see it, we always close the greatest danger, our own cat, in the room.

Thank God, this far every squirrel managed to get away with a whole skin.

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Bonica

2010-10-29T11:03:00.001+02:00

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2010-09-25T20:14:00.007+02:00

Good morning!

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In shade

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Afternoon sunshine

2010-08-21T18:41:00.001+02:00

After rain ...

2010-08-06T11:28:00.000+02:00

Flower bed in front of the house

2010-07-31T21:16:00.002+02:00

This is the bed we see from our window.

On this place stood the old cabin we dismantled when we finished building our house. It was a rather exciting undertaking, as it stood hardly a half meter away from the new house.

I wanted to plant something really beautiful on the place of the ruins. However, this place is so difficult that I have been toiling with it for fourteen years.

The soil is pure sand. It is quite shady, but at noon it gets full sun.

This is where I am at this moment.

This is the point, the bench under the Turkish hazel tree, from where I usually watch it.

Kinga’s garden

2010-07-25T13:58:00.002+02:00

My friend Kinga is a landscape architect or, more simply, a garden designer. This is her own garden.

When she started to develop it, the garden was not really encouraging: a couple of evergreens and some grass digged all over by the dogs. She, however, in a few years made an exemplary family rest garden out of the ruins.

As they have two little children, sideways – where it does not ruin the overall view, but they can keep an eye on the children – they made a small playground with sandbox and swings. And in front of the house they built a large terrace of basalt stones which joins the house and the garden as an external room.

In the middle of the garden Kinga has maintained the grass suitable for playing, but she encircled it with shrubs and put perennials in front of them.

She managed to establish a rich garden with several functions which at the same time can be easily maintained.

In a couple of days Kinga and her family – as they cannot earn their living with their profession in Hungary – will move to Britain. We hope that there they will have another garden from where they will not have to move for any reason any more.

Evening walk

2010-07-03T22:32:00.001+02:00

Saturday evening

2010-06-19T22:54:00.000+02:00

A little bit of shade

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Saturday morning

2010-06-06T14:56:00.000+02:00

Persicaria polymorpha

2010-05-29T22:40:00.002+02:00

The Persicaria polymorpha is the large white flower in the middle of the picture. In my opinion it is one of the most sensational perennials. It grows 150-200 cm high and the same large. It blooms from early summer to late autumn. It lives both in sunshine and in part-shade, and on every soil. Although originally a marsh plant, it quite well tolerates dryness, but it does not like too wet soil. Nevertheless, it is fond of regular irrigation. It is extremely frost hardy (Z3). Its only flaw is that nobody produces it here at us. (But perhaps now, after this post, someone will.)

You can read a detailed description of it on the site of Bluestem Nursery. And since you are there, it is well worth to look around.

Good morning!

2010-05-27T11:52:00.001+02:00

A short break of rain

2010-05-22T17:34:00.002+02:00

It has been uninterruptedly raining for a week. Now the clouds took a breath for a moment. So I hurried out to take some pictures.

After rain

2010-05-14T09:42:00.003+02:00

Magnolia Feast on Río Wang

2010-05-03T20:54:00.001+02:00

Tamás made some beautiful pictures on our magnolia Susan. You can see them here.

Sunday afternoon II.

2010-04-25T16:56:00.001+02:00

Sunday afternoon

2010-04-18T20:45:00.001+02:00

April sunshine

2010-04-10T18:08:00.002+02:00

Easter

2010-04-04T11:03:00.000+02:00

“Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, «Woman, why are you crying?» «They have taken my Lord away,» she said, «and I don't know where they have put him.» At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. «Woman,» he said, «why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?» Thinking he was the gardener, she said, «Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.»

Jesus said to her, «Mary.» She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, «Rabboni!» (which means Teacher). Jesus said, «Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' » Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: «I have seen the Lord!» And she told them that he had said these things to her.” (Jn 20, 11-18)

Plants for deep shade - Hydrangea arborescens

2010-03-24T07:04:00.002+01:00

Smooth hydrangea is usually proposed for sunny places or part-shade, but in such spots we never can provide it with so much water that it does not get discomposed and ugly. It is quite frost-hardy, and plants like this usually do not like our continental hot summers. However, it works well in deep shade, although even there it is among the most water-demanding plants of the garden.

Two autumn pictures of a Hydrangea arborescens 'White Dome' still in development. It is to the left, next to the wall. Here, under the Turkish haze tree it lives in almost complete shade.

When fully grown, it is about 1-1.5 meters high and large.

Unfortunately it is not sold in Hungary, but you can always order or buy it in Praskac.

On the other hand, the 'Annabelle' sport can be always found even at us. Its shrub is similar to the previous one both in shape and size, but its flower is fuller.

You can also often find the sport 'Grandiflora' which is larger than 'Annabelle', but nurseries usually confuse them, and you will see what you had bought only when the plant has reached its maximum size.

All these sports get beautiful yellow in the autumn, and their flowers can be easily dried. If you cut them while white, they remain white even if dried, but in my opinion they are also very attractive when cut in early winter, when they are rather brownish.

In late autumn or early spring I usually cut them back to the soil. This makes them more compact and hinders them in spreading too aggressively.

Early spring walk

2010-03-06T16:53:00.000+01:00

Plants for deep shade - Prunus laurocerasus 'Mari'

2010-02-21T06:01:00.002+01:00

It belongs to those extremely few cherry laurels which are frost-hardy even at us (Z5). It grows 1-2 meters both in height and width. It lives on all kinds of soil. And it tolerates deep shade – we have one under each walnut tree – as well as dryness..

Publishing on the garden all over the year

2010-02-15T06:43:00.003+01:00

In the last autumn the largest Hungarian gardening magazine Kertbarát Magazin contacted me through the blog, and we agreed that in 2010 we would publish a series of articles on our garden.

In number 1-2, published now in February, Wendy Algeier made with me an interview on the garden, and in each of the next issues I will write an article on a selected topic.

In April, in number 3-4 on the ground covers blooming in springtime. I have selected primarily such plants that grow well also in dry part-shade or shade.

In June, in number 5-6 I will write about – guess – roses.

In number 7-8, in August I will give an overview on the garden in summer, and I will present some of my favorite flowers.

In number 9-10, in October my topic will be alternative fruits as well as trees and shrubs getting colors in the autumn.

And finally in number 11-12 about the garden in wintertime.

I do this series with a great pleasure. I hope the readers of the Magazine will also find delight in it.

A preview of summer

2010-02-11T08:17:00.002+01:00

If winter is already as burdensome for you as for me, here you are some preliminary images of this summer: my order of this year from Köstritzer Dahlien.

Ordering of them is absolutely not more expensive than buying dahlias here at home.

But, in contrast to the dahlias bought in Hungary, theirs are always of good quality and you get what you see on the photo on the bag. Just to compare: in the last year I purchased seven dahlias in Budapest’s “New Garden”. One of them has not even sprouted, and one bag contained a plant completely different from what was written on its bag.

Unfortunately I can only maintain small-flowered sports as our garden has not enough sunshine. But they also have fantastic dahlias with 25-30 cm large flowers.

Dahlias are simple to care for: they need much water and you have to pole them, especially those with large flower.

They are beautiful on the table not only when freshly cut, but also dried. They are very easy to dry: compose a bouquet, hang it on an airy but not sunny place, and wait until it dries.

Snowfall

2010-01-30T18:14:00.001+01:00

Two feet of snow has fallen since last night.

2009

2010-01-27T21:09:00.002+01:00

The album of This Was 2009 In The Garden has been published in Hortus Carmeli. Have a look at it!

Morning lights

2010-01-09T10:06:00.001+01:00

Have a Blessed and Happy New Year!

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Have a blessed Christmas!

2009-12-25T12:26:00.004+01:00

"... who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God ( a thing to be grasped, but) made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. "
(Fil 2, 6-8.)

The first snow

2009-12-20T20:35:00.001+01:00

Middle of December

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Happy birthday!

2009-12-15T16:13:00.001+01:00

Late November colors

2009-12-06T18:53:00.002+01:00

Several plants keep their colorful leaves or berries until late autumn. The plants below have been photographed this morning. Most of them are easy and cheap to find.

Berberis koreana:

With a Molinia 'Transparent' in the foreground.

Berberis thunbergii 'Bagatell':

Berberis thunbergii 'Golden Ring':

Berberis thunbergii 'Aurea':

Berberis thunbergii 'Erecta':

Berberis x mentorensis:

Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion':

Attention, it only produces these beautiful berries if you plant at least two ones against each other.

Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple':

In the foreground a Berberis thunbergii 'Atropurpurea Nana'.

Cotoneaster 'Skogholm':

Euonymus alatus 'Compactus' and Bergenia:

Euonymus europaeus:

Geranium sanguineum 'Striatum':

Hydrangea quercifolia:

Miscanthus (unfortunately I do not know the name of this species):

Miscanthus 'Adagio - Euonymus hamiltonianus 'Indian Summer':

Miscanthus 'Gracillimus':

Molinia 'Karl Foerster':

Behind it, on the trunk of the grubbed poplar tree there is oyster mushroom growing to our great pleasure.

Rosa 'Ballerina':

Autumn - Images for gift 1

2009-11-22T21:07:00.000+01:00

This week it was often still so warm that I could sit and pray in the garden. Once I sat down on a stone from where I could watch the leaves of the oakleaf hortensia turned to purple. Then I thought about what a wonderful Christmas present it would be to compose an image with these shades of purple. And I have composed it like this:

You can print it in A4 size at 300 dpi. Of course also in smaller and larger size, but in the latter case the resolution – and thus the quality – of the image will be less. Have a try, and tell me how it came.

I will also publish some more printable-size compositions in the future. Even before Christmas if I will have time.

The plants on the picture are:
• Left side column: on the top a Bergenia, in the middle an autumn-colored leaf of a Paeonia, on the bottom the fruit of Viburnum rhytidophyllum.
• Central column: on the top an Euonymus hamiltonianus 'Indian Summer', and below it, in order, a Sorbus 'Titan', a Hosta leaf, one more Euonymus hamiltonianus 'Indian Summer', and a rose leaf in autumn colors.
• Right side column: top and bottom: Paeonia leaves in autumn colors, and in the middle a Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Firetail'.

November morning lights

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The last watering

2009-11-04T12:38:00.001+01:00

Imperial crown

2009-11-01T07:37:00.003+01:00

“…suitably to its name, came to the European ornamental gardens through the mediation of two real emperors and two uncrowned kings of Renaissance botany…”

“…One of the emperors was Great Suleiman, il Magnifico, as Italian historians and al-Qanuni, the Legislator, as Turkish and Persian chroniclers called him. He complemented and stabilized the conquests of his father and grandfather, and his long reign was the golden age of Ottoman culture…”

“…Persian literature and art, including garden art, played a great role in this revival. Bread feeds the body, but flowers feed the soul, goes the saying attributed to Mohamed, and in this spirit Suleyman established in Istanbul the Flower Market which still functions on its original site, in the neighborhood of the Spice Bazaar…”

The story continues in the Poemas del Río Wang…

Foggy morning

2009-10-23T19:34:00.000+02:00