Beautiful day - December 10, 2013

It was a little bit freezing today in the morning. Temperature dropped to -5 C (23 F). Happily the sky was clear and the sun which appeared around 7.30 AM brought fantastic weather. Truly speaking Poland is still devided into two parts. Cloudy western part of the country is a little bit warmer with +6 C (42,8 F) when sunny east suburbs are still quite cold with around -3 C (26,6 F). It's +2 C (35,6 F) at the moment in the area where I live so we are somewhere between two masses of air of different temperature and weater conditions. And it's partly cloudy here with some sun breaks. 

There are still some signs of snow in my garden. Quite heavy snow falls came here with Xaver witch blassed Europe last Thursday and Friday. Luckily the storm did not make any damages in my garden.

It is quite difficult to grow evergreen broadleaf plants in Poland. I wrote about it some time ago. But my experience and knowledge tells me that it is possible. And you can find the proof for that in my garden. You cas see some ivies here or spindles (Euonymus).

I also grow many different rhododendrons. I love them, especially in may whe they bloom. You can find here some different kinds of hollies, skimmias, pierises, cherry laurels (common laures), berberises and many others.

I will soon start some kind of presentation of evergreen broadleaf plants that grow in my garden. I will tell you how to take care of them and how frost hardy they are. 

Now, let's enjoy beautiful morning weater.

Xaver across Europe

Hurricane-force Storm Xaver blasted towards mainland Europe on Thursday after cutting transport and power in northern Britain and killing three people in what meteorologists warned could be the worst storm to hit the continent in years (REUTERS). "Xaver" started to attack Polish coast Thursday night. The maximum wind speed was not as fast as in the UK but strong enough (115 km/h). To destroy many buildings.

Friday morning was very quite in the central  part of Poland. We had some snowfalls night before. My garden looked like a very peacefull place.

Situation changed very rapidly early afternoon. Very strong wind came in a second. And it brought haevy snow.

A major storm surge threatened parts of Poland on Friday as a low-pressure system dubbed  Xaver began battering the coasts with chilly hurricane-force winds. The United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Scandinavia were most heavily affected by the severe storm, but cancelled flights and trains caused problems across Europe. 500 000 hoseholds had no electricity and 5 deaths were reported as the reasult of this storm. Xaver uprooted thousands of trees.

Late afternoon the wind was much lighter so I could go back to the garden to make some pics.

The storm came back in the evening but it was not as strong as in the afternoon. 

It was a very sunny and nice day on Saturday. Today it was also not so bad and I will show you some pictures of my garden tomorrow.

Is it winter?

Late autumn in Poland can bring entirely different weather conditions. We experienced +10 C (50F) just few days ago. Today when I woke up in the morning I noticed -3C (26,6F) outside of the kitchen window. just berore 8 A.M. it started to snow. I wasn't a heavy snow but it made the ground white. Weather forecasts say that it's gonna be a little bit warmer next days. but we have to be ready for winter coming closer and closer. i don't like this part of the year. Plants in my garden do not like winter neither. Most of them are frost hardy enough but some can withstand temperature down to -15C (5F). Those should be covered to prevent them from a hard frost (if appear). They also don't tolerate winter draught and freezing winds. Luckily I live in the forest so we don't have here such a strong winds.

Let's visit my garden covered with a tiny white snow coverage.

You will soon find here some information about different frost hardy evergreen plants. I will also tell you how to treat them in winter.

Beautiful day in November

November in Poland is know as a wet and cloudy "grey" month. It is just a stereotype because statistics say that Julay and August are the wettest months in Central Europe (also in Poland). The truth is that the daylight is very short in Poland in November. And when it's cloudy it seems that the sun never shines. And it's very grey that time as the are no leaves on the trees. Today the sun rised around 7 a.m. and at 15.40 we notice the sunfall. 

But even in November we can experience very beautiful and sunny weather. Today, as for November it's quite warm. Even at 19.00 it,s still almost 10 degrees C. You can see that on www.wetterzentrale.de

Today we had partly cloudy weather with some light rain at noon.

But yesterday... just watch! it was really nice!

Welcome to my evergreen garden in Poland. Isn't it nce? Even in November?

I will take you for a walk to my parents' garden very soon.

Gardening in November

There're not so many things to do in the garden in November in Poland. But there is one exception. If you live like me in the forest than you have to clean up the garden. There are so many leaves falling down everywhere. 

Yesterday I started the last (I hope) autumn cleaning of my garden. Today in the morning the weather was very nice. So I could continue my work. Unfortunately it was raininig very early in the morning ant the lawn was very wet. So I couldn't cut the grass.

Luckilly I had enough time to clean what I call "Rhododendron's corner". In fact you can find there not only evergreen rhododendrons but also other evergreen broadleaf plants like Skimmia, pieris, ivies and others. i will describe some of them soon here on my blog. 

My garden looks much better now. I hope that tommorow I will be able to finish all the works there and finally cut  the grass.

Stay tuned!

Autumn has made a lot of changes in my evergreen garden

I haven't been writing my blog in English for a long time. Last information was posted here in the middle of September. Please forgive me such a long brake. Lots of different things happend since that time. But I have to say sorry to all of you who came here and saw nothing new. I only wrote my blog in Polish. English has been forgotten until today. 

But I'm back and i promise to post here some news much more often than before. maybe not everyday, just few times a week. I hope it's gonna be good for you. 

Today I'm going to take you to a short journey through my garden in autumn 2013. So let's start our voyage.

First days of October brought some autumn fogs to my garden. It really looked mysterious and incredible.

Morning sun warmed the wet air and shortly the sky was clean.

When I woke up on Friday October 4, I noticed that it was a little bit freezing. It was not a very heavy frost, just -1 C, but it painted my neighbour garden in white.

As every year each October the leaves on the trees started to change their colours. This japanees maple should be red all the seaseon but it grows in quite shady part of my garden, so it always starts to be really red just in autumn.

Some flowers still grew outside, but only the most hardy flowers withstood the first slightly freezing morning.

A small maple changed its colours every day. It was really beautiful. I wish it looked like that through the whole season. No Photoshop or any other colour changes added.

In the mid October big trees like oaks, common maples, birches and others also started to change their colours. 

I love spring and summer, I hate winter and I do not like autumn because it gives the first signes of coming winter. Days are shorter, temperature drops down, but when I look at the trees I always forget about all of these bed things. The festival of colours really make me happy. And I am lucky to live in the area where I can observe it just from the balcony or through the window.

November has just started and there are still some flowers on my balcony. But I do believe that these days will be one of the last for them.

I still need to cut the lawn. I thing it will be last cutting this year. I do need to clean the leaves from the pine bark, which is not seen at all at the moment. But believe me, it lays under the leaves in the areas where there is no grass.

I will inform you soon how the weather condition changes here in the central part of Poland and how it affects my garden and my evergreen broadleaf plants.

Evergreen garden in the middle of September

Summer is almost finished. Days are shorter, there are more rainfals and temperature has just dropped below +20 C. There are many signs of coming autumn. I also recognised them in my garden. There are lots of forest mushrooms growing just outside of my house, close to the pond.

We pick these mushrooms here in Poland. I know that in The UK or Germany or in many other countries people only eat champignons but we eat more maushrooms and can taste and smell their beautiful flavour. Mushrooms that I've just picked in my garden are not the most wanted ones but they are still OK and can be frozen to make a good mushroom sauce in winter.

Grass is still growing. I would even say it's growing faster than in July or August as it's got a huge natural watering. It is raining almost everyday! So using a small brake between rainfals I decided to cut it again.

As autumn is coming closer and closer some trees have just began to change their colours. Birches are the first trees to experience this change. Leaves turn from green to yellow and than they fall down on my lawn.

The ivies have just started to bloom. It's another sign of incoming autumn. I love ivies (English ivy, Persian ivy and others). There are more than 15 different ivies in my garden. One day I will explain more about their cultivation in Poland.

Magnolia grandiflora Edith Bogue is still growing. It is probably the only one evergreen magnolia which can withstand our climate. I bought it this year so I will be able to tell you something more about its hardiness next spring.

Garden always needs something to be done, I mean cut, cleaned or watered. Tomorrow I will have to clean my pond.  There are some algaes there and they should be removed.

Please forgive me my English. Don't be angry if you notice any mistakes. This is not my native language. I will try to do my best to write as correct as possible.

How to cut lawns

Beautiful and lovely cut lawn is one of the most important parts of the garden. I would even say that this is the most important place. Green grass gives fantastic impression and tells a lot about the gardener. In general grass needs a lot of sun, water and fertilisers. You can also find mixed grass seeds dedicated for shady places, parks or dry soil.  There are many shady places in my garden as I live in the forest. It is quite difficult to grow nice lawn here but I try to do my best to have very green, dense and in general beautiful lawn.

Grass need regular cutting. I cut my lawn every 5-6 days from May to October. Before and after this period I cut it every 8-10 days. 

Look how my lawn looked before cutting.

And after.

Late morning or early afternoon are the best parts of the day for cutting lawns. Early morning dew is gone, so the grass is dry and ready for cutting. Do not cut wet grass becouse you can destroy grass-stalks. If destroyed the become yellow and the lawn doesn't look nice.

Winter in Poland comes in December. But sometimes even in November we can face some snow falls. It can also happen here that November and the first part of December are quite warm with temperatures around +5 or +10 C. If late autumn is warm enough grass still needs cutting. Maybe not every 10 days. I sometimes cut it every 2 weeks late autumn. But if it's freezing please do not cut the grass at all.

I will present some details about climate in Poland tomorrow.