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.

Welcome to my evergreen garden in Poland

Hello everybody. My name is Andrzej (Andrew, Andreas, Andre) and as polish language is diffficult for foreigners to pronounce it would be much easier for you to call me Andy. Most or even all of my foreign friends call me like that. I live in Poland, in the central part of the country close to our capital city - Warsaw. Few years ago I started to grow my garden. Before that I hated to do anbything in the garden but something pushed me to change my point of view. I visited many different countries and places abroad and in Poland. When I noticed that in many placec there were nice lawns and shrubs I decided to change my garden. And finally it started to be my hobby. 

Just 18 months ago I started to run a blog in Polish. It's been mostly dedicated to evergreen broadleaf plants. Having lots of viewers I decided to start to write in English. You can check my Polish blog on www.zimozielonyogrod.blogspot.com and use Google translator to read it. But this tool is still not so accurate and lots of misunderstandings appear whe you try to translate it into any language.

I live in a small town where you can find a lot of trees. Just on the border between Podkowa Leśna and Brwinów. There are small villas here and each house has its own garden. Most of them are quite big, with more than 1500m2. Many trees means a lot of shadow. So it also has an influence on the garden. I had to choose special grass and shrubs which can grow in shady places. I didn't know anything about gardening when I started to rearrange my garden. It was in 2006. Until now I've learned a lot about gardening and I can say I have quite good experience in it. 

I'm very interested in evergreen broadleaf shrubs or plants in general. Climate in Poland does not allow to grow many of them here but there are some of them which can grow here and are hardly enough to withstand our winters. 

I will present here more information about our climate, I will show you my evergreen broadleaf plants and write how to take care of them in different seasons. I will also present you some nice and very interesting places in Poland and abroad like botanical gardens, parks and arboretum.

Please forgive me if I make any language mistakes. English is not my native language but I will try to do my best to write as properly as possible. 

Welcome to my new blog dedicated to evergreen broadleaf plants.