Hello again friends! 

A well-known nursery rhyme comes to mind in recalling the past month’s weather; April showers bring May flowers. What do Mayflowers bring? -PEOPLE!  The beginning of the month was a bit hectic with plans & projects and trying to coordinate yearly garden improvements & a few small changes as weather permitted. We’ve seen it all in the last 30 days. Temperatures did cool off, and we did have some rain, then it dried out again, and then it warmed up, only to go through this whole cycle once more. On the whole nationwide, April & May have been cooler than what is typical. We had a lot of rain on & off all of last week, which surely replenished all that’s growing here. It’s taken another week for temperatures to climb back up to shirt-sleeve weather. Next week seems to have us back on track, and I’m looking forward to consistent double-digit temps once again. 🙂

Pekka has been doing triple duty lately. Some days he can be found in the old shed building working on the interior spaces, some days he’s taking out a wonky patio stone walkway, but last weekend he finished a deck platform at the water feature/pond. Previously the grass went right up to the edge of the water. Last year or so Pekka took out the sod and began preparing the area for the platform which happened this year.  The lumber used is very dark and looks luscious out there surrounded by the greenery and the adjacent black rose trellis.

I ordered some outdoor decor items this weekend to add to this great space. We already had a wonderful decorative bench – so now this space is finished! Hurray

In the old shed, Pekka has been working on the sauna space.  The insulation has gone in, and the ceiling boards are now going up.  We’re using a black alder wood board in there which has been heat-treated. Something a bit different

The ‘Leonard Messel’ magnolia burst into flower a week ago and is still going strong even after several days of rain. It amazes me that so many blooms smother this rather small-sized tree every year. It is surely one of the highlights I look forward to seeing every spring.

The tulips have looked pretty good too!

The apple tree blossoms are *just* about to open and will soon fill the garden with their tremendous fragrance. From the look of things, the end result might be an excellent apple harvest. The blossoms on the franken-pear tree smell & look wonderful.

I’ve tucked in loads and loads of perennials this year, following in the same color and variety choices from last year. These should really bump up the cohesiveness bed to bed and compliment the roses which had just sat in the beds mostly alone. I’ve opted for two types of nepeta (mirrinmentu/cat mint), ten varieties of hardy geranium (Kaukasiankurjenpolvi/ Crane’s bill) and six varieties of salvia (loistosalvia/sage) You can see & learn more about all the varieties from our Specimen List at the top header of this post, or by clicking on the link on the left-hand side of the page! OR by clicking here

The Avoimet Puutarha date is nearing, and we still have much to do to prepare for visitors. Pekka updated our listing with some fresh photos to highlight the garden to potential garden visitors.  I hired a designer to finalize a logo for our garden. You can see it on the left-hand pane 🙂  It’s a drawing of a Blue tit bird on a pine branch with pine cone – a very indicative sight here in our garden. I’d like to get the design on a couple of custom embroidered shirts for us to wear on the open garden day. Hopefully we can make the deadline!  Here are the other gardens in Lohja which are going to be open to visitors in June. Click: Lohja

Seems like there’s always a bit of tinkering to do outside. It’s a waiting game now to see which roses have fully ‘made it’ and look like they’re going to survive. I’ve had tremendous luck with all the Nordic/Scandinavian varieties, and it really is those few tea roses and David Austin varieties which ever give me fits. But even with those there are surprises. I’m hoping for loads of blooms for the open day. I’ve already had to cut the grass twice, and it’s full-speed ahead there. Pretty soon we’ll be fully in the swing of things as the peonies are standing tall and are loaded with buds. We added a few new ones over the past month and even those new ones have buds 🙂 lucky stars!

I’ll put together another post before the open day 20th June, since by then the peonies will have all blossomed into flower and our summer perennials will have joined in the show.

Until then ❤ Vanha Talo Suomi