After rain

Anemone Rotkäpchen

Translated to English: Little Red Riding-Hood. If you like warm pinks, then you will love this charming anemone.

Although it is usually considered of small stature, at us it grows about 80 cm high. It is important to know that it is invasive, like every anemone.

In our garden (Z5) it resists winter with no problem. It prefers part-shade, but it also tolerates rather much shadow, and if it gets enough water, it also grows on a somewhat sunnier place. However, you must not put it on open sun and dry places.

I think it can be best joined with purple, warm pink, apricot, pale yellow, butter-colored flowers, but nice combinations can be made with blue and white as well.

At us it is certainly sold by Hegede Kertészet, and perhaps by others as well.

Chef d'oeuvre

Some – like me – have to struggle for those light, floating compositions that enchant so much one’s heart.

Others create perfect things by instinct.

Just a picture

The Echinops composition – in the autumn. The second bloom of Echinops is much shorter than the first one. If there will be a long and warm autumn, it will have a third bloom, too. The Eupatorium and Phlox acquitted themselves well. The first bloom of the Persicaria polymorpha behind them was cut back a bit too late, and thus now it has only a few flowers. Instead of the Berberis and Hosta undulata I would like something more attractive. Perhaps in this autumn I will replace them with Aconitum and Geranium.

Saturday afternoon

Some things I am satisfied with.

This one has enchanted me for days. It became sooo Mediterranean. Not in the way it is fashiionable now, which means heaping up plants that require a climate which is milder by two or three zones than ours. No, this was composed with plants of our climate, but it has an atmosphere like shady Mediterranean patios.

This composition was made in this spring, and I am satisfied with the result. A Molinia 'Karl Foerster' between a Nepeta and a Sedum.

Phlox 'Orange' or 'Orange Perfection'. I replanted them in this spring, and they are still small. They are famous for finding their place with difficulty. Here it is in the company of Miscanthus, Carex and Artemisia lactiflora.

Country feeling in the spice garden.

The pink-yellow bed. I will work on it a little bit more in the autumn, but I already consider it fine.

The same, seen from the pink Phlox. This picture was really inserted because of our cat Muska. By the way, the Phlox is called Windsor. An excellent flower. I planted it in this spring, and it is already this beautiful. It also resisted the heat of this summer. And I find it very fitting to the warm yellow tones.

And finally a somewhat cooler image with some Miscanthus in bloom.

My favorites

Rudbeckia nitida 'Herbstsonne'. Well, with her I have a love-hate relationship. I consider her quite beautiful and vigorous, but she is a little bit too yellow for me. Now I have tried to encircle her with much light white and pink in order to counterbalance her strong personality. In the spring I had placed her out on the street before the fence, but she did not tolerate dryness, so in early summer she came back. Thanks God she has fully recovered.

Phlox paniculata 'The King'. Here the colors are like in real life. She has an elegant shade between wine red and purple, quite rare in Phlox. In addition, this is exactly the same color as the rouge one of my beloved professors used back at the faculty of pscyhology. She always reminds me of her, which is an extra bonus of this plant. In the morning when I sat on the bank near to her, I always say good morning to Magdi, too.

Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Rosea'. One of my main favorites. She conveys the impression of marshlands, but she does not require constantly wet soil, she is quite beautiful with normal watering as well. She belongs to those few plants that feel well both under full sun and in deep shadow. In addition, she also grows equally all round if se only receives light from one side. And in top of all that, she requires absolutely no maintenance.

Molinia 'Transparent'. I already wrote about her in the last year. This is now a recent picture. By enlargint it you will see how beautiful great arch she has.

Miscanthus 'Ferner Osten'. I also wrote about her in the last year. She starts to bloom now. In front of her there stands a Helenium 'Rubinzwerg', one of the few Heleniums that are also beautiful in part-shade.

Hosta 'Paul's Glory'. This is in fact one of the most elegant Hostas. It was hard to find exactly that shade of part-shade which she preferred. With a little bit more of sun she was burnt, and in more shadow she languished. Now it seems that we managed to find the balance, to the great satisfaction of both of us.

Twelve pictures

Banská Štiavnica (Selmecbánya) - Botanical garden

The Slovakian border is only forty minutes by car from us. Slovakia is full of beautiful landscapes and monuments. Very civilized and prices are rather low. Whenever we can, we go over to sip a little bit of Europe there.

One of our favorites is Banská Štiavnica / Selmecbánya (the first is its Slovakian name, the second the Hungarian name, as Slovakia was part of the Hungarian kingdom until 1918, and the majority of the town’s inhabitants was Hungarian). It’s a wonderful little medieval town. Fabulous places, fantastic cafés and “brave old world” small restaurants.

You should by any means check on it the post of Tamás in Poemas del Río Wang.

In this week we finally managed to get there again.

This time we also went to visit the local botanical garden.

This was the garden of the Academy of Banská Štiavnica. The first academy of mining and metallurgy in Europe was established in this town in 1737, and it was further enlarged with a department of forestry in 1807.

This botanical garden is especially famous of its exotic trees, pines, cedars and Sequoias. The above two images show a Sequiodendrum giganteum which had come from America many, many, many years ago.

By walking among the gigantic old trees one understands what makes an aristocratic castle.

Time somehow becomes touchable.