This week was rainy and very windy here in the Netherlands. I didn’t spend much time outside as I normally do. Didn’t go to my volunteer job at the Historic Dutch Garden. I hate to admit that I am a bit of a good weather garden volunteer. But, it seems I want to work when the weather is nicer. Bad me!
We did pull our camper out of winter storage in preparation to haul it to it’s new seasonal slot at Sprijkerboor Jachthaven Camping. This camping is located a short ride (16km) from the house on the south side of the De Kaag lake. We won’t be able to spend much time at our new camping site until Easter weekend but it will be ready for all our summer explorations after this weekend.
Our view from the kitchen: The camper waiting to be loaded and hauled to the seasonal site this weekend.
As the days inch closer to April more flowers are peeking their heads out of the ground.
Hyacinth in my front garden
I kinda cheated with these flowers in my front garden. The above hyacinths are ones purchased recently at the local greenhouse and placed in the ground pot and all. This is a good way to get flower color early into your gardens. I did see many fall planted hyacinth bulbs also blooming in my neighborhood this past week.
Potted tulips inching out of the soil
The tulips are about three weeks early with the warm spell we had two weeks ago. The ones above were potted last fall in the front of the house. They are in a cooler more shaded area and are much shorter than the ones in my back garden that are exposed to more sun.
Potted mixed bulbs
The combination above are also some greenhouse started bulbs that I purchased for my mother-in-laws balcony. With these bulbs I discarded the pots and planted in one of her pots. Again this is a good way to get almost instant color in early Spring.
What is in your garden right now? Are you thinking and planning your summer activities?
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The Cedar Journal 
Things are coming along nicely in the garden just now despite the gales! Planted some wild flowers last week, Ladies Smock and Bugle, in the hope of attracting the spring butterflies.
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What sort of plants to the butterflies lay their eggs on? In the Midwest (MN) many sorts use milkweed plants. I would love some information on how to promote expanding numbers in my garden on this side of the ocean. Do you have some British links that would be helpful?
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Butterfly Conservation https://butterfly-conservation.org/sites/default/files/butterflyfoodplants.pdf have this info which might be of help. Stinging nettles are great if you can spare a ‘wild corner’ as the three most common garden butterflies use these.
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Interesting- stinging nettles. Thanks for the link. I will do some research.
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Looking at the flowers and the trailer ready to go to your seasonal campsite tells me that spring has sprung in the Netherlands in spite of the nasty weather, which kept you indoors. There is still so much snow on our yard that I could not pull our trailer out to the street. Have a great weekend and best wishes! Peter
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Thanks Peter! I am sure Spring will hit Canada one day soon too.😊
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What is my garden right now? Mounds of snow. 🙂
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But, I saw it will be close to 50F this weekend. The flowers will be there before you know it.
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Nothing is nice than the first flowers of Spring, even if we do plant them ourselves (I don’t think of that as cheating, I think of it as creative!) All I have blooming at the moment are a few daffodils, and they’re only up because they are close to my dryer vent and that keeps them a bit warmer than the rest of the yard.
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Enjoy your daffodils. Even just a few, give hope that Spring is here.
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Basically we had another couple of hours of new snow last night. Accumulated slightly which stayed until mid morning in the shaded areas. So as also mentioned in the comment earlier, some white and a whole bunch of very wet ground cover and dirt. Unfortunately, this is pretty much how it stays until I get out to the nursery later in the spring and throw the dice on what flowers the Deer will choose to avoid this year – which isn’t much and what they leave alone, the Rabbits seem to enjoy and then that damn chipmunk I keep trying to rid my yard of every year just enjoys pulling parts of the plants off just to spite me. Add in the Raccoons that have a passion for digging up any freshly planted plants and .. oh well, you get the drift, but this is onw of the reason I enjoy your blog so much – full of color.
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Thanks Brian! Seems you have to fight the entire wild kingdom in your garden. I do understand that as I had similar problems when I still had a house in MN.
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