Beautiful nurseries in the south of the Netherlands

I had promised you some pictures of my visit to 2 beautiful nurseries in the south of the Netherlands.

Together with my mom and aunt, we first visited Marnis nursery (sorry, only in Dutch).

Iris 'superstition'; a gorgeous nightblue variety!

Papaver orientale 'Indian Chief'

Papaver orientale 'Türkenlouis'; fringed... & in real life even brighter

Rose 'Scharlachgut'

The actual reason to go to this nursery was this rose. I bought one about 9 years ago, just before we left the Netherlands to go & live abroad for a while. So I never actually saw the rose in bloom in my garden. Now that we're back, I couldn't find the rose anymore (guessed that one of the renters didn't really see the beauty of it). So I went back to Marnis & bought a new one. It's a single rose and it looks very fragile in a very, almost neon-like, pinkish red colour.

I planted it last week & all of a sudden, I saw another rose making it's appearance.. it looked a bit neglected with ugly branches. I decided to let it stay there and waiting for the buds to open before deciding to take it out or not. And guess what? When the buds opened, it was the same rose!!

I have 2 now and I don't mind at all :)

After lunch we went to another nursery,  Bastin

Bastin is well-known for its mediterranean plants like many different kinds of salvia & lavender.

I didn't take any pictures there (it started raining and I had my hands, of course,  filled with plants!!), but I'll show you some of what I bought that is in my garden now:

 

Salvia 'Hot Lips'

Cistus x purpureus 'Betty Taudevin'

Campanula La Belle

Verbascum Linda

Verbascum Chaixii Album

I hope you liked the little tour & if you're in the neighbourhood, these nurseries are well worth a visit!

Very dedicated and well-informed people, with a heart for their work!

Surprised!!

Amazing... What a wonderful weather we had the last weeks. Temperatures rose to 18, 19 degrees Celsius. This is too warm for this period of the year, but I so loooooove it!

I filled some vases with violets, under the violets I planted bulbs in layers: snow drops, blue & white muscari and tulips.

To my big surprise I saw already green leaves from the muscari peeping out between the violets, isn't that amazing? In November??

Can you spot them?

By the way, this is our garden at this very moment: clean & empty, we pruned the conifers and are planning to make a kind of natural fence. I'm already planning lots of beautiful climbers there!

The real work will start again in Spring!

From a different angle:

And yet another rose decided to bloom again, already full of briers,

just one stubborn blooming bud... that's nature!

Time for some action inside the house: there is still some painting to do!

Take care & see you soon again!

By the way, have a look here (mainly for the Dutch speaking!) & join!

Our garden

As some of you might remember, our garden (front & back) looked quite messy when we arrived in our house 2 months ago after being abroad for about 8 years and having renters in our house that were not always that keen on gardening (have to admit, there was one exception!!).

We didn't change that much yet, but we took advantage of the fall season to clean up a bit and prune trees, bushes and shrubs. What it looked like while we were at it, shows the above picture...
But hey, shouldn't it always get worse before it gets better?
Please tell me it does!

Luckily, there still is something pretty here!

What about this rose?

And despite the fact that no renter took care of it, it still blooms constantly...

Even in the beginning of November!

And I, surprisingly, see a new rosebud appearing!

How amazing is that?

This rose is an eyecatcher in our front garden, it has a very subtle colour, looks pretty fragile

(but, as it has proofed, it is very strong) and on top of that, it has a very delicate perfume!

Sitting on the sofa, looking outside the window, it makes for a perfect view!

Hopefully the sunny fall-weather will continue in the weekend. But looking at the weather forecasts,

it'll be a weekend that calls for lighting the fire place, candle light, hot chocolate & comfort food!

Have a good weekend!!