Would Jane Austin Take Tea in This Garden? [weekend tour]

Roses and dresses go so well together, don't you think? Well, Jane Austen liked my garden, I wonder. The reedy nook right there. Beautiful blossoms here. The vegetable garden to pick something for dinner. I think she would like it. Another garden tour. Today it is so pretty because all the roses are starting to bloom. Well, at least two roses. Olivia Austen and Lady of Shallot. Generous gardener is still thinking. All the roses in the front are thinking, but one Desdemona. So this is the day to enjoy. Oh, love it. Lady of Shallot totally missed the season of aphids. But sawfly larvae huge this year. So all I'm doing, I'm trying to squash those bugs out and using horticultural oil. Well, you know what? I'm using horticultural oil and watching those guys for several guys, you know, the larvae and they're not moving, but they're not dying. So I'm doing a little experiment right now. I got one leaf with the larvae of sawfly and I'm keeping it in the container of my windowsill to see how long it will take for that nasty thing to die. Finally. Usually horticultural oil doesn't act right away. It interferes with, I think, with the eating organs of the pest. And then it takes several days, up to three days for it to disappear. Well, I'm kind of impatient. Those bugs can eat a lot for three days, right? But look at this. And we are expecting rainy days starting today in the evening. So three or four days of rain probably will finish this flush of blooms. But look how beautiful it is. Oh my gosh. Wonderful. And I suspect that I will deadhead all these blooms and then Lady of Shalott will push its glorious display. That's what happens to Lady of Shalott every year. I think, oh, this is it. This is the biggest one. It is not. All these buds will open. Hopefully after four days of rain, we will get a nice, I think, weak stretch without rain with sunny and cloudy weather. And we will celebrate the blooms because other roses will join in. Look at generous gardener. The first flowers are opening up. Not much. And again, sawfly larvae is huge this year for me. We totally escaped aphids this year. I just had to knock them here and there. And you were asking me, how can I do on every bud here? Well, that's it. There was not much at all. Plus no mosquitoes. It's a pleasure to be in the garden this season. I see a brand new flower there, not here. I like when single rose opens somewhere where I can reach it, the first one, because the scent of generous gardener is beautiful. Even here, I can smell it a little bit, but they're not opened yet. So we're still waiting on this. The same with Katrina rose. A little bit here opened up, not much. And look at all this growth. I decided to move the table this way. I don't know. There is no space there. This area is here congested. So for now, we are having dinners here. And actually this growth coming this way would be just over the table. And when this rose is blooming, I will move the table to make it right near the center of this rose. Look at this, what I'm doing here. My next beautiful project for a very cozy nook in the garden. And I will keep you posted. You know what this is? Purple irises were growing on the side corner of my garden. So I had to clean them up. And instead of throwing all these reeds, and they're pretty strong. Last year, I got this idea, but I wasn't on top of timing. So I had to throw away the reeds. But this year I said, I'm going to do something with these reeds. So look what I'm in the middle of. I'm making, originally I wanted to make some sort of a pot, but I'm realizing that I am running out of reeds. I don't have enough of them. So I'm going to do some sort of art in the garden. The old wreath, right? I keep all sorts of odd pieces. And then I had this plate with a cute sparrow, although those eggs look huge. So it's not really an accurate picture of the bird with such big eggs, but hey, so I'm planning to do something like this. Come here. Mr. Cromedy is filming today. Very nice of you, Mr. Cromedy. And look at this. I'm going to do something like this. Maybe design something here and put it on the wall. And I'm not sure where I'm going to put it yet. And it will be, you know, it's not going to stay long, but it will be a nice addition. Maybe I will put it somewhere where we have a reading nook, Jane Austen reading corner, and I'm planning to organize it really well to have it beautiful there. So this can go to that space and be a nice addition, even if it's just for the season, you know? And these little, I call them orphans, plants orphans. I am raising these guys from seeds forever. And they are perennials. They are pincushion flowers, deep farmer. I told you about them. I wanted to plant them originally under my new dawn roses, but these guys are taking forever. So the first batch went out already. I planted them out and guess what happened? The first day, they became the first night. They became the dinner for rabbits. Rabbits ate all the growth, like shaved it. For two months, I was raising these seedlings to feed rabbits, you know? So I'm thinking to install big caging there around these guys and do a second planting this season. It's not going to be any show from these plants. I don't even know if this is going to be a successful project. We will see. All these are little plants, which are also orphans because I didn't plant them well yet. This has to be in the shade. Little begonias, they're struggling here. I have to clean them up and plant them in the shade apples under the apple tree. But that's next project. Let me show you what I planted out already. On both sides of our sofa, I introduced two pots and they are hosting two plants. Sweet potato wine and geraniums, the favorite plant of my mother and of my husband's mother. It was a very potent scent, but I think they're going to add a little bit of a splash of color here. Generally, this corner is very calm and green, serene. So I thought maybe a little splash of color would be a nice accent here. And by the way, we already made twice jam from our rhubarb and this Victoria rhubarb, it's an old variety. It has what is distinct about it. It has the green stems and I was thinking, hmm, the jam doesn't look really well. It looks beige greenish and that color is not really appealing in jams. So maybe the varieties of rhubarbs with reddish stems would be better. But this rhubarb is very healthy. It is second year in my garden. First year I didn't harvest it. It came into the garden already as a well-developed plant in the pot. And now it looks like it is thriving here and becoming bigger and better plus all the rain, right? It loves it here. Well, the first rose to open up in my garden was Olivia Austin, and right now it is right there at the height of its blooms. Let's go and see it. We have Olivia Austin, majority of flowers face that side because we have sun coming on this part of the garden through the sky. And Olivia Austin is just look at this powerhouse of a rose. It opens up strongly looking up and when the flowers age, they kind of nod and look down. And some people think that rose might be wilting, but that is a natural feature of some of the roses that they nod and look down in a way. Here my Olivia Austin has a very strong vertical growth on these young stems. I'm not sure, they are exhibiting wilting here already, not wilting, but nodding and looking down. Here it's very noticeable here on these lower stems. I had to support them with the help of sticks here because I introduced finally, I introduced ladies' mantle. I like ladies' mantle in the garden. I was not successful once with it and now I'm hoping that ladies' mantle will recede happily and I will have more of this very cheerful chartreuse color in the garden. By the way, talking about chartreuse color, look at this becoming bigger and better, choreopterous, wonderful splash of color. Love it. I'm so glad I introduced it here and did the loop around it, although it's getting a little disheveled. You see here, I have to fix it. Wonderful. At the back, I introduced two more plants which I want to show you and they are woodland plants. I'm trying to develop this area here behind butterfly bush, which is recuperating from severe trimming this spring and I think it's doing well. We will have beautiful blooms, but here, what I want to do here, I want to introduce the path here. I just have to put my hands on good stones, but what I did here, look at this, dainty little flowers. That's a woodruff, sweet woodruff, woodland plants. This supposed to be a natural ground cover for Connecticut, for New England area, so I did two of them here and there is another one right here. For years, I was fighting with moss here, trying to introduce grass here all the time and then I thought to myself, why am I doing it? So this year, I'm weeding it all out, leaving just moss and I think it's much better letting grass fall down here to create some sort of a presence. Maybe my sweet woodruff will try to colonize this area and eventually stones and this moss will be living well here. I like this area here, so people can walk not only through that passage all the way there, but here too, you know, the invitation of small stones here, stepping stones. I know I always talk to you about gooseberries. I think gooseberries are so good in the garden because no birds are eating them. They're a little bit too big for birds and maybe not pleasant. Look at all the harvest we are going to have. So many of them and they are becoming bigger and bigger. Let me try one. It's going to be super sour, but I do like oh gosh, I do like sour taste and I miss that taste in a lot of gems in America. So this sour taste is super good. Now let's go to the front of the garden and I will show you what's happening there. New dawn is quiet. It is going to be quiet maybe for another several days. Really small buds and not ready to open anytime soon and Gabriel oak is positively leafing out here. I finished this loop. It's nice and open and wide. I used the whole stash of my precious wood for this one, but it does look good and nobody is going to step into it. When you look at the generous gardener from here, we can see one rose opening up. Beautiful, beautiful and so many future blooms are going to open there. Smiles towards the sun, right? All right, let's look at one rose which is growing in the front and it is Desdemona rose. Desdemona rose is a gentle rose. By the way, look at this little thing I made here. It is hanging from the apple tree. I'm not sure if I like it here, but for now little begonia is growing there. Okay, this rose is also quiet here although buds are starting their opening. So here in the front, oh no, one is open. One bloom is open here of new roll, new roll doll rose, right? Roll doll rose. I love how this rose pairs up with Nepeta here. It's a pity this rose doesn't have more sun here. It would be a glorious sight, although even now it is looking quite good. And look at this flower combination here. Desdemona rose is coming into its strength and these irises are on their way out. Pretty, pretty. By the way, do you remember I planted my phlox here? Rabbits found their way under this netting and they ate all the phloxes. Oh my gosh! I reasserted it all, plugged it in into the soil. Let's see, maybe those poor plants will bounce back. So Desdemona is the first one here in this corner to bloom. And this entrance into my garden is framed by two nepetas on both sides. Aren't they lovely? I like this entrance. And here, look at the pity sight of hydrangeas. A lot of dead stems. I was in spring, I was hopeful that it's going to be a nice blooming season. No way! Especially this one. Another one on another side, especially the middle one, is not doing very badly after all. This one has some blooms, you see. Peonies. I mean this one, you see, it's not bad. There are plenty of blooms, plenty of future blooms, right? And look at the peony. Oh, it's a glorious sight to see any flower in its glory, right? And this one, smooth leaf hydrangea, loves humidity, not humidity, loves wet soil. And this season was so good for it that the blooms are going to be big, nice. Look how wide this bush is. Love it, love it, love it. The entrance of the house is framed with yews and beautiful calm nepeta. I love the presence, the cottagey presence of these flowers here. And they're surprisingly long-lasting, especially when the season is rainy. So this is exactly what's happening. Also what I like about this entrance is that the edges of steps are hidden underneath the yew bushes on both sides. Garden is looking very lush and happy. And no more of eating my honey berry here in this loop. Looks like honey berry is happy there. My dear gardeners, have a lovely day. Blooms will continue in my garden, so please do subscribe to keep track of all this. You can see how my lady of shallot wants the sun. She couldn't care less what's happening there, right? And maybe I will move those chives there. You see how they're growing on one side? And I really think that they are kind of forcing lady of shallot not to conquer that area with its stems. So I'm thinking to move it and see how lady of shallot will behave. You know how trees grow and they never touch? So maybe the same situation is happening there. Well, anyway, happy gardening and we will see you in our next video.