This time of the year you never know what you're going to see when you pull the curtains. There are clear sunny days, but also fog or mist. Mind you, it's April the 20th, and some of the snow still hasn't melted here! I have a bag full of gardening stuff I have bought, but still too early to get started with most of it.
I'm lucky with my new garden as I don't need to start from scratches. Mom has planted a lot of what I really really like to have in a garden, like roses, clematises, rhododendrons, and peonies. Some date back to her time in the valley of the Loire in France, where she had a lovely garden with a view of the river. Also there's rhubarb, strawberries, gooseberries, currants and raspberries as well as some apple and cherry trees, and even a grapewine in the greenhouse/garden room.
I my most wanted list for the garden are some climbers, like Flammentanz and Northern Star, which can normally survive even the harsh winters on our island. And I wish to have a plum and a pear tree. Also lilacs, which for me mean the beginning of summer. We used to have a whole fence of them in our summer cottage in Turku archipelago when I was little, and we usually drove there for the first time when school was over in the end of May, which meant they were in full bloom and smelled heavenly! I would like to have the same effect here, eventually, but that would mean removing a lot of other plants in order to place the lilacs along the southern fence.
We also plan to have wooden boxes for all kinds of edible stuff. No chance of being quite self-sufficient with the limited time and space that we have, but still it would be nice to have some fresh herbs and vegetables. The boxes for them have been planned but not made yet...
So far there exist some chilli plants as well as basil. We planted some other seeds earlier on, but the seeds were too old and nothing came up. Now I'm really looking forward to my youngest to arrive for the weekend as she's also keen on plants and gardening, and we'll be able to make some plans and sow some seeds, too.
As the plot is relatively small, my aim is to minimise the space dedicated to cars. My parents have used the old garage, which meant they needed quite a lot of space for their twenty-year-old car to turn around. I'm planning to use the garage for storage and keep the car in the street in front of the house. However, I still can't get completely rid of cars in the garden because we need plenty of firewood, which must be brought into the shed somehow. Our neighbour has the same problem, so there must be a route for both of us to use to drive through both gardens.
Next month there will appear a place dedicated to swapping plants outside the flea market in the centre of the town, the idea being that you can bring your residue and get someone else's instead. A great idea, especially as the plants you get from other islanders are bound to survive here. The climate is far from optimal, so the right choice of plants is really important in case you want to succeed and enjoy your garden.
In other towns fences around the gardens can be some two metres high, which allows you to have a favourable micro-climate in your garden. In Kaskinen, the town plan only allows 1.3 m fences, which leave the gardens open to the winds from the sea, unless there are buildings around them, of course. Normally I'm all for historic accuracy, but I think two-metre fences would make a world of difference for growing things. But it is as it is and we're sure to try and make the most of it!
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