It's summer in the Netherlands! After a few weeks of warm, sunny weather, the garden has really come to life. The time of beautiful blossom is over, but many plants are showing impressive growth. In this blog I'll show you around in my backyard jungle 😂

Yellow Ox‑Eye (Telekia speciosa)

I first discovered this plant several years ago while staying at a holiday home. The backyard of that place contained a large patch of beautiful large yellow plants. Their bright yellow flowers attracted a large number of insects. I remember seeing dozens of butterflies visiting the flowers while we were having lunch in the backyard.
I didn't know these plants, so I looked them up and decided to buy some for my own backyard after returning home, which I did!

The plants grow very fast. They go from 0 to a height of around 1.5 meters in just a few weeks. Their large leaves already make an impressive green 'bush'.

The flowers have not appeared yet, but I don't think we have to wait long for them to come because the first buds are there already. Once they do, I expect they will once again attract plenty of bees and butterflies to the garden, which I love about the plant.
Did you notice the ladybug larvae on the bud on the right by the way?

Last year I collected seeds from the old, dried out plants and stored them over the winter. Earlier this spring, I sowed them, which was surprisingly successful. In a previous post I already showed the tiny indoor green house full of tiny germinated Ox-eyes.
Only their growth started to slow down after a while. This had probably to do with the amount of seedlings in the small containers. The seeds are so tiny I just spread them out over the containers, but so many germinated, that the containers were too crowded. I selected the strongest seedlings and planted them in pairs into larger containers.

Despite their relatively small size above the soil, they had already developed an impressive long roots. It was quite a job to untangle them carefully. They still have a long way to go, but they are beginning to look like proper plants already.
As you can see in the photo above, I'm growing 26 young plants which have a nice place in the sun in the windowsill.

I need to decide what to do with them if they all survive. I do not have room for that many mature plants in my own garden. I will probably give some away to friends and family, or perhaps offer a few for sale through an online marketplace.

Fruits and nuts

We're growing quite some fruits in our backyard. We have an apple tree, raspberry bush and a plum tree. Apart from that we also have an almond tree.
Most of them are seemingly doing really fine. Although there are way less plums than last year (I had to prune it to give them more space), there are still quite a few plums in the tree. Last year we were on holiday in July, which was exactly the time they were ripe. I received a photo from my parents in law who picked a bowl full of fresh, sweet plums while we were gone.

The almond is also doing well. We bought this one as a small tree a couple of years ago because we found it a lovely tree, but it has grown quite a bit since then.

It has grown quite big branches and has loads of almonds every year. Every year we're getting more almonds. And although it might seem like a lot, the almonds inside their big green shells are just a centimeter big. You'll end up with 'just' a hand full of them and a lot of work to crack open the shells. But it's fun to eat things from your own garden.

The tree that isn't doing to well is the apple tree. At least, when we're talking about apple production. Last year it gave us just a few apples, but this year it's even less.
It does grow well. We let it grow sideways guided with bamboo sticks. It's becoming a nice green wall like that, which gives us some extra privacy.

So far I just spotted one tiny apple on the tree:

I did see something else in my apple tree; a couple of web-spinning caterpillars. They turn into web-spinning moths. A couple of them doesn't harm the apple tree, but I am going to remove them since I don't want the entire tree to be covered in it.

Well this was it for this hivegarden gardenjournal update. I hope you enjoyed it.

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