My challenge
I have taken up a challenge for myself. I want all the plants in my backyard to have only red, orange, yellow or white flowers. I also want a variety in shape and color of the foliage. And last but not least I want to have something flowering in every season. If the flowers smell nice on top of that I am as happy as can be. I love warmth and I try to create a Mediterranean atmosphere.
In the front yard I have chosen the colors blue, purple, pink and white. There is a large choice in those colors because there are more plants in those colors. The only challenge there is that there is not much sun there. That means I am limited to plants for part shade and shade. In the front yard I also want flowers during the whole year and preferably flowers with a lot of fragrance.
By being so particular about color I encountered the problem that the colors of the flowers in a photograph are often not the same colors in reality. You also often see an enormous amount of flowers on a photograph or just a close-up of a flower. I want to know what the whole plant looks like and also what the plant looks like when it is not flowering. Most of the plants do not bloom that long after all. A plant has to have an ornamental value without the flowers. That is personal for everyone of course.
When you buy plants in a shop or garden center it is possible that the labels with the specific information have been switched or misplaced. The result is that you find out later that the flowers of the plant in your garden do not look like the flowers on the label. It is my experience that you have to buy plants in bloom to be sure that de flowers have the desired color. The photograph that is used in the details about the plant is not always correct or even absolutely incorrect. Especially the color red seems to be difficult to show in a photograph. If there is no photograph at all then the word “red” is no guarantee.
When you buy the plants online in a web shop you have only the information (photos and description) to go on that is provided there. That makes it a challenge to buy plants online. The color red that I want may not verge on blue or pink.
In search of new plants
When I search for new plants I use the internet but I also go to a shop or garden center. Most of the times the information tells you of you should place the plant in the sun or shade but not if it spreads fast with rhizomes or seeds. Like I have written above I want to know everything about the whole plant.
Reason
That brings me to the reason for making this website. I describe the plants very elaborately with photos of different stages during the season. This way I hope to help people who encounter the same shortcomings in the information as I have. That means that it may take a while before I have gathered all the information and photographs of a plant. At first the number of plants on my website will be small but it will grow steadily and that also goes for the amount of photos because all the photographs are of my own plants.
It is not my intention to sell any plants or anything else.
My garden
I live in the province of Utrecht in the Netherlands. It is a woody area with sandy and well-drained soil. The temperature in our climate varies between about 86 ºF (35 ºC) in the summer and -4 ºF (-20 ºC) in the winter and it rains regularly.
The front and backyard are not very big and both are very sheltered from the wind. The backyard is 14 feet and 9 inches (4.5 meters) wide and 59 feet (18 meters) long. The front yard is used for parking a car so that a small strip of garden remains of about 3 feet and 3 inches (1 meter) wide and 39 feet and 4 inches (12 meters) long.
Requests
If you want to know more about a particular plant and you do not see it on my website then please let me know by