the grand ginkgo finale

The golden week in November.

An impressive end of the yellow Ginkgo leaves in the frontyard.

After an endless summer, we are now treated to beautiful crisp autumn weather. The sun turns the yellow autumn leaves into gold.

The ginkgo tree in the frontyard is always at it's best this season and this year it seems even better.

and the Helleborus is almost ready to bloom...

summer flowers

Sunday morning - 29th of July - backyard

Enjoy your Sunday!

A mini summer bouquet on the garden table.

It's in the little things.

between the eucalyptus & ginkgo

Summer in May, at least that's how it feels in the garden lately.

We have a new evergreen in the backyard; an Eucalyptus Gunnii tree.

The small eucalyptus stands beside the ginkgo tree on the terrace. The new tree is an evergreen tree. The small round gray-green leaves give off a delicious eucalyptus smell. Especially when the leaf is bruised, a strong eucalyptus smell is released. Good thing is, mosquitoes hate this smell, so perfect for long summer evenings in the garden.

This afternoon we planted the new evergreen, a remembrance tree for Henk's mother, who passed away yesterday.

After gardening (we also repotted some plants and sowed flowers seeds) we had a tea between the trees and it felt special...

july garden

ginkgo mania

Fell in love with our Ginkgo tree in the frontyard this week (again).
Every year in november I'm surprised by it's golden glow and brightness and excited by the ginkgo tree we planted 12 years ago when we moved it.

Last year I've dried a whole lot(!) of yellow ginkgo leaves in a heavy book. I had to restrain myself not to keep all the leaves, because they were are all differently shaped and too pretty to throw away the organic waste bin.

This season I will try to leave the golden carpet on the ground as long as possible and stop myself from collecting the leaves...

The Ginkgo Biloba or Japanese walnut tree was the favorite tree of Goethe. In Japan they honor the tree as a god; it symbolizes hope, love, magic, timelessness and longevity and is nicknamed temple tree.

watercolour sketch by @artytruda

About 15 weeks ago Teresa (@artytruda on Instragram) posted one of her daily sketches.
She painted the parisian 'Rosa et moi' scene in Jardin des Tuileries last June.
Teresa is a very talented artist from South Africa and i'm following her daily work on Instagram.
I was so surprised when I found this precious sketch of Rosa and me on Instagram a Sunday morning and regrammed it immediately.

Some weeks ago my sweet friend Cornel from South Africa, brought 2 prints of this artwork to Marrakech, one for me and one for Rosa.

How sweet is that?!
Merci mille fois Teresa. Xx
(and thank you Cornel for the special 'courier service')

courtyard & coneflowers

Coneflowers add a flashy touch of color to the front yard.

Sunday morning reading Dream Decor in the frontyard, the colorful interior book by Bright Bazaar, brimming with inspiration!

summer evenings

The sun shows up at the end of the afternoon for the last couple of days.
Most days start cloudy and don't feel like summerdays at all. So when the sun arrives at the end of the day, we setlle in the backyard and enjoy the sunshine until sunset.

Today I bought some new interior and garden magazines and love the small and simple summer houses in the newest Home & Garden issue.
We were talking about making a kind of tiny greenhouse in our backyard. It's a recurring theme, but the thing is, we don't know where to build it in our not too large backyard.

palm leaves

The palmtree in our backyard could use more sunshine, just like we do.

After a lot of rain showers during the last weeks, the plants and trees are having a hard time. Sunday morning started with heavy rain and hail showers and the grass in the backyard looks more like a swamp. As soon as the weather cleared up, we went outside and cut the dead palm leaves and moved the palm to a sheltered south facing spot.

Fingers crossed for a sunny July!

jardin des tuileries

We went to Paris for 4 days with the four of us; my sweetheart, my son Minne, my friend Rosa and me.
It's always a good time to visit Paris, we mostly visit Paris in Autumn, Winter or early Spring, but never stayed in Paris in June.
Because of the heavy rainshowers of the last weeks, the water in the Seine was high and wild.

Although the weather forecast wasn't too good, we had some wonderful spring days with only two tiny rainshowers.
On the first day we started with a walk and lunch in Jardin des Tuileries. I love the light in this garden (and all the green 'FERMOB' chairs of course...)