Flower garden Little Paradise

	1. Combination of flowering plants in May. In the middle, the easy growing yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata), a plant that can become quite invasive in rainy years. The bright red flowers are some Papaver rhoeas (corn poppy), an annual poppy you'd better not have in large numbers in your garden as it produces huge amounts of quickly ripening seeds (while still blooming) leading to enormous quantities of new plants overgrowing their neighbours. In the foreground, on the left, a clump of columbines (Aquilegia), and, on the right, foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) and yellow flag irises (Iris pseudacorus) whose flowers are very short-lived in my garden (after all, this - protected - plant naturally grows in moist soils).
	2. In this picture you can mainly see a bed of blue speedwell (Veronica spicata), a perennial that suffers rather quickly from drought. Then, in no time, the flowers wilt and the bumblebees, massively attracted by them, have to find their food elsewhere. The plant has to be divided and transplanted on a regular basis or it's going to languish. In the foreground, scabious or pincushion flower (Scabiosa caucasica), an original and very beautiful bloomer, but once again a plant that doesn't really thrive in my garden, due to soil conditions. From the initial 60 plants (which I sowed myself), only about 10 have survived until now.
	3. This is one of the most special compositions in my flower garden: Dianthus deltoides 'Brilliant Red' (maiden pink) combined with lavender (Lavandula latifolia).
	4. Three solid plants fill up this corner : Ligularia stenocephala 'The Rocket' (narrow-spiked ligularia) with yellow spike-like flowers and big dentate foliage; Malva sylvestris (common mallow, see also Album 7 picture 15), a so-called biennial that can easily survive longer than two years if cut back in the autumn with big dark lavatera-like flowers and, in the background, a silverlace vine (Polygonum aubertii, see also Album 9 picture 13). This silverlace (or Russian) vine will have to disappear as it is such a rampant grower that it has begun to overgrow all the flowers around. More importantly, in summer it dries out the soil far too greedily jeopardizing the survival of the other plants. The leaves of Ligularia droop as soon as the hot sunrays touch it, clearly indicating that this is a plant for moist and shady places.
	5. Most eye-catching in this picture are the big leaves of Macleaya microcarpa 'Kelway's Coral Plume' (plume poppy). This plant grows to a height of about two metres. The big red flowers are Oriental poppies (Papaver orientale). The little ones, Geum chiloense 'Mrs. Bradshaw' (avens). The pink flowers come from the delicate tuberous plant Incarvillea (hardy Gloxinia, see also Album 7 picture 1).
	6. Part of the chicken run in May. Here too the perennials provide lots of colour in their flowering season : lupine, Oriental poppy, aster, red campion (Silene dioica), foxglove, false dragonhead (Physostegia), day lily (Hemerocallis), etc. In short, a real chicken paradise if you ask me. Because of the numerous flowering plants, it seems like you're still in the flower garden here. Only the fence indicates that this part of the garden has a different use.
	7. A big bed of cowslips (Primula veris 'Carnaval Gem', all sown by myself), in April. Primulas (or primroses) are just indispensable for gardeners who want some early spectacle in their garden. In summer, the foliage dries up completely, leaving a bare patch in this corner (this flowerbed lies in the blazing heat of the summer sun as there's no noticeable shadow in the back garden). But never mind that : by then, the spectacle has moved to other flowerbeds. The violet primulas on the photo are Primula denticulata (drumstick primula).
	8. Late summer. In September starts the offensive of automnal bloomers. Asters are leading the way here (the pink-purple and white flakes in the background of the picture - close-up, and see also Album 10 pictures 3, 4 and 5). When most of the summer flowers have wilted, the structure and colour of the foliage become much more apparent and so a flower garden still remains, after the flowering season, more interesting than a lawn/pasture garden, even if it all looks like a complete mess as it does on the photo.
	9. A row of Sedum spectabile 'Brilliant' early September. The flowers are only slightly colouring and already they get countless visits by butterflies. One of the easiest plants to multiply : you only have to plant a broken stem in the ground.
	10. Every summer, I fill up empty spots in the garden with gladioli that I use as cut flowers; a very inexpensive way to get hold of cut flowers as the bulbs are cheap and you can plant them again every year.
	11. This is another example of what you can achieve by combining perennials, climbers and shrubs : an interesting mix of colours and forms. The white flowers come from a 2 meter high Deutzia scabra 'Plena' (fuzzy Deutzia, see also Album 7 picture 3). Behind that you can see a blooming fern-leaved elder (Sambucus nigra 'Laciniata').
	12. A clump of columbines (Aquilegia). The nicest coloured flowers seem to be coming from the weakest plants as it's these very beauties that don't last long. Transplanting them every 2-3 years is probably a good idea here. The dry, sandy soil in my flower garden makes life a little too tough for them. The wild varieties however (Aquilegia vulgaris and vulgaris plena) resist much better. These are robust plants with solid roots. And they also succeed in self-seeding.
	13. On this spot in the border, late spring and early summer bloomers are joined. In the foreground, Aubrieta is still flowering. Behind that you can see some Aster alpinus (alpine aster). On the left, the first early lupines (Lupinus polyphyllus 'Russel'). In earlier days, my flower garden was filled with lupines as they're easily sown, and you get fast results. But unfortunately they are short-lived. After about three years only few of them still embellish your garden. And in summer, they often get assaulted by herds of greenflies.
	14. Another picture taken in spring. From left to right : Verbascum phoeniceum ('flabby mullein' as I call it myself) with little flowers that can dry up in the hot sun of May or the strong east wind (see also Album 6 picture 3); Papaver orientale and white flowering Weigelia; and, far right, an off-white lilac (Syringa vulgaris) that I keep low by trimming it on a two year basis in order to prevent it from drying out the soil in summer. This lilac, whose exact name is unknown to me, blooms for 4 weeks and spreads a strong and sweet perfume.
	15. An accidental combination that turns out very well : green, red, yellow and a touch of white (yellow broom, red hawthorn 'Paul's Scarlet', and white lilac). The bright red gate (a traditional colour for gates in rural West-Flanders) matches them perfectly.
	16. On the left, Spirea x vanhouttei is blooming profusely; next to it, the elegant high stemmed flowers of snakeweed (Polygonum bistorta 'Superbum'), notorious for its rampant behaviour,... yet not in my garden. The little pink flowers come from yet another bed of Aubrieta. In the foreground, some Nemophila maculata 'Five Spot'.
	17. One more picture of some part of the west border at a time when lots of different varieties of plants are blooming. Veronicas, poppies, red-hot pokers (Kniphofia), together they make up a brightly-coloured scene that accentuates that wonderful summer feeling, even under a cloudy sky.
	18. Early December. The coloured leaves of Weigelia have fallen off and are now lying on the grass where they turn brown far too quickly to my liking.
	19. This is a picture of Arabis caucasica (rock cress) the way it looks when winter begins : a thick carpet of little greyish green leaves. Some weeks later, not much of it will still be there, not because of the winter but due to the blackbirds pulling everything apart searching for insects. Of course, the flowering of the plant in early spring (see Album 4 picture 12) suffers a great deal from these destructions.
	20. This is the rimed foliage of the evergreen wild pink (Dianthus plumarius, see also Album 1 picture 13). In late winter, I always cut back the stems in order to make the plant look more dense and shrubby, and to stimulate flowering.