Meanwhile, back home in our own garden the Hosta's are doing great in their big plasic pots! Want a tip on where to get them? Go to your local hardware store and find the bucket department! I used 5 x 20 l buckets, removed the handles, drilled a few holes in the bottom and a layer of gravel and you are set for potting up Hosta's! These pots won't break or get damaged by the frost in the winter!

Should be a beautiful Hosta Garden in a few years when all the pots are overflowing with healthy, mature Hosta's that are ready to be split to fill more pots!

Tula man has a permanent place in the Mexican Garden! I used a 61cm x 122cm waterproof piece of plywood that has been painted with a base coat for the backing to which I attatched the garden poster with a few screws. With a pyramid of stones to cover the bottom of the plywood and to keep it supported against the fence Tula man can now stand there to enjoy the rest of his days overlooking the Mexican Garden.

A great garden tour last weekend! I'm still amazed!

A few days have passed and the ideas are becoming concrete!

We'll be needing a few meters of this....
A planting plan a bit like this....

With some of these to attract the butterflies.....

and by next summer the front garden will be

looking a little something like this! But!...

The border won't be as deep and the grass

not so wide and the length a bit shorter!

There were a lot of butterflies......

....... and bees

"There was room in the bus" read the e-mail that came Monday last week! By Thursday it was all arranged! So this past weekend I joined in on a garden tour bus trip to South West Vlaanderen. This was guided by Wim Willemsen. We left Veenendaal at 6:30 am Saturday, Boxmeer at 7:30, and arrived back in Veenendaal at 10 pm Sunday! What a trip!

The camera worked hard. 432 photo's as of Sunday evening. Now only 265. So why so many? Here's what we did! First we stopped in Heerle at Laura Dingemans garden. Then on to Bram Louws 1,900m2 garden in Serooskerke. This was the smallest of the 7. The Third and largest was "Rammekenshof" in Ritthem - 13,000m2! The last garden for Saturday was called "Just wa'k Wou" in Schoondijke with an area of 5.200m2.

Each garden had its own style, design, lay-out. Every gardener's dream trip! So much to see and photograph! Most also had a small selection of garden plants for sale! I'm glad that we were with 33 garden enthusiasts. Purple name tags under in the bus on the right for destination Boxmeer and yellow name tags on the left for Veenendaal. There wasn't much room over after the last garden Sunday!

After a great meal and good nights sleep with all that sea air in Nieuwvliet-Bad and a breakfast buffet we headed out at 8 am for our 5th garden of the weekend. Ruddervoorde, Belgium! Garden specialist Mia Gevaert welcomed us to "De Roobaard", her 5,000m2 garden. What a lot she has done for gardening in Belgium. What an interesting person! After coffee by the bus we headed to Oostkamp. Maurice Vergote began this 10,000m2 landscape garden in 2004! What inspiration and idea's for our own garden! More photo's taken and also the lunch was enjoyed here! They also run a Bed and Breakfast! www.detuinvanmaurice.be See photo above!

The seventh garden of the weekend was "Den Bosrand"in Lembeke. We were treated to coffee and cake by the owner, just like the other gardens we visited, before wandering through this 7,800m2 garden! One last chance to purchase plants to take home! Then it was 4pm! Where did the time go! Back in the bus, back to The Netherlands. We had dinner in "De Turfhoeve"in Sevenum. That was so good! What a way to end an enjoyable "see so much in two days without having that rushed feeling" garden tour. Can't wait until the next tour!

At 5 pm. the weather was dry enough to cycle over to the Hema to pick up my garden poster that I ordered via the internet a few days ago!

The photo was taken in 2007 when we were on vacation in Mexico. North of Mexico City, about an hours drive, is a town called Tula. What an amazing place to visit!

It is a rainy Friday afternoon. A day to be eating this,

while sitting under one of these,

next to one of these,

while enjoying a view like this!

Welcome to Butenzorg! The following three series of photo's are taken in the front garden. The first and second series are Ferns and the last one is Womans Mantle. Just can't help taking photos of raindrops on Womans Mantle! Enjoy!