There has to be a little garden report every spring. Although spring this year didn’t happen all that much. Instead, the weather jumped straight to summer, with no rain whatsoever during the last seven weeks. Mind you, Germany was pestered by heavy thunderstorms and flooding. In the south. And the west. There even were some storms up north, too. Some of which we even could hear. And see. But none ever reached my little garden with a droplet.

Luckily, the golf course saw some rain twice since start of May. Be it only for a few minutes, some is better than none. The city to the North of our suburb, Oranienburg, shut down all garden watering and car washing due to lack of water.

Whereas we have more luck. Berlin and the suburbs may draw water from the lakes and river spree. So I still am allowed to water my little patch. This takes up much time otherwise used for blogging, for instance. Instead, I stand out every morning for at least one hour to help my plants survive another hot day.  This week, at long last, it is cloudy and temperatures dropped a little, so my brain functions decently again. I am not made for heat. Still no rain in sight for the remainder of the week, though. The grass at the back is burnt for good, I fear. Still some pretty wild flowers survive the draught.

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My garden patch, instead, even produces some eadibles, already. The potatoes flower and shall have some fruit, too, later in the year. And best of all: no slugs so far. Too dry and hot for the ugly vegetable-thieves, I suspect. Only a few little snails are around, guarded by their iron-cast Queen Mom – a gift from my friend circumstance.

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But the flowers are the main attraction, even though some struggle with the weather conditions. Some never even came up. Others seem to strive in the heat. Weird. And it is not a question of species, really. Some of my climbing roses, although blooming, remained limp, the petals falling all too quick, due to high temperature. Others didn’t take any notice and are as beautiful as ever. Go figure. What unites all of them: they are beauties and justify every second of time spent on their keep.

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