I always knew it was a good idea to have a garden that's not exactly neat, and filled with all the pretty plants I could legally drag out of the nearby forest.
But now look at this:
Veritabel fraises des bois have conquered the shady rear corner of our 'tea pavillion', and they are as fragrant and tiny and delicious as they look. I am so proud of them, as if I had anything more to do but spot them in a corner in the forest and dig out a few tiny plants to relocate in our garden.
But I am so happy to see them thrive like this!
12 comments:
Dear Nom-Nomnom
I love your little garden corner. It is my kind of garden. "Tea pavillion" - that's my kind of pavillion too (I don't have one; I have a tea room instead!)
Thanks for the photo. I love it.
Shiao-Ping
@shiao-ping: Thanks for the kind words! The pavillion is my favorite place in the garden, overgrown with roses and fallopia, where I sit with my laptop, a pot of lapsang souchong tea and write. That is, as long as my rare free time and fair weather coincide...
I would love to see a picture of your "tea pavillion," so intriguing to me.
And,"lapsang souchong?" I learnt that this tea may be Russian origin with spices added in, like chai tea. You don't see it in Asia that often.
A picture? Hmm... gotta make one over the weekend when the light is right.
And I got to know the lapsang tea from my father, who brought some of it back with him from a business trip to China, but you can buy it fairly easily here by now.
It is only smoked black tea, no spices added. And definitely an accquired taste, so little wonder it isn't widely spread even in asia.
Also, I have to admit, that especially in summer I 'water it down' by mixing lapsang souchong tea with some szechuan black to get a milder, lightly smoked tea that also tastes good cold.
Oh, yeah, I got it wrong; it isn't a spiced tea - because it is "smoked," in my mind, I categorized it the same as spiced tea. Sorry! And, it isn't from Russia. How did I get it so wrong. I imagined when it is "watered down," it would taste very nice too. I enjoy "watered-down" earl grey tea much the same as you enjoy yours.
I came back here, not expecting or looking for any response to my last comment, to read "fraises des bois" again. I just love this post, like a poem.
OMG, now you made me blush... And that is no mean feat, I tell you. Thank you so much for the compliment.
Anyway, I looked around on my harddrive for a picture of our 'tea pavillion, and I found one from a few weeks ago, which you can see here. It's not a great image, but you'll get an idea of what I am talking about. On the lower left is the corner where the wild strawberries are growing...
Ahh, how beautiful, how "not exactly neat!" So, that's what you call them - little wild strawberries! I met them once growing by the road side (actually a trail) in a winding mountain area leading up to our guest house in Tuscany somewhere in Italy. I should frame "fraises des bois;" no, no, better still, I'd just come back to visit them every now and then to refresh my memory.
Shiao-Ping
(1) my backyard, neat and suffocating (http://picasaweb.google.com.tw/lh/photo/j0QhYd_h3Sl_dz7BOGwobA?feat=directlink)
(2) ahh, flowers everywhere on the ground (http://picasaweb.google.com.tw/lh/photo/_KieYtYuwLTZ-O7KaO-uqQ?feat=directlink)
(3)and it's beautiful again... (http://picasaweb.google.com.tw/lh/photo/kW2SGE_uNqpC9hATNu09pA?feat=directlink).
Goodness, you have so much space! That's one thing our garden severely lacks, but at least we're living just a minute's walk away from the forest.
But I don't think it's suffocating - you've got space, and a view, and that is pretty priceless.
Thanks for showing me those impressions of your garden, it is always exciting to see how people live that I met online only, especially if they live on the other side of the world.
If you're interested, I have a few more pictures of our garden online, which you can find here.
Dear Reuben,
Thank you for sharing these photos with me. Your garden is truly beautiful. I love them all but perhaps my most favourite are the pale pink (or is it peachy) and hot pink roses. The scabiosa is out of this world; the irises are so unusual; the buttercups at your creek are lovely, and peonies! they are Chinese' favourite! Don't they (peonies) flower only at night time and wither by day? You see them in classical Chinese ink and color paintings all the time - mostly red though.
I will swap my humongous yard for a small piece of your private garden any time. Sigh.
Shiao-Ping
Well, I don't no anything about chinese peonies, but these flower day and night, smell lovely and so strong I can still notice them on the other side of the house on the sidewalk.
But then again, I think gardening in Germany is very easy, with the mild climate and the reliable rain. I think Brisbane is another matter entirely, I guess?
Yes, Brisbane would be very different. For years we have had a drought (those pictures would have been taken when our drought was the worst - about two years ago); but since the start of this year, something has changed, we've been getting a lot of rain; some places in Northern Queenland are even having floods. This is the photo of my backyard taken this afternoon inc the lovely winter sun: http://picasaweb.google.com.tw/lh/photo/J3ZAgnmAZjW0ZIMsKYIFuA?feat=directlink
Shiao-Ping
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