trevignano daffodil

The Trevignano daffodil has finally shown its whole beauty! Very sweet and 'bellisima'. Eventhough, the petals are smaller than the hybrid ones, the scent is so remarkably 'dolce'. To mark the occassion, I decided to go for a quick lunch at the lake and thinking of going back to the 'birthplace' of that beautiful trumpet flowers. Trevignano is one of the 3 towns by the Lake Bracciano and it is quite a typical lake town in Center of Italy with certain charming and simple characteristics. The place is almost perfect for me as it has lovely cafe (with special treats), good bakery and seafood restaurants. It was really a beautiful sunny and cold winter day and the moment I arrived at that spot, I saw nothing was there anymore and not even a single flower. I remembered very well, that I did not pull all of the clumps out from the water....

Prunning

The worst nightmare has come.....I have to start prunning all my roses and other plants too. Once, I read in the leading gardening magazine which stated that we should not worry when it comes to prunning.That simple act of cutting is like giving a haircut not a headcut. Well, I am not sure about that!

One of my beloved roses suffered quite a lot last season and half of the plant died so did the yellow climbing roses. Last 2 years the light purple lilac didn't flower that much as I wrongly prunned them. The list goes on and on...

So, I braved myself yesterday to start all over again starting with white climbing roses in my kitchen garden because this rose is very hardy and can stand any extreme cutting. It was really windy yesterday as the siberian wind started to blow from the northeast and after spending almost 3 hours outside, I have managed to prune almost all roses in that area and I do hope that I did not give them any headcuts this year!

Frost

sicilian broccoli

cauliflower

When I woke up this morning, in the freezing cold....the whole area of my place is whitely covered with frost. Frost is rather a tricky issue as it is quite damaging to the plants, vegetables, shrubs etc. Most of the time, I would be able to know when the frost is coming. If it is a clear sky (sometime right after the sunset)... I will immediately rush to cover my kitchen garden with the fleece. However, since we have a fair share of bad weather this season, I have nothing to cover as all my vegetables are gone except my broccoli siciliani, red cabbages, puntarelle (a family of chickory) and a few winter salads.

I love to observe and take note on which vegetables survive each time so I will be able to organize better the following season. I have realised so far that if we are hit hard by frost, most of the salads will be gone (even covered by the fleece), but curly endives, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, tuscan kale and peas will survive. These vegetables are really 'the star'!

Trevignano Daffodils

Trevignano daffodil

I think it was almost 5 years ago when I went to Trevignano,a small town by the Lake Bracciano for an afternoon walk when I saw these clumps of daffodils. However, these daffodils were almost in the water! It was really early spring but the air was quite warm and the smell from these daffodils was so sweet and irresistable! I have never seen any wild daffodils with such a pleasant perfume. It is quite difficult to describe the smell, however it is like a mix of vanilla and 'old fashion roses'.

I managed to pull them out from the water and put them in my herbs beds and I waited year after year for it to flower but it always failed to bloom. However, early last December I saw a small bloom coming out in between the leaves. It has been for 5 years of waiting and with a flick of time the plant has established itself from the water to the ground! Now, eventhough the flower is not fully opened yet, the sweet smell is so enthralling and captivating! The Nature has taught me not to rush because every single thing has its own time to grow and live!

Winter sweet

winter sweet

Eventhough the rain has finally stopped, the cold is here to stay. The day is getting a bit longer day by day and I managed to do some clipping and pruning of roses and lavanders. My climbing roses on the main house pillars were badly needed some 'radical' pruning and eventhough I had to climb on chair, the task was done in less than an hour.

This climbing rose is a classic thornless with huge clusters white flowers and it never fails to flower twice a year and rarely needs attention! It needs only some trimming and clipping. As growing roses can give a bit of headache (they really need a lot of attention and love), this white thornless is really a champion.

There is another flower that needs to mention this winter and it is called 'winter sweet' or 'chimonantus praecox'. As the name suggests, this light yellow flower is so 'diorissimo' as one of my friends nicely described its lovely sweet perfume and it can really brighten up your cold and wet winter. I have cut the whole branch and put it in my bathroom and it really wakes my feminine senses everytime I walk in.

Kitchen garden and Hachiko

The weather has been very dreadful lately. Currently, it has been raining for almost 2 weeks and my garden is not able to soak up the water anymore. The soil is so soggy and all my salads have been destroyed. However, I still have my broccoli, endives and my peas are growing quite OK. I think I have to tie them up to the hazelnut twigs so they can grow much better.

Since the weather has been quite lousy, I have decided to watch 'Hachiko'. This is a movie about the loyalty of a dog to its owner. Hachiko, the dog was found by Prof. Parker at the train station on his way back from the university. They became close friends and Hachiko always waited for him at the same time everyday infront of the train station. One day, he had an heart attack at the university and passed away peacefully. However, Hachiko didn't stop waiting for him everyday at the same stop for 10 years! Richard Gere is the leading actor in this movie and it is not only about the actor but it is about the storyline which is so moving. My daughter couldn't stop her tears running down the cheeks and at the end both of us have to hold on tight to each other.....

This movie is actually the American version of a really true story happened in Tokyo, Japan in the late 1920s.