Traveling man

I am not very fond of old suitcases - there are lots of them in interior decoration magazines as semi-practical storage solutions but I have always thought they are rather ugly. For some reason this one is not half bad. My husband wanted to buy it and I thought why not. It is perfect for small trips in a vintage car (which we don't yet have).

It is old but new

We found a new old coat last Friday when visiting flea markets in Marttila, Salo. The seller told us it is from around 50's so it is a perfect addition to our shop museum.

Naming the dream

Finally I know exactly what kind of term to use when talking about my dream garden: Danish romantic. I bought a Claus Dalby's book "Romantiske haver" and the gardens pictured in it are just what I want. Well, not quite as I am not very fond of roses, but all the gardens were lovely! By the way, if you can read Swedish, Danish is a piece of cake, just think how you would pronounce a word and suddenly you realize it is (almost) the same word as in Swedish.

Picture by Claus Dalby

More about Claus Dalby here: link.

Lounging on the patio

It took my husband the whole of yesterday and most of today to move two huge stones (the smaller one is in the photo below) from the back yard. Now we are ready to start with the patio. This means moving a bit of gravel and then some. Can't wait to sit in the corner, sipping cool drinks under the shadow of white lilacs. Stay tuned folks, more pictures follow on a later date.

New use for old things

We don't have a very good well at Vårkulla so it is very important to gather as much rain water as possible. At the moment I have an old milk jug and an old huge kettle under the eaves. We need to find an even better solution but these will have to do for now.

Survivors

Our back yard perennial border is infested by voles and one of the most terrible weed there is: campanula rapunculoides (vuohenkello in Finnish). I have tried to find something to survive both and these lovely rudbeckia laciniatas (syyspäivänhattu in Finnish) just might be an answer. I planted them on one side of the border and they seem to thrive. I covered the other side with old newspapers and on top of the papers I put bark in the hope of killing the campanulas. I plan to plant more rudbeckias there in next spring if I don't find other flowers that can take the competition.

Everything takes time

I had almost given up on my pelargoniums but at last they started to really flower. Let's hope for a long, warm autumn so we have some time to enjoy them.