elemire--what wonderful neighbors you have. Those gardens are beautiful. Wish my neighbors would get with it and start creating gardens.

Kate

Very beautiful! It's obviously not only the English who are great gardeners. I love the romantic look of huge blooming roses with companion plants at their feet. I looked at all the photos; very enjoyable. Thank you for posting these lovely pictures.

Ingrid

Dutch are quite enthusiastic gardeners, especially here in the village practically everyone has some sort of garden, apart of the few who tiled the whole yard.

I love those huge old roses too, especially since most of them are not really pampered, like the yellow one in the 6th pic, looking like one of the wichurana ramblers - it just grows there 10 feet or so high consuming some fruit tree.

I also love the local fashion to plant roses near the metal fences, so the plants engulf both sides of it. Some of those fences are really old, as well as the roses that grow through them. It is so much more interesting, than an ordinary hedge, especially since everyone chooses different rose or roses for that purpose.

Bless you elemire, for posting those lovely village photos of roses, and the winter photos made me long for the North, I haven't been to the Netherlands for many years but I remember the countryside was very beautiful.
Are you a professional photographer? Your winter photos inspire me.

The Roses;
Photo #8 That creamy white single rose has everything I love in a rose;
-a graceful and natural style of bloom, attractive foliage, bushy growth habit,
Might anyone here know its name?
- or the Rose in Photo #6 Mermaid came to my mind, but the rose in the photo appears different to me.

Thank you, for a few minutes I felt that I was back in Northern Europe again.
Luxrosa

Fantastic, elemire. You just gave me a great gardening lesson. The beauty of the photos and your neighborhood are icing on the cake - lots of fluffy buttery icing!!! Yum.

Sherry

very accomplished photos too elemire. I would put money on the yello rose being Maigold. Still, I garden in a barren desert of hard paving and tiny yards, so it must be lovely having such horticultural neighbours - always lots to talk about.

Thanks so much for letting us see a little of the Netherlands. Just beautiful! I especially love the look of the flowers growing through the fences.

Elemire------What a treat---thank you so much for the visit to your beautiful area----lovely photography----
The gardens are amazing and how nice to have neighbors who also love to garden----
When I was a little girl I loved to ice skate and I always wanted to skate all over the canals in your country----

Thanks for sharing all this with us----I feel like I visited your country and Daisy in Crete all this from my computer chair
Thanks again,

Florence

Oh what a lovely village, thank you for the photos.

Yellow rose #6 looks just like my Golden Showers. If the blooms only last a day before shattering that is what it is. Very floriferous but not long lasting blooms.

How nice to have a village windmill.

Denise

Florence, they still skate on the channels here in the winter, although it rarely freezes over for long enough to have a skating frenzy. But every village here has its own skating field, very amusing, in the summer it is just a grass pasture, with sheep grazing, and in the late autumn they flood it and wait for the frost to do its job. :D If it freezes whole village goes to skate there, they play some music over the speakers, it is quite fun.

Luxrosa, I am not professional photographer, more like enthusiastic amateur. :) Also, sometimes it is just about spotting a view that is interesting, since winter pics actually were taken with mobile phone, before I finally got myself a digital camera. :D

Campanula, it is happening a bit like that here in the cities, although more often they go for the green meatball look. I think it helps that generally city gardens are rather small here, so you can fill it with a few bigger shrubs or one tree. ;) Also Dutchies like to buy all sorts of pots and plants with pots, so eventually things get replanted into the soil when they get too big - and usually if things can make it in the pot to get too big, they are pretty much unlikable in the soil.

Photo #8 I also wonder what kind of rose that is, I asked the owner, but she could not remember the name. The whole bush is about 6-7 feet tall, started blooming earlier than any other rose around and still has some blooms opening 1.5 month later. The wood is thornless or almost thornless, bright brown-mahogany-redish, canes are rather thin and arching, leaves are small, a bit like polyantha's. Very lovely rose indeed.

As for the yellow climber, I also thought at first glance that it is Golden Showers (which I have), but it isn't, foliage is wrong, also it opens straight pale yellow, much like the color golden showers has after being bleached by the sun. I don't think it is Maigold either, too pale color, also habit is wrong, since the rose in question does not have thick fat straight basals, but rather lax rambler like canes. The blooms are big though, same size as fully open Golden Showers, 5+ inches.

Beautiful pictures. I hope there is still some bloom left when I visit The Netherlands in October (and I will have time to see them since it is a business trip). I stay in Noordwijk an zee when I visit. How far are you from there?

Kathy - whose neighbors don't garden at all and are trying their best to destroy the landscaping which was there when they moved in.

Elemire, I love your village. How lush everything looks.
It is a lot different from my local dry landscape.
You are fortunate to live in such a lovely place.
I do like the way the plants burgeon through the fences. Especially the ribbon of Alchemilla mollis.
Daisy

Kathy, I am a bit on the other side of the Netherlands, good 2 hours drive from Noordwijk. October can be tricky in the Netherlands, since it is that point where the weather can stay lovely or turn autumny, but there still should be enough blooms left, as well as all sorts of ornamental plants with berries in full glory. If you have time for sight seeing it is worth to have a ride through the local villages, or go to Den Haag or Utrecht. :)

Daisy, I love alchemilla too, it is such universal plant and looks good with everything, also loves my clay!

Thanks for the photos, elemire. Really, if you have a lot of gardens that look like the ones in your photos, you all live in a happy place. I too particularly like the yellow rose and the single white.
Melissa

thanks for sharing! this is really inspiring!

Yes Melissa, gardens are quite elaborate here, I really love Dutch villages on that department, very pretty. Sometimes I even take a bus to the city, which goes through a number of small villages in the province, even though it is slightly longer ride - just to enjoy the sights. :)

Thanks aimee! :)

Elemire, those pictures are just wonderful! I loved all the gardens, but I also loved the long view down the path between the tall trees, summer and winter. Also, I was glad to read that people still skate on the canals. When I was a child, we all read the story about Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates - the illustrations of the frozen canals and the skaters held a great fascination for me. I eventually spent a week in Amsterdam one January, during a period when I would visit a sister in England every winter, but, alas, there was no snow. I loved it anyway - got shin splints from walking all over! Thanks for the very enjoyable summer "trip" through your photos.

Laura

Oh, my, here's more, love seeing these pictures again!

Hello Elemire! Good seeing you and more of your wonderful photos! Amazing what water can create! Now, if SoCal could just get some without stealing it from elsewhere....Kim

What a beautiful neighborhood you live in! I am astonished and delighted.

Rosefolly

Elmira...
Thank you for posting those pictures. Each one seems so peaceful and cared for. You must be very proud to live in such an amazing place.
Jeannie

That's amazing, Elmire. How fortunate you are to live in that neighborhood. Your walks must be so enjoyable.