Started digging

Finally I have got time to start taking my trees out of their winter storing in the ground. 

After three weeks of super nice, super sunny, super hot weather we had this bad weather yesterday when I was out digging! Thunder, heavy rain and hail! My normal luck I guess.

(Wheather has been better today.) Here is one of today's achievements: the spruce. After many years in plastic or other scrappy growing container I have today put it in a bonsai pot! Maybe not the perfect one but better than anything I have used so far for this tree. Now I hope I haven't cut off too much of the roots... You can see the big cut-off part hanging out to the right - I think it looks quite good as it has the same direction as the branch.

I tried to count the rings on the cut-off part of the root, and I think the tree is over a hundred years old...

I have had it since 2004, when I found it on a nearby mountain.

Rhododendron and davidia involucrata

I have been to Göteborg for a short visit. I am glad I had the opportunity to see the botanical garden in this time of year, now I have seen the rhododendrons in bloom.

It was also the right time to see the handkerchief tree (Davidia involucrata var. vilmoriniana) in bloom.

But I must hereby declare: The well organised, well cared for, neat and tidy plantings of the botanical garden, the fantastic colour compositions, the spectacular handkerchief tree - it was all beaten by the experience of the "azalea valley" in Slottsskogen (close to the botanical garden). I had never been here before, but it was totally surreal:

To walk in this forest, with the  great oak trees high above, and be surrounded by these flowering bushes on all sides - it's not really possible to describe, must be experienced!