When it comes to indoor plants, I’m an indifferent and ignorant gardener. Out in the garden, I know all the species and varieties that I have, and that I don’t have but could have. Indoors, there’s various green things, and I only know the names of some of them. I re-pot them way less often than they deserve, and I’m only diligent about watering the most sensitive ones. The rest all get watered on the same schedule, when Eric thinks its time – no individual attention there.

Therefore it’s a pleasant surprise when some of the plants look like they really thrive.

The apple tree has been dropping apples. I thought that meant it was time to pick them all, but when we tried doing that, most of the fruit still on the tree turned out to be not at all ripe yet – all greenish and stuck hard to the branch.

We did pick the ripe ones on the ground though, and they were plenty. The pile in the photo is just a small part of today’s harvest. Some were a bit bruised, but since the ground is soft and padded with grass (what a great excuse to not mow the lawn there!) we also found many that were unblemished and in perfect shape.

Plenty of apples this year.

There’s no way we can eat them all. We can eat some as they are, and bake a cake or two,] or even three, but that’s it. We’ve made apple jam in the past, and apple wine, and apple chutney. They’ve all been delicious, but we don’t actually eat/drink much of any of those. One batch of apple wine lasts us years. But maybe we could juice them?

The Ribes (flowering currant) are among the (surprisingly few) failed parts of the new hedge. Two of the three bushes I planted look to be completely dead, with not a single green leaf on them. Some others that at first looked dead (such as a few of the Spireas) have sprouted at least a few puny green leaves after the drought ended, but not these two. I’m very pleased that it ended so well, given the circumstances.

Most of the hedge survived and is even thriving much better than I had expected. The Aronia bushes are full of berries. The Potentilla are blooming, even though they have been on the verge of dropping their leaves, repeatedly. The Mahonias also look to be doing well.

The kitchen faucet is leaking.

The oven door is falling apart and it takes a special two-hand “twist and lift and pull” to open it fully.

And the veneer on the kitchen table is worn through in places, and two of the chair backs have broken and been screwed together.

But it makes no sense to replace these things one by one when what we really need is a whole new kitchen, so we make do and keep patching things until I somehow find the time to go kitchen shopping. It’s kind of close to becoming urgent.

Finally, finally proper heavy rainfall during the night.

The lawn has been dead for a long while. Now even large trees are being affected by this summer’s drought. This is what several nearby birches look like: the leaves all dead and yellow, even though autumn is still far away.

Our cherry tree is still green but all the leaves are wilting, and the cherries themselves have dried on the tree. The new hedge only survives (mostly) because of diligent watering. The flowers on the deck are dead; I gave up trying to keep them alive.

The ugly electrical cabinets at our street corner have bothered us for a long while. A neighbour (who also has an electrical cabinet) has prettified theirs with an oilcloth cover. We now have the same. They definitely look more cheerful this way. And the white-and-green colours match the dogwood bushes.

Well, now they’re all in the ground, including the half-dead ones. Although I ended up throwing out about half of the bare-rooted Spireas that looked completely dead, and buying replacements (potted!) from a nearby garden centre at about four times the price.

Meanwhile Adrian and Ingrid built “björkspirea kingdom” from all the black plastic flowerpots, which is why there are pots lying around everywhere in the photos.

I’ve been calling this a hedge but what I have in mind is not a traditional hedge, i.e. a straight line of identical bushes. And definitely not a clipped hedge. This is going to be a mixed flowering hedge, with multiple species, wider in some places and narrower in others. In my mind I have a vision of natural, undulating shapes and lines, and a variety of leaf and flower, texture and colour. Like most of the rest of the garden.

I was aiming for a hedge of medium height, waist-high or a bit more, until I realized that there are regulations about hedges next to street crossings. Which appears rather obvious, now that I think about it. Most people around here seem to ignore the regulations, and there are many places where hedges have me fuming about bad visibility. I will be a good member of society and try not to add to the problem.

We’re limited to a height of 80 cm within 10 metres of the crossing, which, taken strictly, would cover most of the planned hedge except for a few metres nearest the entrance stairs. But I’m going to interpret this limit a bit loosely and dot the hedge with some slightly taller bushes here and there, which might reach a metre in height. Since this won’t be a uniform hedge and there will be gaps between the taller bushes, I’m hoping that they won’t hinder much. And I also have room for a bunch of taller bushes near the entrance.

In no particular order (since they’re mostly mixed up anyway):

• Spirea cinerea “Grefsheim”
• Ribes sanguineum “King Edward VII”
• Weigela florida “Alexandra”
• Spirea betulifolia “Tor”
• Potentilla fruticosa “Pink Beauty”
• Spirea japonica “Froebelii”
• Mahonia aquifolium “Maqu”
• Aronia melanocarpa “Hugin”
• Viburnum bodnantense “Charles Lamont”