The Star-of-Bethlehem (Gersstjer in Frysian which means ‘Grass star’) fits to its name in Feanwâlden. It blooms in the whole garden at the Schierstins. The Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem still doesn’t show up here, but usually it blooms quite late in the spring season.
| Squill | White Butterbur | Apennine Windflower | Wood Anemone | Common Lungwort | Yellow Anemone | Wild Tulip | Summer Snowflake | Snake’s Head Fritillary | Bluebell | Lords-and-Ladies | Bear’s Garlic | Double Meadow Saxifrage | Pheasant’s Eye | Star-of-Bethlehem | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dekema State | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hackfort | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jongemastate | ||||||||||||||||||
| Martenastate | ||||||||||||||||||
| Martenatuin | ||||||||||||||||||
| Philippusfenne | ||||||||||||||||||
| Schierstins | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stinze Stiens |
Flowering: start full decreasing
Present: here and there regular massive
Stinzenflora-monitor Calendar 2019 week 17. Scroll horizontally to view all plants. Learn more about a terrain or stinzenplant? Click on the name in the table.
The ‘stars’ of the Star-of-Bethlehem can be discovered between the high growing leaves of the Ground Elder at Stinze Stiens.
Star-of-Bethlehem at Dekema State.
Wild Hyacint with bee at Hackfort.
It has rained for the first time in a long time. In Stiens we had a thunderstorm with quite some rain. The rain was desperately needed, because the soils were / are far too dry for the time of the year. Now, plants like Ground Elder, Cow’s Parsley, Red campion and other plants are also growing fast. If the growth of these plants is not too aggressive, we will now see the radiant stars of the Star-of-Bethlehem (in the Frisian language: Gersstjer / translation: Grass star), the flowers of which only open when the sun shines. The various varieties of the Wild hyacinth now also bloom exuberantly. The Common Lungwort continues to flower, but this wille end soon, and the Apennine Windflower is also still in bloom.
Lords-and-Ladies at Stinze Stiens.
Lords-and-Ladies with a yellow pistil and green leaves without the dark spots at Philippusfenne.
The Lords-and-Ladies are beautiful to observe and beautifully translucent when the sunlight is coming from behind. The pistil is usually dark but sometimes also yellow.
Phaesant’s Eye at Hackfort.
The Double Meadow Saxifrage starts to bloom. This species does not occur in all terrains. For the Double Meadow Saxifrage it is best to go to Martenastate or the Schierstins. The Phaesant’s Eye, which has been planted relatively recently in various estates, is starting to bloom. This plant grows at Hackfort, Dekema State in the orchard, and at the Schierstins.
Bear’s Garlic and Yellow Archangel at Dekema State.
The Bear’s Garlic is now in full bloom and can easily completely cover the soil. The disadvantage is that if the soil contains a lot of available nitrogen, the plant can do so well that all other species no longer have a chance. For that reason we have been trying to strongly reduce the Bear’s Garlic at Stinze Stiens for years. We pick the leaves and the flowers. Slowly but surely this great effort is successful. Prevention in this case is better than the labor intensive cure. Once the plant is well established and the conditions are favourable for the plant, expansion can take place quickly and the question is whether everyone will be happy with such an expansion, although the flower is very beautiful.
Gottdorf Castle (Schleswig, G) met , baroque garden with terraces (17th century). Photo: Stinze Stiens.
This week we visited Gottorf in Schleswig-Holstein. A baroque garden close to the castle has recently been partially restored. This site is very interesting for two reasons, the first being that the plants that grew in the garden are depicted in the beautiful Gottorfer codex, where the plants are very realistically represented in large format.
Gottorf Castle (Schleswig, G), the low terrace, with the plants from the Codex, among them the Wild Tulip.
They planted plants from this Codex on the ground floor terrace in the current restored garden. A number of these plants still occur locally in the wild at hilly terrain that used to be part of the garden.
Gottdorf Castle (Schleswig, G), forest around the baroque garden (17th century), Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem. Photo: Stinze Stiens.
We found a number of spots with Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem, of which a few were still in bloom, while most of them had already finished flowering. Interestingly, the flowering time corresponds to that at old estates with Stinzenplants in the Netherlands where the species was not recently planted, but present already for a very long time. The recently planted Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem, probably another variety, is only slowly coming into bloom right now.
Gottdorf Castle (Schleswig, G), forest around the baroque garden (17th century), Wild Tulip. Photo: Stinze Stiens.
Contrary to what I said earlier, the Wild Tulip does indeed appear at Gottorf. We saw some flowering specimens.
Gottdorf Castle (Schleswig, G), forest around the baroque garden with terraces (17th century), Wild Hyacint. Photo: Stinze Stiens.
Gottdorf Castle (Schleswig, G), forest around the baroque garden (17th century), leaves of Turk’s cap (Lilium martagon). Photo: Stinze Stiens.
There are also a number of places where the Wild Hyacinth is now in full bloom, which is a very nice sight. What is also very special is that the Turk’s-cap (Lilium maragon) also occurs in a number of places in reasonable numbers. If the deer do not eat the buds, they can bloom. There are both white and purple flowering varieties. Both types also occur in the codex. The Bird in a bush is very common. All these plants are Stinzenplants and descendants from the time of the Gottorfer codex, which was made in the period 1649-1659.
Gottdorf Caslte (Schleswig, G), ‘Gottorfer Gartenpfad’, baroque castle garden and forest (17th century). Photo: Stinze Stiens.
