Below you will find a selection of the most recent entries from bloggers in the Your Home section.
To view the entries from individual bloggers, click on the links below:
Anna Lascols, Organizing Geneva
Her mission as a professional organizer is to improve people’s lives by coaching them how to set up and maintain efficient systems to keep their time and space in order. Anna helps her clients to visualize their ideal lifestyle and works side-by-side with tem to reach their goals. These can range from redesigning their closet à la Marie Kondo to getting their paperwork under control, improving their time management skills or preparing for the arrival of a baby. Anna is a KonMari Consultant and a member of the Swiss Association of Professional Organizers (Swiss-APO). She works in and around Geneva and provides her services is English, French, German and Spanish. She offers personal organizing sessions, virtual coaching and organizes workshops on various organizing and zero waste topics.
Liz Forest - EMF Management
Liz Forest is the founder and owner of EMF Management, a Swiss-registered renovation project management company servicing the international community in the greater Lake Geneva / Vaud region. EMF handles the heavy lifting so clients do not have to learn a new trade, take time off work, or sacrifice family holidays or their sanity just to make their house a home.
Virginie Dor - Space of Mine
As founder of Space of Mine, a professional business specializing in residential organizing, Virginie Dor is committed to helping individuals and families better their lives, take control of their surroundings and time by creating organizing solutions that are individually tailored to each client. As a proud member of NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers), she is an expert in clutter control, work flow, space planning and time management.
Tara Lissner - Swiss Gardening School
An enthusiastic, self-taught gardener, Tara Lissner is passionate about gardening and eager to share her zeal and knowledge with other gardening fans. In 2012, she joined forces with Hester Macdonald, a British-trained landscape designer, to launch the Swiss Gardening School.
Aislinn Delmotte - Settling Here
Aislinn Delmotte runs Settling Here, a company which aims to provide practical help and advice to individuals, couples and families relocating to the Pays de Gex, a region where some of the customs are similar to those in neighbouring Switzerland, but where many aspects of living are entirely different.
Sophia Kelly - Sophia Kelly Home Design
Responding to the growing demand for home design services in the international community, Sophia Kelly provides a range of tailor-made services, which are perfect for clients who have just moved into a new home or who simply need help reorganizing one that they have lived in for many years!
By Tara Lissner, Swiss Gardening School
I guess it is fair to say that the April drought is behind us – so much rain! Not that we didn’t want or need it of course just not all in the same week. To keep us on our toes the ice saints “saint glace” have also been busy working their magic with really chilly overnight temperatures frosting the new growth on everything from grape and fruit tree crops to eager gardeners with their tomatoes and basil already planted. Local advice from everyone, including the nice lady in the queue at Landi this week, dictates that nothing tender should be planted outside unprotected until after the days of the ice saints. These ice saints, Saint Mamertus, Saint Pancras and Saint Servatius, celebrate their feast days on 11, 12 and 13 May each year. This past week I saw early morning commuter cars covered in snow heading towards the autoroute – I remind you we are in May – keep an eye on the forecast and cover up your seedlings and tender summer bedding with horticultural fleece on nights when the forecast is for colder temperatures. The fleece should be removed in the day to harden off the seedlings and tender plants so they become accustomed to the temperatures.
With the arrival of May the plant market season is quickly upon us. From the small village “marché des plantes” to the bells and whistles of the wonderful “Jardins en Fête” this weekend in Coppet now is the time to get out and about and see what is on offer this year. Keep your eyes peeled for small posters advertising local plant markets, often short on notice they enliven village squares on a Saturday morning at the beginning of the season, Versoix, Trélex and Mies all are regular locations. The town greenhouses of Divonne will be open to the public on Saturday morning 20 May 09:00-12:00. Get a behind the scenes tour of the work that goes into making Divonne such a beautifully floral town. Click Divonne for more information.
I’ve been busy in my vegetable garden dodging the torrential rain. The beans and beanpoles are in, the potatoes are almost ready to be earthed up, the strawberries are flowering and will soon need their fruit lifted from the soil with straw, the raspberries are mulched and I’m waiting to buy my tomato plants at Coppet this weekend. I fear with all of this rain the slugs will be back in force very soon. The most effective way to deal with slugs is to use a nematode drench; a powder-like substance containing tiny nematodes which is mixed with water and applied to the soil, once in the slug the nematode releases a bacteria into the hosts which kills them. An effective product on the swiss market is made by Andermatt Biocontrol and is called bioslug. If you can’t wait to order by all means use whatever system works for you.
On to more pleasant subjects. I’ve been very happy to see my wildflower meadow is coming gently back to life, not least because our puppy decided to dig a trench through the middle of it. As it is on a slope I hadn’t noticed the damage until it was too late – a repair job of refilling the trench has now been completed and the area concerned reseeded, needless to say puppy is being more closely supervised in the garden.
Things are really taking off in the perennial borders. Peonies with their tight buds eager for the sun to reappear to help them open, the delphiniums are reaching for the sky ready to impress. While you still can still get into your borders give some support to your perennials, with days of rain and wind the new stems can be damaged and may well snap. Wire stands and supports are ideal, bamboo and string also works very well. It is best to do this staking before the plants get too big especially if you are using a cage, I’ve recently wrapped a delphinium in newspaper, secured with tape and carefully placed a tall wire cage over it, pushing the cage into the soil and then very gently removing the newspaper. The delphinium survived.
The good news about lots of rain is that the weeds come easily out of the ground. The bad news about lots of rain is that there are now lots of weeds! I’ll be busy this weekend pulling weeds and buying plants at Coppet. Enjoy the weekend and perhaps I’ll see you there.
What's On
Les Jardins du Château de Vullierens - until 18 June
The wonderful iris garden above Morges is now open for the season until 18 June from 09:00-18:00 every day.
Jardin des iris
Jardin de cinq sens, Yvoire
This delightful walled garden has now reopened for the season, always a delight, see their website for full details.
Jardin de cinq sens
Arboretum du vallon de l’Aubonne - until end October
If you have not yet discovered the Arboretum now is the perfect opportunity to do so. Their new website is packed with activities from three family brunches, Sunday guided visits and other special events and activities. Well worth a visit.
Arboretum
Courses
Our new look website is up an running with a number of garden visits and courses before the end of June. Don't forget to sign up and register via the website.
Garden visit – Jardin des Vullierens, Wednesday morning 17 May
Expore the iris garden above Morges with us.
Garden visit
Perfect Pots & Clever Containers - R. Jaggi, Tuesday morning 23 May
Learn how to get the best from your pots this summer and go home with one.
Perfect pots & clever containers
Author's bio
An enthusiastic, self-taught gardener, Tara Lissner is passionate about gardening and eager to share her zeal and knowledge with other gardening fans.
In 2012, she joined forces with Hester Macdonald, a British-trained landscape designer, to launch the Swiss Gardening School.
(Photo by Jean-Luc Pasquier)
Swiss Gardening School
www.swissgardeningschool.com
By Tara Lissner, Swiss Gardening School
Well, we’ve had snow, sunshine and rain and with the time change this weekend it really is beginning to feel like spring. I’m enjoying the flashes of colourful bulbs in bloom everywhere I go with the scent of hyacinths heady in the air, the garden filled with birds chirping before dawn and the massive bumble bees defying gravity with their flying skills – it feels like spring.
With this change in seasons comes that irresistible urge to get back to the garden, long gone are the lazy afternoons with gardening books open for inspiration, now is the time to work.
I spent hours outside this past weekend fixing up the vegetable plot, assessing the state of the compost bins (I have four), trimming back errant rose branches and carefully clearing out the perennial border. I also had some time with my mulch. I love mulch – a curious statement perhaps but not when you realize what magic it works. I keep a large bin of leaf mould and once decayed, after at least a year, I spread it on beds in the garden which need an improved soil structure, perhaps areas where I’ve noticed the beds drying out in the summer. Leaf mould does not bring much in the way of nutritional value to the soil however it really does improve the structure. By adding a layer of at least 6cms to the earth, weed growth is discouraged, humidity is retained and the insects do all the work by working the leaf mould into the soil. I use well composted garden material as mulch in areas like the vegetable plot and perennial beds where I want to add nutritional value as well as improving the soil structure.
I planted a green manure of spinach this winter in two of my raised vegetable beds and this weekend turned them into the soil – I’ll wait another couple of weeks before I plant something in them. My herb bed is showing signs of life with the tarragon coming along nicely and the unstoppable chives reaching for the sky. I’ll be moving the beans into a new position this year and have just moved the structure that they will climb up from one bed to another – now all I have to do is choose a variety. We have had snow over the Easter break in the past so if you are thinking of sowing vegetable seeds directly now do consider buying some fleece to protect your young seedlings – better safe than sorry.
by Gareth Jefferies, Alpine Property
I don't suppose living in the Alps is that great from an Ecological perspective. Though as time goes on we are learning (actually, being slowly forced) to reduce our carbon footprint on the environment. Not many people think about this though, even with the government's attempts to help (see the DPE labels). I've written about it in the past too (An Eco-Chalet in the Alps). Despite this I did have a customer say to me recently "I'm only interested in building a new place...for eco reasons", maybe as time goes on it will happen more often? Though I'm not sure that building from scratch is that eco-friendly, despite the fact the heating bills will be less. The carbon footprint from the new materials might well outweigh the long-term benefits.
I've been living in my house for 14 years and have only got around to upgrading the last remaining single glazed windows this winter. It's never been a priority for me as I'm well aware that the pay back won't happen for 20 or more years. I took the opportunity to take some infrared pictures to show the difference before and after. It was a bit of an eye opener. Not the difference the windows made but how much heat my house is giving off!
The first photo shows my house on a cold day (-7C), the ground floor is 60cm of solid (stone and rubble) construction with no insulation. The upstairs of my property was insulated when it was renovated 30 years ago. They use hollow bricks with a small amount of mineral wool insulation stuffed between them. There is no vapour barrier and externally the walls are wood clad. The shocking thing here is the walls are 10C. The single-glazed windows are obvious on the picture and are only slightly colder (15C) than the inside temperate at the time (19C).
By Aislinn Delmotte, Settling Here
“Raising Global and Mobile Kids” was the theme of an interactive seminar run by Settling Here in Feb 2017 at Webster University. The expert guest speaker was Kristin Duncombe, a Geneva based psychotherapist and author. The seminar looked specifically at international identity and mental-health, and Kristin spoke about raising children in an international context, and the impact of a global, mobile existence on identity and self-esteem.
The diverse audience included anglophone and francophone parents, who are raising children who are bi-cultural, bi-lingual and also third culture children. It’s not always easy to categorize one’s family and its culture but I liked Kristin’s presented definition of third culture which breaks down into three: namely the culture(s) of the family, the culture of the host country (ies), the expatriate subculture and/or the bi-cultural families subculture. There are a lot of cultures at play for some of our Global kids and the critical tasks for parents are to help their kids understand their culture(s) of origin, help them get along in mainstream society and also deal with being a "hidden immigrant".
By Tara Lissner, Swiss Gardening School
Wow! What an autumn we’ve enjoyed. The days, although shorter, have been filled with the most wonderful light – the trees have kept their leaves for the longest time and spoiled us with their rainbow of colour. I am a sucker for a good tree, once I find a good one I make it a point to drive past when I know it is at its peak. My children are tormented with the constant “ohhs” and “ahhs” and “look at that” from my position as driver. This month my favourite is the fabulous Gingko biloba, the Maidenhair tree (photo above) located in the park by the Musée du Léman on the lake front in Nyon. Although native to China this specimen tree grows very well in Europe. It is one of those beauties best grown in public places for all to enjoy as it can reach a height of 30ms. The leaves are fan-shaped and turn the most vibrant butter yellow at this time of year.
The only downside of trees keeping their leaves for such an extended period is that the leaf raking seems never to be done. As I’ve mentioned before rake up the leaves, bag them in black sacks with some air holes, keep them damp for at least a year or more and hey presto, magic leaf mould. Leaf mould is a brilliant mulch for the garden, keeping the weeds to a minimum and the moisture retained. Unlike garden compost it does not bring much nutrition to the garden, so best not to add it to the vegetable plot.
