Month: August 2008
Flame creeper berries
About four years ago I was looking for pretty flowers to put into a hanging basket and I bought two daisy-like plants that looked as though they would cascade. They did and thrived, and were still looking great when the rest of the plants had decided enough was enough. So – waste not want not – I stuck them in the nearest available bed and forgot about them. The following Spring they looked so good that I just left them there to tumble over the edge of the flower bed which borders the driveway. Nearby we have a large paved area which contains the pond. I hadn’t realized, but the daisy-like plant had scattered itself far and wide and every tiny crevice now contains speciments of Erigeron karkinskianus also known as Mexican fleabane or wall daisy. Be warned…..
Erigeron karkinskianus
Huge Dahlia
Hi everyone,
The garden is growing before my eyes!! However, with all the rain we cant even get out to enjoy it, never mind do any work in it. We just bought a new gazebo and new furniture (LOVE IT) and it has done nothing but rain since! Summer in Ireland !?!?!?!?!??????The veggie garden has done very well with fresh salad and veggie for us every week. Herbs very good too, well used. Apples are getting very big now but I know from last year that they have a long way to go. They were as big as turnips last year !!! The plum tree however is in trouble!! Have some sort of rust and holes in the leaves. Have to find out hot to solve this problem. Not nearly as many plums as last year. My Muscadet lilly has just started to bloom – photo attached. I bought it at Chelsea a couple of years ago and await to see the floweres as big as dinner plates. My white agapanthus is just about to bloom. I bought it several years ago in a garden centre in Wexford and this is the first time it has bloomed since!!!!! Slugs and snails are back in force and have my heart broken!! Have posted A WET AUGUST MORNING PHOTO’S.
Muscadet on a wet August morning
In July i was in Wexford to visit my parents. While having a look around their garden I had to take a few photo’s. It is such a beautiful garden. They have been in the house now for about 8 years I think! I never thought I would love any grden as much as I loved the garden in the home I grew up in . It was huge. But this garden has huge mature trees and I have to take my hat off to my parents!!!- the planting is beautiful and very clever (just like them!!) Hope you enjoy the photo’s
Mon xx
My parents garden
Slip of blue hydrangea going to a friend
New Thalictrum
Work has been very demanding in the past month. As a result I have spent very little time in the garden. I spent a full week away in an urban area. My soul has missed the lushness of the grass in this weather. The pollen, bees, butterflies; heady sweet pea scents and nicotiana, fennel seed heads. All welcome reminders of where I am happiest. I even missed the slugs!!!!
While I was away I worried about blight, whether Bob and the kids would pick the strawberries and the raspberries and remember to water the tomatoes without wetting the leaves.
I’m glad to be home. The potatoes are affected by blight so in the torrential rain I pulled up all of the stalks and binned them. I left the spuds in the ground they seem to be ok. I’ll wait another day to dig them up and store them. The Dahlias are blooming very well. The sweet peas are fantastic and I had better start eating some artichokes.
The basil is pitiful. Not enough sun or heat. Same goes for the melons and peppers. The Toms are doing well though. I had some courgettes and french beans for our dinner this evening. yum.
I’m going to try to propogate verbena bonariensis from cuttings next.
Its a tie for biggest pest in the garden today between slugs and couch grass.
Best in the garden today is the orange dahlia I can see from the window; all the way down in the cutting patch. I think it is called Eveline. I will upgrade this to the garden border next year. mental note remember to label it. There is a pink one beside it "Fascination" its a close second.
The strangest thing in the garden today is that there is a hellebore in flower! mmm! I don’t know what to make of that.
Sally’s garden
despite the rain
Just back from 3 days in Donegal. Glenveagh gardens and hill walks- an unmissable experience and all for free!
We are greeted home by the brilliant blooms of these white lilies in front of phloxes-i don’t know the variety but they have been in this relatively dry spot near the gate for a few years??I hope the picture downloads.
Our Cosmos plants are also perking up after a few good days.Incidentally Cosmos seeded itself successfully in the garden this year producing mature plants that are flowering-maybe the good early Summer weather caused this-I never saw it happen before but it’s very welcome! Agapanthus is looking great at the moment-the blue form. I intend to acquire the white form also.
The lawns need mowing so that’s the first job tomorrow-a dry day is forecast before the next front moves in from the atlantic!
ps.the white flower in photo 10 is of my tree peony, a favourite plant of mine which earns its place from the beautiful flower buds and huge flowers it produces for two weeks in June-is there a nicer shade of white??
ps again.Photo 12 of album, is of clump of wood anemone, which grows in local hedgerows and is a welcome intruder in my garden!
Bye for now.
White lilies and phlox.
Dahlia-Bishop of Llandaff.
26/08/08 Diary
Inula
oH Heaven ..the delights of my garden tonight ..I report ..the beauty of the flowers,,the night and the moment …The arrival of IRISH GARDEN…and the REST..Oh Yes….tonight
I have just moved into our new home outside Mullingar. The house is on a 3/4 acre site so I have any amount of space to deal with – and am a total beginner. We’ve started off simply to begin with, all leveled and seeded for lawn. I have a lovely row of cherry and damsen trees all along the right hand side of the garden. I saved some roses from the house before the build, which I planted along the front wall which are doing really well. And I have on shrub border at the left hand corner of the house which with some help with O’Meara’s garden centre I have managed to plant – well nearly – have about 20 shrubs and roses (2) and some heathers in it so far and there’s still room for more – its a big feature!!
What miserable weather we are having… the plants in my garden put on a lovely little growing spurt and then the heavy rains come and beat them down!…
Its my first year growing veg.. this january we constructed a raised bed from railway sleepers.. now we have lettuce, rocket, peas, spinach and chard!!! Plus I added a few cutting flower rows- beautiful dhalia "fascination"… as well as some beautiful sunflowers- which are bloomin marvellous in spite of the blustery weather!
Gladiolas flowering at last. The purple ones look good with Poppies, Cosmos and Rudbeckia. See photo. Re tomatoes, I removed one plant to give a little more space and light . I also removed some foliage from plants to improve ventilation. Hope to see results shortly.
Finally the long awaited planting has happened, I can almost hear then breathing a sigh of relief.
The peppers have come on a treat and they just keep on growing bigger every day, its amazing, will definately be doing these again, only tried them for fun, but great success, photos will follow soon. Have a small crop of peas too, just waiting for them to plump up and they’ll be on the plate, if I can wait long enough, I keep ‘trying’ them, they are so good straight from the pod. Thats all for now folk! Ciao!
hi
thanks for viewing my profile. i love the garden its a place where you can learn so much. my grandad was a gardener he just loved it. when he got home from work at the city council he would just work after the all inportant dinner and glass of milk! he sadly died 8 years back while at work i think i got his genes!!
i started last year bugging my dad till he had to dig up the grass in my grannys garden he said at the end of the digging "are you happy now" and had a well desevred glass of water. [he dosent drink tea] Anyway there was three rows and a fushia bush which was massive beside the plot a good point lots of bees where always looking for pollen and the bees just adore fushia bushes because there flowers are stuffed with nectar which they then polinate and then they come and give me a little helping hand! so i planted spinach beet the worst thing ive ever eaten i wouldn’t eat it if i was starving so i threw it on the compost heap .scallions grew like scallions grow and potatoes which were eaten my fost not a good start people would say but in spring i sowed carrots, broad beans, broccoli, potatoes, sweet corn[now dead], corgettes [also dead] in summer i bought lettece and sowed peas.
i found the lettuce although tasted lovey didnt last long after it got big and 2 heads of lettuce is all you need for a week and i had twelve and they were all ready at the same time! i had to cater for family and friend functions! I still lost three heads to nature [rotted]
my peas which sowed in june/july are growing big and leafy . my tomatoes ive counted tweb
nty on my ‘shirley’
I THOUGHT i’d have lots of ongoing garden news during the summer, but all I seem to do is try to keep pace with the lawn ….& weed….. growth! I can’t even get a dry day to tackle the top of the Leylandii hedge. The sides were clipped weeks ago but the top (always a big job) awaits it’s haircut like a green hippie!
The pots are sitting in inches of water, & the slugs/snails have even managed to scale to the height of my Bizzie Lizzie hanging pouches . My little patio firniture set is certainly ‘aged’….does fit into the general olde garden picture mind you, but the developing rust does nothing for one’s clothes, (if you do manage to grab a ray of sunshine for a coffee!).
Sorry, I’ll stop moaning now & go & browse the bulb catalogue that came with the Irish Garden….thanks Gerry…we can always look forward to next year eh!
I realised in all my ramblings i forgot to mention the best of the garden this week – i think its the cosmos – I have planted them throughout the front border and some of them are seeds i got in a seed swap last year – they turned out to be lovely double flowers – the petals turn back on themselfs and therefore are two toned, its always nice to see what comes up when you swap seeds.
Lastly, the one thing i felt i did badly this year – and i could do with advice here please – is my Tagetes, they went in as normal – but grew and grew…… and grew some more, they have only recently started to flower and they are supposed to be short. Was it the rain? i did not dead head or anything – they normally look like a lovely carpet – this year….. they are lanky….. but finally flowering.
Lorraine
hi im just starting from scratch . im a bit nervous as ive never been into gardening till i moved here. i have a 1/2 acre which of course has lots and lots of grass so ive invested on a goat to help me out and he does the banks and i do the flat part .i roughly have an idea what i want {i think} but its always down to money and doing the digging and of course getting it right .This year i tried some vegtables and it was hard work at the start but worth it in the end . so i will keep yous posted on how my big garden is getting on.
The last few weeks have been so wet that I have not bothered to do any gardening, with the result that potted plants and hanging baskets look bedraggled and sad. Now that the sun has appeared I hope to get out and give some of these plants a haircut and a good feed, as I am sure that the rain has washed many nutrients out of the soil in the containers. However, the other plants and shrubs in the garden look wonderfully lush and healthy – except for the roses – they have had a really awful time this summer.
We finally got the meadow cut. you can see the rabbits now!
,,,,the bliss of colour that is my garden ..the rain ,,the blessed rain ..has turned the vegitation into blissful green and the flowers ..love it ….love it !! ….The lawn is now manicured,,daisies …not alllowed by zero tolerence.Iwelcome the input of students earning a summer buck….what will I do after the holidays …the grass will grow and the daisies ..will linger ..! and the august sun will set
