Month: October 2008

I finally took courage today and started the work of extending the border in the west garden.

I’ve never been satisfied with the view from the kitchen patio doors – it falls short of the original intention. I also need a lot more height and plants in this part of the garden as this is where we mainly sit.

I placed the hose to make the outline of the new border edge and cut the grass along that line. I only got as far as taking out one row of sods but at least now I can see how it will eventually look.

Hope the weather holds!

Extending the Border

I picked what is probably the last of my Sweet Pea today.

They are so lovely and sweetly fragrant.

I must grow this variety again next year.

Finished removing the grass from the border extension and started the actual digging.

Sweet Pea

It’s about half dug now.

Surprise, surprise – plenty of stones.

I’m only going to dig one spade deep.

New Border

We had another lovely day here today. I collected all the Chinese Lanterns to dry and got a photo of this lovely yellow Crocosmia. I hope it multiplies.

Yellow Crocosmia

All my pots have been tucked in under the west wall for the Winter so we will all sit out the storms and salt winds – me offshore and the plants onshore!! The dahlias flowered so late that I left them in the ground so we will see how that goes. That is if I can remember where they were this year.

We have also put up a owl box and are hoping for tenants for next year. An owl was seen in our lane way this Summer so maybe we might be lucky. We were really lucky with our great tit family. W now have a piece of software which we hope will record and relay to our computer what our garden camera sees.

Watch this space.

put to bed

These are the Chinese Lanterns drying on top of the kitchen cupboard. They keep their bright cheerfull orange colour for so long.

Chinese Lanterns

I’ve been enjoying the beautiful autumnal colouration of my Japanese acers for the last few days. Such rich colours! Unfortunately few remain of all the ones I purchased over the years. Many succumbed to frost. Eventually I took to keeping them in pots, moving them to a desired location during the Summer months eg beside the pond, and into the unheated greenhouse or shade of the house for the Winter. This works to a certain extent , but they can still fall victim to late frosts and I am determined to keep a close eye on my new ones. They are rather expensive to be losing! I have two reliably hardy and fully grown varieties in the garden at the moment. I wish I knew the names of these, but like many of my roses, I have no record of planting – it would be a good idea to record the name and location of each plant at the planting stage for future reference. During the Winter I intend to rummage through rose catalogues and the many tags that came with plant purchases over the years (lying in tins in the garage maybe), and try to put names on some of them.
Lots of bulbs, mainly tulips, to get planted but the ground is so wet still! I pity the poor things going into such soil, so I’ll hold on for another while or maybe put some grit under each for drainage.

Japanese acer.

Finished digging – al last!

Found several large flat stones in the border, which have been commondeered for my dry-stone-wall (no laughing at my wall!)

Didn’t have the energy to start levelling etc. Tomorrow is another day!

Also, painted the wooden benches and the mini bridge.

New Border

It’s raining today but I am smug because I levelled and planted my newly dug border extention yesterday.

The tree is a Prunus Serrula (with the pretty bark) and I have a second one to be planted in the border exactly opposite the first one. I just didn’t have the heart to dig up my sweet pea yesterday to make space for the tree opposite!

I planted an astelia (banksii) at the end of the border and, when this grows really big, I will remove the heuchera which are now planted near it. I edged the border with bergenia. This is my star plant for 2008 – can’t get enough of them!

Obviously there is more planting to do but that is all I have for the minute.

Half Planted

Very pleased that my nerine bulbs flowered this year.

They were bought and planted in March this year.

Must buy more of these next spring.

Nerines

My asters are just going over now. The colours are quite vibrant – just wish I had a bit of sun to pick them out.

The 90cm Aster is "Patricia Ballard".

Asters

My hyacinth have just sprouted so I’ve taken them out from under the stairs.

Last year I had great success with a hyacinth-in-a-glass kit, which required no soil – just water. The kids loved watching the roots grow.

This year I have used earthenware, which isn’t the best idea, but lets see how they go.

I planted all white hyacinth – me, I can do posh!

Hyacinth

I love when the persicaria on my hill turns this deep red colour.

Does anyone know how easy persicaria is to root. I do have a bare hill, which I’ve just weeded, and I would love to spread this stuff all over it but I have no greenhouse. It seems to root easily. Could I dig up a bit and transplant it?

Persicaria

This plant has fairly large bulb like roots and transplants quite easily. I planted this piece of root only 6 months ago and its flowering now. When I won the Bakker voucher I ordered a Meconopsis and a Asclepias. They arrived today and I planted them in pots and put them in the ‘greenhouse’.

Tropaeolum tuberosum

My garden is a little over an acre. It is situated on Sherkin Island, West Cork.

The main difficulty of gardening on an island is the heavily laden salt winds that blow and blow.

If you are in this part of the world you can visit my garden in June, July and August.

Ferry boat form Baltimore and ask where I am!!

The photos of my garden are in no particular order but were all taken over the past two or three years

The cosmos are coming into their own only now and we have seen some lovely doubles and others with the leaves turning back on themselves which is nice to see the two tones of them.

The sweet pea have to come out of the garden today – (well should have come out ages ago to be honest) they did not do well – but my excuse was it was my responsibility this time and i picked heritage varieties which did not grow too tall, plus the fact that i did not tie them up religius every week – so himself will have to take them back next year – in fact maybe he is considering taking back his garden since it looked a lot tired this year.

The Dahlias are lovely, i grew larger ones this year along with out staple – Arabian night. Some of the seed we grew ourselves from last year did not do so well – the flowers were tiny – but its nice to see something you grew frmo seed not knowing what you will get.

We went on a shopping spree lately, (birthday gift vouchers for Garden Centres – what a perfect idea 🙂 ) so we have a lot of grasses, and himself is going to work on a blue garden, for the spring. I got a couple of Hazel bushes and i cant wait to watch them grow.

My sunflowers are rotten, with all the rain. Some of the roses are looking well, but the best show in the garden t his year is the Bamboo and the Pampass – with all this miserable rain – something did well.

Our tomatoes have finally decided to ripen, so am only really enjoying them now. The peppers in the greenhouse are also coming on – tasted one yesterday – they were so fresh – the first time ever.

I picked some nice Romanescu (not sure about the spelling) Broccolli and am dying to taste it this weekend – it looks nice.

Still enjoying our potatotes from the garden too.

This weekend last year i had to take everything out of the garden due to the heavy rain and the dahlias were drowning. But i am going to leave them in another week, but the Pelargoniums might have to come out – mind you they are looking their best also.

Lots of work to do in the garden – so will make the most of the dry weather today because tomorrow is not supposde to be good.

Anyway – i am still collecting seed and hope to start sharing it soon,

Enjoy the garden

Lorraine

This is techincally not my garden, but it reminds me of the wildflowers and plants of where I’m from. These were taken 3 weeks ago (Sept). The photos were taken a a place called Wattamulla in New South Wales, Australia

Still at drains, but weather so poor it is hard to get it done. But I think it will be a good sucess when you see the amount of water that runs in the ones that I have done so far.

My polytunnel is at it end of season all my strawberrys, tomatoes, scallions etc. are finished.

I have some winter lettuce planted which I hope to have for Christmas.

A little over 2 months ago (August 08) my wife and I left the urban life in Dublin with our 10 week old baby in tow and moved to a large 2 story house about 3 miles from Adare, Co.Limerick. We have next door neighbours on one side and at least a half a dozen houses within a few hundred yards but the location still feels quite remote and rural. It is a huge change for us coming from tiny city houses and apartments. We are just about over our initial bout of agoraphobia but have not fully settled into the rural scene just yet.

My wife is fussing over the interior details but I am keen to get stuck in to some outdoor projects. I am almost a complete novice in the gardening world but in recent years I have started to develop an interest – picked up a few books and watched a lot of Monty Don on TV.

In spite of major space limitations (mostly containers & tiny rented city patches about the size of a small tablecloth) I think I have done quite well. Lots of flowers – bulbs in spring, petunias, marigolds, sweet pea, lobelias, begonias – good success with anything that can grow in a pot or hanging basket. Most importantly I have found that I really enjoy the process. I have a sedendantary, cerebral and at times stressful day job and an evening with "my baskets" was just the ticket.

But now I have a much bigger canvas to paint on. Our new home stands on a 0.6 acre site. The house was built only 2-3 years ago so most of the garden is as the builder left it i.e. coarse uncared for lawn, a spattering of spindly trees along the boundaries, a "rockery" of builders rubble which has been planted with a lot of bushy things to cover it up and a beech hedge (which I like but my wife doesn’t!) growing along our west side boundary. 2 other sides have a wire fence with concrete pillars but no hedge & we have a wooden fence sans hedge to the front. So the place is pretty exposed & the recent winds across our unprotected site has contributed much to the agoraphobia!

The back of the house faces almost exactly due south so gets the sun for most of the day – but the front garden gets the sun in the morning on one side and evening on the other. Or at least that is what is looks like to us since the best we have had since we moved is has been a slightly less gloomy gloom to judge which way the sun falls!!

The house is set in the front third of the site so the back lawn is quite large and the front quiet small. The house sits about 4-5 feet below the lawn so the front lawn banks quite steeply. There is a drop of 3-4 feet away from the house at the back & the farmers field behind that continues to drop away.

The first area I have looked up on this website was about garden design which has prompted me to get the big measuring tape out over the coming weekend and to have a crack at a basic garden plan. My garden budget has been snaffled for new curtains for the house so unfortunatley I will not be in the market for professional design advice. But I will be picking the brains of any of my fellow amateurs in the coming weeks and months to help me get started.

The house is set in the front third of the site so the back lawn is quite large and the front quite small. The house sits about 3-4 feet below the road so the front lawn banks quite steeply. There is a drop of 3-4 feet away from the house at the back & the farmers field behind that continues to drop away. There seems to be fairly good drainage – everything falls away from the house and we are in a limestone area.

The first section I looked up on this website was about garden design which has prompted me to get the big measuring tape out over the coming weekend and to have a crack at a basic garden plan. My garden budget has been snaffled for new curtains for the house so unfortunatley I will not be in the market for professional design advice. But I will be picking the brains of any of my fellow amateurs in the coming weeks and months to help me get started.

where has the days of summer gone .washed away in a torrent of rain…the cold of autumn setting in …leaves turning,and falling underfoot..but lingering are the memories of a blissful august ..mmm and how!

Saturday would have put years on you. Here in Mayo it was drizzle all day! BUT… Sunday was fabulous and sunny. I cut the lawn, saying to myself, this could be the last time this year…. Then, when I saw the shadows the October Sun was causing in the garden, I had to get the camera out. This hand made beaded stake ( also the copper lily pad in the pond) was made by my artist friend Sally. She is a sculptor and makes lovely things for gardens. Check her website www.sallymckenna.com.

Hand made beaded stake

I tried growing Datura (angels’ trumpets) from seed this year – just spotted the packet of seeds in a local store and thought they might be nice. As per instructions, I steeped the seeds in lukewarm water overnight – all six or seven of them. Unfortunately the glass of water was tipped into the sink during next morning’s post-breakfast clean-up. Realising my error, I scoured the sink for anything resembling seeds and recovered some suspects. On germination these produced two young tomato plants (I suspected they might). When grown on in the greenhouse and subsequently in the garden, they produced a few green fruits -not a summer for outdoor tomatoes! Some time later I happened on young Datura plants on sale in a well known discount store and bought a few of the yellow-flowered variety. These I put in pots in the greenhouse and in early June moved them outside. Subsequently they grew to a height of four or five feet with huge leaves but no flowers-that is until last week when, in the rain, I noticed the large trumpet-like yellow flower on one of them. Fearing for the delicate looking flower, looking so out of place in the cold wet October gloom, I moved it to just inside the door of the greenhouse and later noticed more blooms developing on the other Datura plants. The flowers are quite spectacular but one feels they would be more at home in sunnier climes!

Datura.

This beautiful moth was flying around outside a house in Leitrim I was in during the summer.I’ve had no success finding any photos of one like it in any books I have,so if anybody can shed some light on this twould be brill

Beautiful!

Month: October 2008

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