Month: July 2009

Well almost!!! BuzyBee the lovely garden centre in Ferns is changing hands…and I should have checked out their sale a few weeks ago…anyhow visited today and got a few plants at knockdown prices…. so that makes up for all that restrain nonsense that went on yesterday!!!

Got out in the garden for a little while this afternoon, everything is soaking of course…but have almost finished picking the peas now….I did sow some seeds of radish, lettuce and more dwarf runner beans…theres a few bare spaces now in the veg beds…

I’m wondering should I pull up all the red onions, reading in the garden books they say wait till August…does anyone have any advice? should I leave them a while yet or would it do any harm to pull them and dry them out….cant believe I just said that…how on earth could anything be ‘dried out’ with this weather!

Trying to keep the ‘chin up’…but its disheartening trying to get into the garden with all the downpours…..Anyhow lets hope for a good day at Belvedere..so looking forward to it. Bye for now đŸ™‚

the potatoes are doing well esp the red skinned ones. the sharpes express seem to be quite small in comparison but the taste is lovely.

now that i’ve tried these i might go for different types next year

red duke of york. desiree and sharpes express

red duke of york. desiree and sharpes express

What a wash out this week end. I had a second pond create itself in the second level of the garden much to my grand daughter’s distress. "Will the fishies all fly out Granny" she wanted to know. Well they didn’t as far as I can see but they could nearly survive in the lawn as it is so wet. Some weeding today as the sun came out in the afternoon. One of the glasses of my wine bottle sculpture crashed down in the rain and the wind of the week end – thats life here on a windy island.

Still fed up with this arm. Wish I could do more. By the way do you like my idea on growing lettuce. Paddy put up a shelf in the garden and we put a growbag up with the lettuce. Keeps me going in fresh lettuce. I also have tomatoes on the pation in a pot, here’s hoping.

Last week while staying with my parents in Dublin I had the pleasure of going to see Helen Dillon’s garden while kids were happily at cinema and Dollymount Strand!  (Thanks mum & dad!)  I have put some photos in an album.  I was amazed at all the colour and I believe it had even changed since Rachel was there two weeks previous.  I love this poppy here, well at least I think it is a poppy and I loved the geranium in photo No. 9 & the varigated grass in No. 11 to the right of the photo.  I went around the garden 3 times seeing different plants each time!  Well worth a visit, you would not know you were in the heart of Dubin.
White Poppy

White Poppy

Today I set out to find a hanging basket for my nepenthes. I needed a small plastic, hanging basket, preferably with a saucer attached underneath for collecting drips. Could I find such a thing? Not a chance.

I ended up in a Garden Centre with my youngest, Sammy, where I bought a basket of hanging strawberries (just for the hanging basket) and then detached the hanging bit and attached it onto a pond basket. I now have my nepenthes in a hanging pond basket (apparently the pond basket it best because of the drainage). Luckily it hangs over the sink so that drips end up in the sink – well, nearly!

Anyway, while in the Garden Centre, we went into the pet section and ended up buying two koi for my little pond. The woman in the shop said that they would grow (or not) to fit the size of the pond. Well, I took a chance. So my sons named the koi, Louis (the white one) and Zoe (the one with the orange splodge).

Louis & Zoe

Louis & Zoe

Hi all, not sure on whose journal that i found out about secret seeds web site, decided to pay it a visit on Sunday night and was very impressed!!! they have a summer sale on at the moment with a huge range of seed on offer, we bought 15 packs of seed and including postage cost was €12.75!! great value, would recommend anyone to take a look, and thank you to who ever posted the name in the first place……………………….
Flower seeds

Flower seeds

I’ve visited my experimental garden space and found out that ants take up their residence on my northern bed.
I’m lost in conjectures how to deal with them because next step is to plant the conifer and add some stones. But I cannot do it if angry ants attack me! Scratch my head….
Now in bloom in the garden –  sweet-william, white peonies, Leucanthemum, also my herbs do well, especially melissa, and all that was planted up, looks good, except one astilbe. I’ve bought it after blooming, and now it all withered. But I hope it will recover.
 
 
White peony

White peony