Month: September 2009

Is there no end to the rain?I have not seen my garden or greenhouse since monday week. Rain stopped at last , donned wellies and snorkel and went out for a look. The heavens opened and i got drenched to the skin, jeans and top saturated  by the time I got in!!! Noticed all gladioli prostrate on ground, must have come into flower while I was on nights….they can stay there!!

Hubby close to hysteria about length of grass!!

The good news BBC have forecast a warm and sunny September….it would want to hurry up

The heavens are open here today and our garden is under water – literally.  My flowers are bashed and broken and I’m feeling the cold a lot more (socks on!).  The Sky+ man is here installing sky+ t.v. so I know that it does not bode well for my garden!  I’m preparing for the dark evenings and long wet days already!  Poor sky man is drenched!! 

last week I read where one of my contacts was looking for a book which would help her to find the Latin names of plants. I wrote a comment which has mysteriously vanished because I cannot find it anywhere. Anyway my reply was as follows:

[1] The Reader’s Digest Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants and Flowers and

[2] The Royal Horticultural Society’s Encyclopaedia of Gardening.

I have found these two books to be most useful. No.[1] is the easier of the two because the plants are listed alphabetically while No [2] is more difficult to navigate but has a wealth of gardening information.

I hope this information is helpful.

If anyone is in contact with the man above would you ask him not to send so much rain. After all we have gardens to attend to!!!!!!!!!!

Got the grass in the back garden cut just before the rain. I was hoping to get some weeding and dead heading done but it will have to be left for another day. I also wanted to plant the shrubs I got in Aldi.

When I had the grass cut I took a quick look around when low and behold a clematis which died on me has started to grow again. Its about three inches high and I cut a 7 up bottle and placed it over it to protect it. For the fun of it I bought carrot seeds last week and sowed them in trays and today they are all up.  Also put down some beetroot and its up about an inch or two. Will they come to anything at this time of year???????? They are in containers. I love to experiment.

Planted in a varigated holly and a Acer ‘Atropurpureum’ both of which have been waiting in the wings for some time! Also filled a couple of gaps in the border with Rudbeckia that had been in pots since Plant Sale in June. Good idea to have a few things in pots for filling gaps.

actually got out for an hour this afternoon and squelched on lawn at the back of the house that is a first as the garden is basically sand and usually drains any water very quickly. Weeds are loving it as are slugs and snails . All dahlias in the back garden are eaten alive , out with blue pellets, war declared.

Monkells coming at weekend with grasses she bought at Farmleigh, cant wait, but may have to enlarge a bed for them, that is if it ever stops raining!!

Hubby went to play golf today in Rosslare, thought he was mad ,but not a drop of rain fell on him, some people have all the luck.

Does anybody know how Rita is doing? Hope she is on the mend.

hi everyone

got the best news ever, i am excepted for the course i applied for in horticulture. starting next wk, its a full time day course, so thrilled, i am on a high.

i did nothing today, too excited, hope to get a few things done tomorrow after shopping, want to look around woodies tomorrow if i have time or else i will go to athlantic homecare.

well thats it for now.

happy gardening

Folks, just thought I’d share a bit of good news, the weather is supposed to pick up for the weekend, so hang in there we may have a bar-b-q yet this month. Good times a coming.

Just back from Canada…..where the weather could have been kinder – the initial heat soon disappeared and rainy chilly days took over.  Ah well. The garden survived without us but with help from a neighbour in terms of pot watering. The herons have finished off the fishes completely – said neighbour says that twice he actually saw herons in the pond.  So at some point ( when it stops pouring ) I will remove the sticks, wire and string and probably just not replace the fish.

John keeps a rain record – to-day we had one and a half inches.  And the tally for the months of July and August is 13 inches……my oh my.

What a day we just had. The drive home was like a night in January, dirt and muck splashing up on the windscreen, and cars and trucks passing at God knows what speed. I was sure glad to get home.

Never even looked into the greenhouse, it can wait until morning.

I’m going to a wedding tomorrow, I hope the weather is not like this? After all the planning for months its so awful if the day is like today.

Not sure exactly what happened but the bar down the middle of my tumbling pots resulting in disaster. While none of the pots broke some of the winter pansies did not survive the landslide. I am not sure whether it was the pots moving with all the rain in the flower bed that caused the bar to break or if the smelly cat next door climbed up along to get over the fence. Anyways whats done is done. I went out in the rain and potted up the surving plants and lined them up along the flower bed. Paul took a few pictures of me in the rain, he is so mean he said they would be funny for me to post and share with my friends i.e. you. But I think not I was like a drowned rat.

Also my pretty pink hollyhocks out the front have been broken with the winds. they didnt break off fully more the stem broke and fell over (if you know what I mean) but I tied it back up so it can continue til its ready to go to seed :O) 

Could’nt put your nose outside the door today and this evening is no better. So you can gather from this that no gardening was done. What would we do if we did’nt have the weather to complain about.

No time to garden today but a lovely day here until late evening. Had visitors for the day so enjoyed showing them some of the beauty of Donegal!

This new "recent Activity" box is deadly. what a clever idea and  time saving. Pure brilliant

what a lovely day in monaghan for my ducks.the good thing about all this rain is watching the ducks from the sitting room window.they are as happy running about the lawn.their like kids at a partly.with all this rain today i told maggie that i was going to check all the young chick to make sure they were indoors.while outside i got soaked so i decided to look for snails and slugs around the veg beds.how many do yous think at i got?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

not one,it must be to wet for them to come out

it was too wet to take any photo to go with this journal,sorry

Just going to lunch and browse the Garden.ie Club and find no updates for 11 hours. Look out the window and there is something shinning in the sky. So I guess its sunny most places and everyone is in the garden. Good luck, we waited long enough for a good day. Hopefully there is a week of it to come, so the weather man said.

I’ve been resisting the idea of autumn, after our patchy summer (which was, in fact, much liked by my dry and starved town garden). But this morning the season had definitely changed.

The sky was bright and crisp, and the thermometer was showing a chilly 10 degrees Centigrade. And the wind had filled out, with those big, prolonged gusts that move noisily through the trees, loosening the leaves. 

Last night’s rain yielded much water for the various improvised water butts that we have around the place. I feel wonderfully virtuous when I can water greenhouse and conservatory without going near a tap.  

The greenhouse is full of seedlings for the vegetable beds: collard greens, broccoli, oriental greens, sorrel and various other leafy edibles. I’m hoping that there will be a tiny bit of warmth in the soil when I plant them out.

 

 

The little one started Montessori on Monday – so the first thing I did with my newfound 3 hours of daily freedom was to go to my friend’s house (who has a decent internet connection) and ordered a load of seeds from Chiltern.  Hours of fun ahead.  If anyone is into swapping seeds, let me know.  I love growing stuff from seed so seem to be collecting seeds like some people collect, say, teapots or stamps or beer mats from around the world.  I love to share my seeds and I love to see what sort of things other people have.  Let me know, would love to hear from you.

 

The garden is looking decidedly soggy.  I’m happy to report that I have finally planted out all of the lovely plants I got from the carpark swap at Belvedere House.  I must say I could nearly hear them sigh with relief once they got into the open ground.  Just hope the evil slugs stay away.

 

How many of you got suckered into rushing to Lidl this morning to get Magnolia trees?  Guilty as charged.  I got M. ‘Susan’ because it is my sister’s name (and the name of my new friend Sue 🙂 and M. stellata.  I’m a bit worried about the soil being slightly limey but just read that if you plant Magnolias in deep, rich, humusy soil they are quite happy.  Must break out a couple of bags of manure, should be just the job.

 

The veg is looking haggard.  Letting the French beans go to seed and a sorrier sight you never saw.  Overwhelmed with tomatoes – making sauce every 3 days.  And pickling cucumbers to beat the band – but they will end soon as well.  The pepper crop this year is heartwarming – considering the last 2 years.  I tried a new thing this year where I planted them out in 2-litre pots with the bottoms cut out (kind of the same thing as ring culture that you do with tomatoes – which, as I’ve said here before, works a treat for me).  Coupled with the warmer weather (at least earlier in the summer), the peppers seem to be faring much better.  Sweetcorn is ready for picking – will go straight to the pot for the sweetest taste.  And finally got around to sowing stuff for the tunnel for this winter – salad leaves, lettuces, cabbages, etc. 

 That’s the story for now.  Happy digging.

Yesterday was a veritable monsoon day. The rain bucketed down from a leaden sky. I put on a raincoat, plastic overpants and wellies just to go down to my greenhouse. I had decided this was the day to dig out my cactus plants which had been in occupation in the greenhouse soil for the past number of years. Just for how long I cannot remember.

There are only four cactus plants on one side of the path spaced along the 8foot length of the greenhouse. However three of them have a number of stems about 6 feet in height.

The cactus plant nearest the door has seven stems in varying heights. This one seems to be covered in grey wooly hairs, which in fact are flexible spines. A newspaper wrapped round it made it easier to handle and I bent over each stem until it broke away from the plant. I broke the stems into smaller sections and piled them all in a heap near the compost heap.

Before I piled them up I cut off the top from three of the stems and let them dry out on the greenhouse shelving. I intend to pot them up to see if they will root into the pots. The next two had strong sharp spines which required more delicate handling and they were bigger in diameter than the grey ones. I eventually broke these up too and kept some tops for potting later.

The last cactus plant, which had only two stems, even bigger in diameter than the previous two, I decided to move to the end of the greenhouse and retain it. It is a much slower grower than the others and has only reached about 3 feet in height. On the far side of the path I had grown smaller cacti and these I put into pots and placed them on the shelving.

Then I removed all the rocks which I had surrounded the cacti with and spread them along the pathway behind the greenhouse. This was where my raingear came into its own.

Next year I will have the greenhouse to grow tomatoes etc. in if I wish. We will see.

hey guess what , we got the lawns cut today , front and back(at least hubby did ), I did the edges . Can you believe it sun all day!!! wow

Lots of slugs and snails , blue pellets spread everywhere. 

But Tony happy as lawns done    Tesco has bag of , daffs  for 3.00 euro , either 25 or 50 . cant remember , gave them to my brother in law who called to see us from the big smoke, and thought they were great value. Hope there are some left tomorrow when I go in!!!. Have a terrible weed in garden , will put up picture when batterey recharged in camera!!! I know Iknow ,I just never think about it until batteries are low

Forget to say I got a large rhodedendrum today in lidils for 8.99. Cant remember the name of it , its out side and Iam here , feet up and glass of wine, so i will tell you tomorrow

HI,  IM NEW TO ALL THIS ON LINE INFO. SO JUST BARE WITH . IM NOT THAT LONG GARDENING BUT ENJOY BEING OUTSmenu_orderE IN THE OPEN AIR .I’M LUCKY OR SOME MAY SAY UN LUCKY TO HAVE A LARGE GARDEN SITE ‘ ABOUT AN ACRE SO I HAVE PLENTY OF ROOM TO WORK WITH.THIS LAST THREE MONTHS I HAVE HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO WORK OUTSmenu_orderE .

I HAVE PLANTED A LOT OF TREES  AT THE FRONT OF MY HOUSE THE FIRST WAS PLANTED FIVE YEARS AGO ONE FOR EVERY MEMBER OF THE FAMILY MY WIFE WAS FIRST IT IS AN ACER MAPLE IT IS DOING WELL. 

MY DAUGHTER’S TREE IS A GOLDEN ASH 

MY SON’S TREE IS A BLACK WALNUT

I ALSO HAVE TWO FLOWERING CHERRIES ONE IS A KANZAN THE OTHER CERASITERA A FEW GUM TREES CONTORTED HAZEL MAPEL .

THESE TREES ARE ALL IN A OPEN AREA WITH VERY LITTLE PROTECTION FROM THE WEST WIND AND RAIN AND WE ALL KNOW HOW MUCH OF THAT WE GET . MOST ARE DOING WELL EXCEPT THE GOLDEN ASH AND THE CHERRY CERASITERA THEY HAVE A LOT OF YELLOW LECHIEN GROWING ON THE TIPS AND AT THE JOINTS IT IS RESTRICTING THE GROWTH AND INHIBITING THE FORMATION OF NEW BUDS. THE BARK UNDER THE LICHIEN IS SOFT . I THINK THAT LICHIEN IS THE SIGN OF GOOD CLEAN AIR BUT I DONT KNOW . ANY ADVICE?  

hi everyone.

i have been extremely lazy this wk, loads to do and cant get around to doing it, plan to get stuff done tomorrow, there is so much paperwork applying for the grant, by god you earn it, and there is still a chance you may not get it,but its worth a try. have loads of bulbs and pots to plant up. i got 7 goldcrest today for 2.50 each, alot better than 5.99 in alot of places, the little purple cordylines are at a ridiculous price of 5.00. you could hold 2 pots in one hand.

hopefully i will get some work done tomorrow.

happy gardening

Today I got a present of a Magnolia soulangeana. Can anyone tell me if I can grow it in a tub or does it have to be in the ground. Its about two or three feet high at the moment. How high do they grow and what about pruning and when. All help would be appreciated.

I also have a passion flower, clematis and honeysuckle in the shed. Will they be ok until I decide where to put them???? I keep them watered.