Month: October 2009

Have spent all day planting up the largest of the new beds.

Tony dug up the blue agapanthus  that didnt flower this year and I have to say I am not surprised!! It was at least 3foot x 3 foot and we divided up into 10 and dumped the rest. I planted it throughout the bed. 

Have planted from left to right  , exochordia , crinadendrum, acer palmatium, nandina, pachysandra, virburnam bod. dawn  3 berberis on the ditch where there are gaps, loads of agapanthus, red hot poker and about 50 bulbs. Am so tired now I cant remember what else I planted I know there was more but its too dark now to check!!

Have watered watered and watered some more and still the ground is dry  but it seems I dont have to worry the rain forecast for here tomorrow is likely to cause flooding!!!!! So thanks labourer it seems you have managed to send your rain and then some more!!

 will put up some pics after hols  happy gardening all my friends

My phone line got cut on Sat by tree cutting next door so no internet access. I’m glad though as it lets in lots more light to my place. Haven’t done that much in the garden anyway , abit of cutting down and planting a few more bulbs. Bought a few reduced plants today, a Christmas rose, a diascia and an osteospermum .I’ll probably try to overwinter the last two in my little plastic greenhouse. I like experimenting!

Could it not have held off for two hours, am glad to see the rain, as everything is as dry as a bone. A couple of hours was all I needed to get arch finished, back to work on Wednesday, so will be weekend before its finished. Ah well, will get some of the long waiting things on todo list (other than gardening) ticked off. Are us gardeners ever happy !! I have decided that I will leave the arch as a stand alone item and not plant it up.

Arch might be a wrong word for it, more like ‘ is it a bird ‘ ‘is it a plane ‘ no its just Fran on one of this design trips again. It will look good when the hedge grows up around the single post, and hides it. An Arch with a sigle post I hear you ask, you’ll have to wait and see the photos. The weather men got it right, it is belting down here. Enjoy your day, whatever you may be doing.

One of my sisters lives in Shekou, China.  She sent us this email this morning.

"I was checking out our weather forecast (Shekou, China) online this morning when a weather warning for Ireland flashed up. I thought that was peculiar and then when I read it thought it was even more peculiar. Here is what it said……………

It can sit in the pot for another winter!

ive just compleated a nice large order of seeds for the garden next year which include some interesting veg, some tress such as monkey puzzels, arbutus and powlowina and a whole host of tropical annuals like ricinus,

Trying to get on top of last years weeds never mind 2009.

We started this rural  garden 14 1/2 years ago. It got behind last year and we still haven’t caught up.  We have 3 acres to look after. We intend to work right through the winter if weather permits. I also have 2 greenhouses which are stuffed at the moment. My husband gardens for a living as well as helping to look after our own.

I grow a lot of plants from seeds and cuttings and always have spare ones. which I need to find a market for so that I can grow more.

Pictures will follow at some stage whem we have time. I am also involved with our local Horticultural Society in Hillsborough, The Irish Garden plant Society and the Apine Garden Society.

Had an early morning walk in the veg bed to see the remainder of what needed harvesting,for later.With the weather,it was to much on the coolish side to open tunnell or greenhouse until around lunchtime.This evening up to 7.30 pm i managed to blanch some onions,spinach,and carrots.No time to do much more after that.Darkness fell then,allowing time now only to draw a plan for tomorrow evenings garden jobs.[hopefully]

if you live close to any lidls you shold check out the bare root roses (2.50euro) there selling, i got myself 2 nice old scented varietys both of which are sold by david auston roses for over 10sterling

No gardening today . heavy drizzle this morning but real rain arrived at 1.45; and boy did it rain. hope it has saturated the new bed.. will check it tomorrow.

talk soon

Does anyone have experience of the garden tours run by Bay Garden?

At the back of the wilderness area, under grass, weeds and brambles is possible 50 or more pieces of granite. If anyone is considering a rockery, or edging for beds, it is there for you. Once you can come and remove it yourself its there for the taking.

I would post a photo if I could see it, only I know its there, and will be uncovering it soon. 🙂

Really lovely sunny day here so did a bit of deadheading and tidying up. planted some cuttings of Philadelphus ‘Frosty Morn’. A bit late for doing that but I’ll give them a chance and see what happens. Quite a lot of bloom on roses yet so reluctant to cut them back, same with most things really but looks like being much colder tonight so things will soon go over.

Rained all day here so nothing done. Anyway Tues is my busy day so I wouldn’t have done much. Off to Dingle for a few days, walking hopefully if the weather is ok.

I found this on the English met site. I have shown some of the points below. This is a change from the position that we would only experience 2 deg by the end of the century.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/news/latest/four-degrees.html

Dr Betts said: Four degrees of warming, averaged over the globe………..we could see major climate changes within our own lifetimes.

In some areas warming could be significantly higher (10 degrees or more).

The Arctic could warm by up to 15.2 °C for a high-emissions scenario, ………….

Some land areas could warm by seven degrees or more. ………

Rainfall could decrease by 20% or more in some areas………….(obviously not Ireland then)

In other areas, such as India, rainfall could increase by 20% or more………(I think we are seeing this. See about very recent floods in India in the news)…oh and Ireland (I am being serious. Ireland is one of the areas that may get increased rainfall depending what happens to the gulf stream. If that stops we are finished – Siberia here we come.)

This is the month when my year starts. The planning, ordering of seeds ,clearing up and composting the last of this years leftovers and failures. Ufortunately I am reduced to weekend FUN in the garden because of the shortening days.But I have some potatoes growing  for christmas, they are about 8” high at present,growing in buckets in the glasshouse of course.

Early morning frost has arrived.Nothing opened up in the garden early on.Gathered up some more turnips for dinner  along with some of the harvested potatoes from last month.This evening i managed to do no gardening work with the darkness upsetting plans except some work in the coldframe with the help of the outside lights.Tubs 1 and 2 were cleared out and refilled with fresh compost.Covering for the roof of the coldframe was sorted out to use again the frosty weather especially when some of the tubs will be in use for new sowings.Into the garden shed to have a quick look through any of the stored potatoes,and onions,to make sure all were keeping well and with no failures.The shed was given a quick sweep out and all was closed up then.Leaves are falling at a rapid rate,with a gathering of them planned for some time Saturday.

Over the last week I got a few jobs done that were starting to build up on the to do list. The biggest was the finishing of the patio with the leftover slabs. My daughters boyfriend and his brother in-law came down and got stuck into it and they had it finished in a day. They really done a great job on it. Evelyn had bought hanging baskets that were on sale in Heatons a few weeks ago so I planted them up for the winter with pansy’s spring bulbs and ivy. They look sad at the moment but they will perk up. (I hope) I put an autumn lawn feed onto the lawn before it gets to wet. There was also a lot of blanket weed starting to establish in the bond so I ordered some treatment called viresco from the UK, it arrived the other day so I gave the pond a treatment so I will see what happens over the next few weeks. Cleared out the greenhouse of tomato plants and it looks so bare now. Today I’m going to give it a good clean out.

Where to start……………

I registered as a member of this site in May 2008, but have never posted anything up here. So I have decided I will try to use this journal a way of tracking my own progress on what I "plan" to do with my garden. An if anyone has any advice or ideas it would be great to hear them.

First step…..

At the weekend I’ll get some pics of where I am at now and the plan for what I want to do up on this site.  Then we’ll see where it goes from there.

Cheers.

 just dead haeaded my pansies and cyclamen

 i VE GOT NOTHING TO DO IN THE GARDEN

 Any good ideas for winter pots ( bar cyclamen i alreay have a lot of them!)

got the first raised bed filled with soil and compost.the bed is 25ft x 4ft.most of the soil was carryed to the new beds with buckets.i firmed the new soil the best i could and i planted the overwinter swedes and leeks.they bronze turkeys decided that they wanted to see what was going on and over the fence the flew and in no time the were pulling the leeks out of the ground.so out with the scissors and cut the flight wings off them but i think their powerfull legs will help them hop across the fence.later this evening i started to builded the first out of 5 chicken runs.that will be my lot in the garden this week as i am off the england trucking tomarrow evening.

Reading the journals over the last few days, i am amazed at the number of you sweeping and raking up leaves. Here in Shankill Co. Dublin (next stop Wicklow) the leaves are only starting to turn, very few on the ground (yet). It is surprising how many of you are nearly finished this stage of the gardening year and others are only barely started.

If any one loves racking leaves, I can keep you busy. I am at the end of a cul de sac, wind blows everything my way, road is planted with big leaf trees, great at any other time of the year.

I was up in Dublin today and had therfore the opportunity to travel from one side of the country to the other and see the stages of the autumnal leaves. Some of you may be sweeping up leaves but I have to say that most of the way across there were no really bare trees.

Quite a lot of autumn colour and what a grogeous day it was too. When I passed through the great metropolis of Rathowen there was not a drop of ‘F’ to be seen, in fact really no ‘F’ except just before Longford. I left at 07:00 so it would have been seen if it was about.

Tomorrow is definitely going to be wet, but when I say tomorrow I don’t mean all day.

The leading edge of the rain is poised to hit Mayo right now and the wind is building up. It will increase for the next few hours as the front goes through. During the course of tomorrow the rain should clear – probably have cleared Ireland by mid dayish, and I am thinking that Saturday might not be too bad.

As the front tracks westwards, the winds which are from the South will increase. As the belt of rain clears the winds will turn back to Westerly and decrease and be quite light for Saturday.

Whilst there will not be a major depression over us on Sunday I think that the winds will turn more Northerly as we begin to pick up more polar air and it gets colder. This may change however if the high pressure over Spain expands slightly and pushes that flow North.

Why do I say UP in Dublin, it is OVER and DOWN! It is those pesky railways again.

Disclaimer: The information/images on this page are my interpretation of weather maps and satellite images provided by various agencies. They are for hobbyist use only and should not be used to make decisions on which the protection of life, health, property, or anything else important depends. Always consult official sources of weather information.

Looks as if this air mass is moving a littler slow than originally predicted. We still have very heavy skies and rain so this is not going to be passed over the West by mid-day.

There is an indication that the wind direction is beginning to swing, which is a sign that within about 2 hours it should have cleared over the West and will be sat fair and square over the Midlands and moving to the East of the country.

The sun is shining and the terrace has been cleaned as the local cats (of which there are quite a few) used it for a public feline toilet….. 

Its back to micro gardening for the next couple of months! Will keep an eye on what is going on in the Green Isle via garden.ie.

My Summer illness continued to thrive and re-emerge as soon as I got here. Luckily I have a wonderful medical homeopath here who immediatly diagnosed adult whooping cough!! Because this bacteria wrecked my immune system (a bit of an exaggeration…) I got the pulmonary infection which never went away. Hallelujah. His only surprise was that no one in Ireland had diagnosed the whooping cough – remember I had been to doc several visits and to hospital for all sorts of tests!!!! Anyway I have a cartload of homeopathic stuff to take and he is confident that all will be well.