Month: November 2010

Well bearing in mind the weather forecast for the weekend, i am going to the garden centre tomorrow and have a look at a few seeds to plant. I have a small propagator so will see whats good to grow this time of year, suggestions would be welcomed.

I am losing hope with my chine blue rose seeds, dont seems to be germinating at all. I have heard they are hard to grow but will keep at it.  

 

Just heard them announce on the tv that Alan Titchmarch is back on Tuesday evening with a new gardening programme.  Checked tv guide and it is on BBC 2 at 8pm for an hour. Goodie!!!!

Attended the Country Market to day, finished at 12 noon. Very little sold, cookers and geranium. Wellie called and bought some geranium. I will have some free for her when I meet her again at a meeting. Weather was fine all the morning but broke as I was coming home so not a lot done in the garden. Some cuttings taken of Coleus and put in water to root. An interesting point about Coleus is that I never had it so good as this year  but while it was sold quite frequently prior to this year, sales were very poor this year. After some time in the afternoon, the rain ceased and I got working at some ash trees at the back to prune. pruning was easier to day than yesterday. Almost all of the leaves have fallen as some pruning was done with secateurs, some with loppers and some with a saw. Shortly after 5 p.m. I had to depart from this work as absence of light did not help. To morrow should be more suitable, while temperature may be lower there should be less rain and there should be more free time. Wellie gave me some plants last Wednesday, Fennel and Solanum. There will be work in the front lawn raking leaves. While Rubberboots said that he would wait until all of the leaves are down before raking, he should see the size of my front lawn. Eventually when we get a break of a few fine days I should get the lawn mower at the lawn and that will collect what is left.

there is a plant in my garden that grows 6ft a year and dies every winter.it has flowers and leaves like a r vine .and spreads like mad grows so big it gets like small trees.i havs sprayed it with al kinds of weedkiller but it comes back even sprayed it with disel and burned it .it came back worse.even ug it up but it spread worse. is it some kind of bamboo and how do i kill it . the stems are hollow.

Fran, in the USA you’d be called a LEAF PEEPER.  I’m toooooo busy at the moment to be reading and sending in Journals.  We are decorating at the moment.  Pouring rain here for the past week so sweeping up the leaves would be out of the question.  Going by your Journal Entries you’ve got visitors this weekend?  Perhaps you’re having an AUTUMN LEAF party – will they be making a clean sweep of your garden?

To day it was great to see the sun shining and generally fine all day. I spent quite a while in the garden to day. Seven ash trees near the house are now pruned. Leaves at back lawn and side path raked. The pruning was slow using the secateurs and loppers. another day like this would be great but be thankful for small mercies. Only for the darkness I might have done more. I should have a photo to morrow.

I tried 2 book shops and 3 garden centers with book sections for a garden diary. i have seen them before but of course when you want one…. basically i would find it so useful to get hint month to month on on sewing, what plants are best to buy at a certian time of the year etc. I am in kilkenny, anybody know where to get one?

frost 2nite. storms 2morro. then what

February 13 2010

The winter had quite an effect on my garden. Cordylines, which I planted about 1978, do not look good. The leaves are hanging down and I wonder will they come back again. One of them seemed to be dead after the 1978-79 winter but it came back. Senecio greyi is not looking great but should come back. Hypericum hidcote appears very brown unlike other years but I notice the young green shoots opening so I am optimistic here. I have pruned the roses, about one hundred of them. I did the pruning immediately after it became mild after the very cold spell in January and they look good. The grass looks poor and has a lot of moss but very soon I will give it fertiliser and ferrous sulphate to kill the moss which comes every year late in the year. Hydrangeas look good and the buds are about to open. Very soon when it gets a bit milder I will prune the mopheads. Snowdrops are looking good and crocuses are about to show flowers but the daffodils are slow to make progress surely due to the low temperature. I look forward to feeding the birds, robins, blue tits, sparrows and some bullfinches which I did not see in recent years. I hope these bullfinches will not do much damage to the buds in the fruit trees. I noticed a big rat climbing up to the bird feeder so I have set some poison inside a plastic pipe under a shrub. I hope the birds do not go in. My favourite among the birds is the robin. At this time of year there are two, surely male and female. They come near me when I am working in the garden especially when I am doing some digging. I did not see the rat again. It would seem that the poison worked

April has been great, into hospital 30 March for hernia operation, out the following day and after that great progress. Two weeks after, got the all clear so generally right through April, got a fair bit of work done. Some shrubs like Hebe, Cordyline and a few more show no apparent life but there is still hope. Tomatoes have done well. Vine is very good , better than last year. I should be pollinating it soon. Black currants, red currants, gooseberries, rhubarb all doing well.

July

Life is not dead only delayed, so many plants which seemed dead are showing life again. Of the three Cordylines, there is a sure improvement in one. Shoots are coming from the ground. I am hoping the other two will make progress. A Griselinia hedge had been cut back. Young shoots are coming out, first at the bottom, later higher up. Libertia which I was certain was dead is really alive now. The grey shrubs like Senecio and Santolina are safe. Hypericums and Hydrangeas are booming. Roses: what can I say, never had anything like them before. It must be the sunny weather, some flowers on rose bushes as big as your hand, no exaggeration. Fruit: Apples will be very good, both dessert and cookers; gooseberries picked and jam made from some 8 th. Will make more later. Strawberries: for the birds. For years I had great crops, ate as many as was possible sold some, gave some away but the blackbirds also love them and seem to have found that they are there. I used a net for a few years but they got through it. This year I just left them there. Black currants and red currants – they love them but while I got nothing out of the black currants last year I should get some this year. Weeds: hard to keep them down.

August

Greenhouse had a very good produce. Tomatoes so heavy on stalks that same stalks bent or even broken; Vine – what a crop of grapes bigger and better than last year but while i like the grapes, so also the wasps and they invaded the greenhouse. Getting in was confined to night time when apparently these social insects had gone to sleep. People told me to find the wasps’ nest but alas it was never found and by the time they had departed very few of the grapes remained. however I did rescue one bunch and now I know that around the middle of August, they are ripe and sweet. Roses are not good at the moment. I had a really good crop early on, best in the second half of June, a sight to behold but not so now. Runner beans are good, should be very good in September. In the front garden I had a poplar tree Populous candicans Aurora. It had grown very high but I was a bit worried, thought it was a bit too near the house, saw some rot at the base and had heard that the roots are shallow also that they would do structural damage. would I employ a tree surgeon? The answer came on Monday 23 rd. I walked out the door at 4.45 p.m. and lo and behold the tree was lying on the lawn. The tree had been a present I got about 1980. It was now no longer standing erect in front of the door but on the other side of the story, the view of the front garden was better than before. It reminded me of O’Connell Street, Dublin in 1966.

November 7

During September and October,  my strength was as good as normal. I have been able to do work in the garden better than early on. A new piece of ground was reclaimed. Some shrubs which had been hit by the frost last winter were tackled in the back garden and blackthorns which I could not reach as the shrubs had them hidden were dug out. It was a slow process especially due to very dry weather. Then the rain came in late October and so the work was made easier. A trellis was erected and a wigelia planted there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Eventually got out into the garden today, lot of weeding done. Also got to plant tulips and bluebells. Took up all the summer flowers that had died back, garden look a lot neater.

Just as Gardener’s world goes off for the winter a new program starting next tuesday at 8pm on BBC2, Alan Titchmarsh hosts 4 one hour programs featuring four different gardens, and why each has inspired his gardening. Hatfield House, Stowe Landscape Gardens, Biddulph Grange and Sissinghurst. Also in January Carol Klein’s six part series a Year in her garden at Glebe Cottage. I have read that a new gardening program is being investigated for march amateur gardens to be hosted by amateur gardeners.

I got to visit Liga after work on Friday night, so it was too dark to see anything.  Mind you, considering we both knew it would be late before I got there, neither of us used our heads and brought a torch!  That expression comes to mind "If we had brains, we would be dangerous!"

It was lovely to sit down, with a cup of tea, chat, look at her orchids and other indoor plants and see some of the new plants to be released next year in various magazines.  

She had some plants for me, not surprisingly.  I have to plant them up sooner rather than later.

Thanks, Liga, for ‘time out’ and ‘chill out time’.  

 

With the forecast for today being so bad, we went out this morning to the ‘Southside’  to find Mount Carmel Hospital for tomorrow.  This afternoon, after the bag was sorted and packed, I got out to the garden and dispatched himself and the children with 4 containers with the worn-out tomato plants for the composter, which is located on the in-laws land.  What a relief to see the back of those ‘black’ plants and have a bit of space back on the patio.  What a mess left behind with clay spills and patio marked.  

I gave all the plants in the greenhouse a good watering and emptied every container I have for water collection, in anticipation of the bad weather.  My wormery had given me a little  bucketfull of ‘worm tea’ so I put it into 3 wine bottles.  I love getting ‘free’ plant feed!

Then, it was time to batten down the hatches.  As I was coming in, at 6.45pm, the first heavy drops of rain were starting to fall.  Now, the wind is howling down the chimney.  I hope the hatches stay down!  

got a salvia "lipstick" or "hot lips" it is red and white , i took some late cuttings .will they survive the winter in a tunnel . not frost free . 

We all experienced the heavy rain and the wind last night. This morning the sun was shining and lovely calm weather made gardening easy. As I had pruned the ash trees on Saturday, I tackled the two apple trees. These trees had given bumper fruit crop between cookers and dessert. Quite a lot of branches which were too long got a hard pruning and some light pruning for branches which were too close to each other. The job was slow but worth while. Some gooseberries were also pruned. The piece of new ground got a bit of levelling and despite all of the rain, it was easy to get this done. Nothing has been planted in it yet. Thinking of giving it a name, I was thinking of calling it Terra Nova but I’m sure Deborah and Martin would not like that:)

well no storm here bit of wind but its time of year. bad frost and fog sat

I am reading "Trees" by Hugh Johnson at the moment and was struck by these lines: 

"Of the bristlecone pine (P. aristata) … anyone who wants to try this patriarch in his or her own garden will find it very slow. For the first few centuries . . . " 

Not one for quick results, then. On the other hand, there are specimens aged over 4,000 years still growing.

Paddy 

Whadda think of ParTerre and Topiary?

 

Is it your scene or anathema to you?

 

Or are you betwixt and between?

leaves are almost all down eg cherry ash beech. ect all mixed they lookso nice brown silver and gold. hate to clean them up so they b left as long as i can

Went to visit my sister up in Celebridge and when there I had a bad fall and hurt my back so no gardening done for some time now 🙁

Have been looking through my holiday photos of Mauritius and I’ll put up some in a album later today, I’ve enjoyed reading all the Journals and the beautiful photos, well done to everyone.

Fran you sure did looked surprise when all your garden ie friends showed up on your door step. 🙂 forget me for wishing you a late "Happy Birthday" !

getting the storm now. its so bad must b making up for not turning up on sunday

Called to Lidl this morning and saw three types of orchid. I chose a Ludisia Red Velvet at €4.99. In the afternoon, I called to Woodies and bought one packet of snowdrops priced at €9.99 but reduced by 50%, also two trays of pansies at €1 each. I considered it a great bargain especially that I also got 10% off as a senior citizen on Thursday. Total at Woodies €6.79. No work done in garden, too wet, perhaps to morrow. I will be at my stand at the Country market to morrow.

That was some wild night. Hope there was no serious damage done anywhere or to anyone. Those winds will have cleared most of the leaves, sofirst thing to be done is a big clean up of same for tomorrow.

Then I want to plant the bamboo from Martin ;-))

The driftwood will be powerwash, really can’t wait to see it in daylight, to fully see what can be done with it. Have yet to decide do I start drying it in the shed or do I cover it in the garden.

All the garden furniture will be put away and covered till better days return.

Nice to see a clear sky this morning, expect a good photo of a sunrise this morning, Clara.

can i prune butterfly bush now and any chance of any of the cuttings growing

I have quite a few seeds and as I will only be sowing a small amount myself I thought I would bring them on 4th. If you would like some I will put your name on some.

Here is the list:

Nigella

Tall Blue Cornflower

Cream Foxglove

Cosmos

Aquilegia

Cleome

Lobelia

Alysum

Red Poppy

Arctotis

Lupin 

Alonsoa warscrewiczii

 Dodecatheon "Queen Victoria"