Month: December 2010

hi to all. its great to see all the photos… Snow and more snow, real winter came to Ireland.. Love it…

Bad news-  stuck in work for all week. Can not even see my beautiful garden. can not save my plants, can not even go home. Never had that feeling you have home, but can not go there…

is the get together going ahead??

Watched Alan Titchmarsh new programme the other day and it gave me some great ideas. They were talking about natural gardens and wild gardens and they looked really great.

hi all. no winter photos as yet . charging up the camera for tomorrow. taped into a few journals to cheer myself up. havent done any gardening in the flower garden in about 3 weeks. i visit the veg garden at weekends. thomas ( son- marine engineer)and i had to go down on sunday and shovel snow slides that came of the tunnel,  off my nursery area and move over 100 plants and seedling trays. a very cold chore. how are you all coping ? i work tmro and then off till monday. hot toddies tmro nite!!!!!!

 i am driving in snow and frost, walking in snow and frost and yes dreaming about snow and frost. i am totally stressed out and fatigued from the lack of sleep and up early to drive intowork, over an hour on a 40 min journey. believe it ornot it is taking an hour and a half in the evening with extra traffic. because we are in a rural area, locals have had to take matters into their own hands to make the side roads a little safer. in my jeep i have – bottled water, a yellow jacket, a torch and a bucket of grit among other things !!

wrap up well and safe trip to all who have to venture out.

2nite will be – 10 and  next nite -12 could it get any worse

why is the sky a lovely red as sunset and sunrise must b cause of snow. it looks very nice. we have for few days more. yep

 Graham took a few pics .. I hope these plants are strong enough to survive if we get much more of this weather…

 

we had more snow again and its still at it, it got down to -11 last nite. t much better now

 

 

Got this in a mail few days ago, it has been around a long time so some of you may have seen it before ..

 

 

 

 

 Try this URL  hopefully it will open from here, copy and paste this into your browser 

 

https://mail.aol.com/32992-111/aol-1/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=1.35182438&folder=Sent&partId=11

This is the usual month when seed ordering is checked on.First though another check will be given to those saved in the fridge and also in the garden shed.Some of the open pkts have been marked already with the dates of opening,and will not be avoided.

so much for global warming.do they know what are talking about

we had snow and hard frost now . here for 11days. . some one said last nite if we get fros until sunday , we wil have snow for tree more weeks.

Oh I think it is a bit early to put up a photo from 2011 Firemans calender ??

https://blog.gardenersworld.com/2010/12/07/monty-don-returns-to-gardeners-world/

snow has been here  for to weeks please go away

Received my selection of seeds today. Thank you very much… Good luck with your trip…Safe travelling…..

Yesterday showed a slight thaw. All day the temperature was 1C and a thaw set in, even at night about 12 no sign of freezing. This morning very cold again with temperature at -7C. I got Rachel’s mobile number and rang her. Her orchids are ok. We miss her e mails. She will have the internet working before Christmas.

A variety of seeds arrived this morning, will try a pinch out of each and pass on the rest at the next get-to-gether. Many thanks and hope the trip lives up to expectations.

Temperature outside here at 10 a.m. to day was -6C. At 1 p.m. it was 1C, what a change? Outside one can hear the sound of water moving.
Temperature here was 2C at 10 a.m. compared with -6 C at the same tome yesterday. As I noted there was a thaw yesterday, more so to day. Some shrubs are looking bad with Hypericums drooping down with the snow. I got the car moving a bit more to day removing some snow with a shovel. The road here is now gritted so I may get the car out to day DV. The birds were fed and to look at the number, never seen so many  birds recently.

I originally moved here to work for the Leslies as my employer was involved in the Equestrian centre when it started in the early 70’s. I got married here and we had our reception in the Billard room which we painted for the occasion, one day Johnny was called up to Sir Jack’s room and he was laid out in bed and he informed Johnny that the room should be painted custard colour even produced a bowl of it to make sure he knew the right colour. Johnny told him it was white as had been agreed with Desmond and that we would just move our reception to the Pillar House hotel outside the gates. He shot upright in the bed and then agreed to it being white. Have to say it was a fantastic summers day even if leading up to it was stressful the day before was torrential rain and water was coming through the glass dome. At that time in 1977 he always seemed very frail and reserved only came back in the summer for about 2 months he has certain changed.

I got the car out to day, first down the drive to the road which is now gritted and back. Later I took it out on the road and down to the shops where I got what I wanted, such a change. The temperature recorded outside my house was 4C and moving towards the town it recorded 6C. Now the green fields are smiling beneath the sun’s light. I thought of the song O come to the Hedgerows which is as follows:
 

O Come to the Hedgerows 

O come to the hedgerows with gay flowers all bright,

While green fields are smiling beneath the sun’s light;

Through the green lanes we’ll wander the long happy day,

While the little birds are singing merilly ——

O come, come away.

 

O come to the seaside to hear the wild waves,

On the dark rocks we’ll stand while the storm wildly raves;

And we’ll watch the white seagulls through tempest and spray,

While the mighty ocean rages fierce and loud ——-

O come, come away.

 

O come to the blue hills, the wild mountain side,

Where the green fern grows tall and the heather bell blooms wide,

Where the mountain stream dashes o’er mossy rocks grey

And sings with gentle murmur all day long——-

O come, come away.

Dr. P.W. Joyce

 

 

 

A very happy Christmas and a great new year to everyone on garden.ie. I’m heading of to Fuerteventura for the holiday to get some sun on the old bones. It was 22 degrees there today I think I can manage that.

 Am sick and tired of snow and ice…. went down to greenhouse today and at least 4 inches of snow with 4 inches of solid ice underneath!!! Cannot see my acacia recovering again. Have just put up some pics of Tony feeding the birds, I have to say they were better fed than I was  lol

The ice in our back pond is still 4" thick minimum and quite considerably more than that in the lower part.

 

I just wish it would thaw so that I can put two more fountains in, in expectation of the next big freeze coming.  I used a sledgehammer on it today but had to give up eventually as my back was hurting me so much.

 

The saucepan of hot water trick doesn’t work; all that happens is that it melts a circle about ½ an inch down and then the saucepan freezes and sticks in the ice!

 

Just hoping it’s really cloudy tonight and that the ice’ll soften more so I can bust holes in it tomorrow. ( I have to get more fountains in as I don’t want the ice to break the side walls of the pond. )