Month: December 2010

So relieved that this one has survived. It must be evergreen?

The boarders are looking so bad after the snow covering everything up for so long. So much of what was green growth has now turned to pure mush, needs to be cleared away. Am looking to the weekend to get out and clean them up. I even have a few bulbs to plant still. I won’t take to long to tidy them up, and will give the whole place a lift.

Just had a peek into the glasshouse and took these up to the kitchen for inspection and all doing great and thanks to a packing I got and thought it might work and it did flowers on two of the plants.

Time for the raincoat again.What else could i think of as the rain tapped against the kitchen window,just as breakfast was being served.

The much needed thaw takes place,now all eyes are on flodding,along with all the damage that wa caused.What do we reach for now,only buckets,brushes and lots of luck.

Nowhe garden is back to its green colour again,after the blanket of snow.Stay with us,mild weather.

Walking around the vegetable garden earlier on this morning,my first sighting were the dead stalks of Brussel Sprouts.Destroyed at the base.Some of the stalks are as if a bolt of thunder in the form of frost,struck them.Time to save what is left on the stalks and clear the bed of the remainder.

The like of such weather is not expected at this time of year.Hopefully we have seen the last of what has been a very severe bout of snow and frost damage to all the gardens in 2010.I need to look through some of the seed trays later and see the next move with them.

The temperatures are well up today.For the last couple of days similar.One time a disaster,now a sign of garden life in the air.Maybe Jack Frost thinks that it has done enough of harm.

I cant put aside the need for some early jobs in the garden.Those such as fleece,canes,and a check on the lawn mower all need a visit.Later this week i hope to do so without fail.

The saved seed Potatoes are doing well despite a few lost to weather.Now that 99% of all the other crops are lost,including the inside the tunnel,the thinking cap is back on.First though any damaged seed Potatoes must be burned as they will be of severe damage to the compost heaps.Damage to the Potatoes will be like another way of leaving disease in the ground if used.I saved enough earlier,so time to stop thinking about them.

The early Cabbage,Onions, and Tomatoes have been started indoors,and i will proceed from there.Bring on the New Year.

In the planter by the back door the cyclamen have turned to mush the violas are a bit sad looking as is the varigated perwinkle but this little wallflower is starting to show it’s colours. With the rise in temperatures with luck spring bulbs and other plants will begin to peep up.

Here is the Belfast sink that returned to its rightful place. Not sure where it originaly came from but was being used by a friend for garden trough purposes. Here it is in our garden loo.

Wondered what you were up to

Here is a shot of some of the plants in my daughter’s bedroom.

You can see how the Colocasia are reaching to the light. The orchids got the best place for light, right by the window because I love them most : ) Amorphophallus are fine in a darker spot (to the right in the photo) as they are now dormant and being kept completely dry.

I moved a few of the Mediterranean plants out recently (including our tea plants, Camellia sinensis, and perennial busy lizzy, Impatiens tinctoria) and have somehow managed to find them positions with better light.

Whew, it’s like doing a rubric cube around here.

Zoey and her friend took pup for a walk and they came back after an hour plastered in mud. 15 years old and no change yet.

Managed to get just a few moments out in the garden this evening in daylight. Dusk fell so quickly. Another broken planter. Only bought this cup and saucer last year, not impressed to say the least. Here comes a big tube of Evostik!

Accomplished so much today. Have finally disposed of ALL cyclamen, leaving a lot of bare shelves. Spent a bit of time reducing stuff all day in the hope I can draw customers back out. After hearing about Deborah’s Clematis bargain yesterday, I reduced all of ours to 50c. If they don’t sell at that price over the next 1-2 weeks, I will reduce further. Already, there is active growth on all of these.

We have some Acers here that just don’t sell very quickly. My argument is that we get them in way too late in the season for them to ever have the chance to go. Some things I don’t have the authority to cancel as they are Allocations from Head Office. Lovely ones here priced at €44.99. I reduced them for the third time today, down to €15. So we’ll see. Other ones (€7.99) were brought down to just 20c each. Bought 3. These only grow to about 100cm so can fit easily into ANY garden (All are palmatums ‘Little Princess’, ‘Sango-Kaku’ and ‘Orange Dream’). These were bought for my new area with David in mind.

Also got 2 (4pack) Sedum spurium ‘Purpureum’ for 50c  each for some possible swaps later on. Did well getting the lot for just €1.60. Verrrry happy.

Back in November I bought packets of bulbs from the €2 shop and bags of compost to plant them up, this job was always put on the long finger then the weather changed everything was put on hold. Bags of compost frozen solid little did I know it would last for 5weeks, yesterday I checked the compost which seemed to have defrosted so this morning even though it was raining I headed to the tunnel. Couldn’t believe that the centre of the bag still had frozen compost but now all the bulbs are planted in pots on the tunnel shelving. Pots of Quail narcissi, mixed botanical crocus, blue and yellow crocus, Glory of the snow, mixed iris and blue iris now it’s fingers crossed they’ll flower and be placed into gaps to provide spring colour. Most of the pots of plants in the tunnel appear to have survived the freeze along with seedlings of hollyhocks etc. the one’s I’m not so sure of are the echiums given to me by Jacinta only time will tell.

My Abutilon is still flowering its socks off. I smile at it every time I open the door. The sheer audacity of it performing so well under such harsh conditions recently. Ah! just give me the simple pleasures in life. Everything in the greenhouse needs hydration badly. Unfortunately it will have to be put on hold. No water here since Sunday. Bummer.

I constructed this stairway from a glass crate yesterday, for I have to climb over 2 compost heaps to empty the third, and spend the year going this way to fill it. These heaps are to the side of my workshop and out of view. The first heap is 7 or 8 feet high, but should decrease in size as the year goes on.

 I got this funny looking succulent plant, at end of July,summer 2010.Right now it is half sizes like i got it.Why???Because couple days after i planted it it stat bend at compost level,and then i check it,,,uff,there i going to lose plant,so i cutted off roots,and put it in small water.It have very nice quality,same like Busy Lizy,,it can grow roots in water.So it growed new roots,and slowely recovering after all,,and flowering too.Flower size is 1.5cm,or less.

A few weeks ago I posted photograph of the first snowdrop in the garden. Immediately following that we had the cold weather so this poor flower was frozen at the stage it was and the flower has only opened since the thaw arrived over last weekend.

It is named Galanthus ‘Peter Gatehouse’. There are a few other snowdrops up in the garden but the flowers are not opening as yet.

Paddy 

Ive never seen one in flower before, not the most interesting flower but still nice

 

There was a lot of talk about mistakes on t his site recently and I nearly made the mother of all ones today.

I reached under the sink to find my orchid food this morning…

😛

 

Compliments of the Season to everyone from Kinsale and Happy gardening for 2011.

At one point when there was thick snow on the ground I noticed that my large Camellia seemed to have a branch broken off. On closer inspection, nothing was broken, only the thickness of snow on one branch was weighing it right down. I knocked the snow off and the branch bounced back up again. But not completely.

Now that the snow has gone I’ve taken a better look at my Camellia.

A very large portion of the bush seems to have separated from the main trunk although I can’t see any actually break in the trunk. Obviously I’m not going to actually do anything about it now but I’m wondering if in spring I will need to actually cut away the bent section. Very sad but it could be worse.

Isn’t it funny how we have so many memories associated with our plants.

This Camellia is more than 10 years old and came with us from our previous garden in Wicklow. I remember the day I bought it and how expensive it seemed at the time. I never liked its name ‘Debbie’. She sounded like a bimbo but I loved the picture of her flowers on the label.

I remember how the bush sulked and refused to flower when we moved it to our new garden in Wexford and how we put tea bags under it for months as I’d heard the iron was good for Camellias. And I remember the first spring Debbie did finally flower again and how amazing and omnipresent her frilly double blooms were, which was just as well really as the Camellia and two smaller Rhododendrons were all we had planted in our vast acre expanse of grass. But Debbie has never flowered that well again for me. Although she does well enough. Maybe I should start her back on the tea bags. She probably could do with a strong cup of tea after that terrible snow!

I went at this today, having to dig it out and carry it over the other two heaps to put it in a one ton bag so that we could use it at our leisure, and yet have a place for our winter cut back.