Month: April 2011

Got in this evening and noticed that the leaf that had unfurled yesterday is now shrivelling up. Please tell me that this is normal? Couldn’t bear to lose this beauty so soon after acquiring it!!!

I lifted my bird of paradise out of its pot today to bring it to the greenhouse and got the shock of my life.

There was a fat, giant, white snake under it!!!

Bloomin heck!

I only repotted the thing last at the end of January.

This plant is now officially ‘the beast’!

Its the only thing I feel Im good at! I spent the entire day remaking the steps on the way into the old rockery. I dedicated it to a dear friend who passed away in march so its now officially Hilarys garden. Its a small triangular bit of ground with a set of steps (stones) and it was these steps that took the whole afternoon. I took out one to improve them and then another and then changed one and uprooted two more to make stepping stones and by the time I was finished and had raked out all the leaves and debris that had accumulated it was five thirty!

However its now clean and ready for planting and really is a lovely way in to old rockery, especially for little people and then they can meet Lord Buddha in his special place.

As I say not exactly planting and pruning, more shoving and scraping but its what I love doing.

I was going to buy a Salvia today but it didn’t say on the label whether it was hardy or not. So I just googled it. I always have a problem understanding what exactly the ‘hardiness’ rating is. It says it’s  HARDINESS ZONES: 5-7  Means nothing to me. Stupid or what!

in Killarney National Park.  This most unusual ‘conicus rubra plastica’ was found in the bluebell woods at Muckross this week.  HeeHee  🙂

bought this beauty today, not much information on it, but i intend to keep it in a pot and see how i go. i googled it and it does not match the name. 

Another one of the azaleas starting to look good at the moment is Klondyke, a nice burnt orange colour.

bought this today and when i came out someone had scrapped the side of my car pushing a trolly through the gap, and i do mean a hugh scrape, i was very annoyed and ruined the good form, of course they done the deed and left before i came out, i have the car from new and keep it pristine. 

I raeh eht dnuos fo nilboh spetstoof. M’I gnitirw siht sdrawkcab tsuj ni esac yeht daer siht dna dnif tuo m’i no ot meht!

I bought this little Magnolia "Susan" in Lidl last year and it had two flowers. I am delighted with how it has grown and produced 8 large blooms this year! I took this picture about two weeks ago and now most of the flowers have gone.  Life has been very busy lately – sorry have not had time to write journals.

planted this today too, its simple but i like that.

planted this at some stage and don’t remember the name?

I planted a handkerchief/ ghost tree Davidia involucrata about 22 years ago, knowing that this special tree had a reputation for being brutally slow in coming into flower. Most things that I read suggested up to 20 years. Just as well I planted it when I was in my 20’s then! It did flower at about 16 or 17 years old, but just an odd bloom here and there. But this evening I looked up and saw the motherload of flowers. Wahoo!!!! I may be old and wrinkly now, but at least I have my ‘hankies’ 🙂

This guy was added to the garden yesterday, since then he is sorting out the bedding, checking each nook and cranny

This weekend my friend Joan has been visiting. She reckons I’m a real slave-driver ! Since she came yesterday morning we have:

Moved the compost heap

Created a new seating area where the compost heap used to be

Planted up and weeded the beds at the Japanese area

Weeded and fertilised and mulched the Hot Border 

Planted an ENORMOUS number of seedilings inthe diffeent beds including the new Hot Border (Thanks Liga and Margaret for all the plants!)

What a pity she has to go home tomorrow or else we could have reorgainsed a few more beds 🙂

All joking apart isn’t it great to spend time in the garden with a friend – the whole process is so much more enjoyable when it is shared. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to tackle that whole compost business on my own but with company it didn’t feel nearly such a chore.

Joan is also a demon with the hose as you can see in the photo!

I think the sky was gorgeous tonight.

The other day Johnny had found a Husquvarna mower and spent a couple of hours cutting the grass garden looked much better but decided to up grade it to a bigger model. Caroline had arranged with Rosemary, Johnathan and David to pay part of the cost for Father’s Day so on Friday the mower was changed for a bigger more powerful mower a Wisconsion which seems to tick even more of the boxes even has a ram to empty the grass box. Think there will be no shortage of drivers to cut the grass. Isn’t it great to have such thoughtful children the two youngest weren’t included in this as they’re both students but think they might be on lawn cutting duty.

Bought this last year in flower but now it’s spread a bit more the plants look great, it says it’s white but it’s DAZ white as it’s bluey white