Month: November 2011

Ist’t it brill – or is it – I am so delighted that our Boys have got to Euro 2012 but there is a down side – No free labour in the Garden from JUNE 9TH NEXT YEAR but what the hell the garden can wait – OLE OLE OLE !!!

the garden has specimen docks thistles and several other outstanding varieties of unmentionables   at the moment .It has just been attacked by the round-up demon which is not yet evident to the eye of the beholder.heres hoping the demon will be successful .Just back from blooms it was very good.4/6/08

how does your garden grow !!

1-04 09

Lawn up now but needs levelling.Picking stones at moment .Its a bit sparse. i am hoping it will thicken up.In facta I need rain to roll it .Happy gardening for 09.

 28-8-09.

Lawn is growing well enough.Could be thicker i suppose .too much clover which I asked Gerry about -afraid to weedkill til next year.

7-03-10

Waiting for some growth lawn burnt from frost.Hoping for good growth this year.

20-2-11

hi again about to sow  hedge hoping for a good year .good luck to everyone for new gardening year.

15/11/11

 winter on its way, the weather is fabulous at moment ihaave moss  which i hope to eradicate with sulphate of iron.I have planted bulbs under my trees .

Taking delivery of some new conifers for our Pinetum today from Ravensburg Nurseries, Co. Offaly.

 

Juniperus squam. ‘blue star’

Microcachrys tetragona – strawberry pine,

Cedrus libani ‘sargentii’- dwarf cedar,

Taiwanea cryptomerioides – Formosan Redwood,

Glyptostrobus pencilis – Water Pine, 

The collection is really coming on and is proving an interesting project. 

 

In the autumn before last i harvested and sowed seed of my eremurus robustus and they germinated this spring.i transplanted them into pots but unfortunately they died RIP, apparently they resent root disturbance, so i put it down to experience and hope to try again.

Yesterday i was cleaning up and came accross the pots and do ya know what…uv guessed it..i saw 6 little shoots emerging,what a resurrection!..they are alive,yipee.

P/S eremurus tend to die off in mid summer and that is why the seedlings did also,so there remember that if you sow their seeds….Im now as happy as a dog with 3 tails hee hee. 

Although the day was lovely and dry here until after dark, I only had time for about 11/2 hrs in the garden this morning. I managed to finish weeding the Outer Circle and made a start on the Inner Circle – it is a bad case! No weeding done there since beginning Sept.. So a big job to be done, I do hope the weather holds for a few more days so the ground doesnt get too wet again for working on it.

Anyway, while hoeing around my Rosa Rogosa "Alba" I discovered that it was very easy to pull up "suckers" with the ground being soft and loose. So I have made a mental note to do a "Control" job on said Rogosa and other plants that multiply by ‘root-run’, such as Sobaria, Phylegia, Michaelmas Daisy etc.  Also a good time to pull up briars that may be drooping their branches in the ground and taking root!! (But then, none of you good gardeners will have allowed things to get that bad, have you?? !!! đŸ™‚

I confess I am not really a rose person. I do have about 6 all climbers but have only one bush rose Just joey. However I bought a rose called Reine des Violettes in Lidl a couple of days ago. Does anybody grow this as I would like to know if I could grow it up against a wall?  I fell for the colour!!  Thank you.

When I posted about this a few months ago some of you said you would like to have it. I have rooted 4 and would like to put names on them so would those who were interested please put up their hands and even let me know please.  This will save me going back into the annals.!

This is a strange request, and I hope no one takes this up the wrong way, but I think we all know each other fairly well here and will understand how I can ask this.

I have thought a while before posting this, but nothing ventured, nothing gained …….

I doubt if I will get a result, but hear goes 

Does anyone have a large Bamboo plant that they have gotten tired of and are thinking of getting rid. 

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but from time to time offers of large plantings have been made in the past.

I am thinking of a Bamboo screen, but there is no way the wallet would allow a planting on this scale.

;-)) 

 

 

cheer me up please? These last two dreadful days have got to me, I know it is the same for everyone.  Dog Meg sits and looks at me with her big sad eyes saying’ can we go for a walk’ but it is just too bad out there. I want to plant my new Rose and do lots in the garden. There is so much to do in the house but I just can’t work myself up to grabbing the broom and dust pan. The Crossword seems really hard today and yes I agree this is one big moan . Roll on the Spring.

I have a large area in which someone more energetic that me would probably make a vegetable patch.  It would also suit a ‘prairie’.  However it can’t be seen from the house and I do like the idea of a productive garden so I’m toying with the idea of an edible perrenial garden.  I can only think of globe artichoke, rhubarb, asparagus.  Can anyone think of any other edible perrenials or have experience in growing either asparagus or artichoke?  Also has anyone seen any books on edible perrenials?

I’ve updated www.facebook.com/cosymeadows to focus on a few prairie/meadow flowers and grasses if you’re interested with some nice pictures too to help with your planning. Today is the first day it’s stopped raining for ages so we shall all be outside potting up etc. It seems unseasonably warm though doesn’t it? Some plants are a bit confused I think.

I need ideas for my garden patch-

8x 3metre garden with a 3×2 metre flower/veg patch which was destroyed by the dog! What could one do with it now?

I love the idea of a rose bush and some veggies but no idea where to start…..

 Any ideas welcome!!! 

Morning all, looking for some advise on what the best seed company. Am interested in cottage garden plants.

Usually get some in Woodies or even Lidl, but think am better off getting them online. 

i have more seeds on the way, shush dont tell hubby. i am 22 weeks off the cigs. i have replaced my smoking habit with seedaholics, they are on the way so i will show you what i got when the come

I just can’t believe it. Cuttings( Philip) made me this most wonderful  Photo Story of my garden, some of the earlier days but most up to date. I am flabbergasted to have such a wonderful record and can’t find words to thank him enough. And none of the ‘bad areas’ appear!!!  The photographs shown were taken by me, my brother Ted or our own Ladygardener so many thanks to Ted and Anne. I hope you have time to look at even some of it to see what Philip has managed to produce since yesterday!!!

The music as you will see is by Gheorghe Zamfir,..and the first tune played twice is "Lara’s Theme",..from "Gone With The Wind",..the second is "Everything I Do",..and lastly for the end is "The Lonely Shepherd". (copied from Phillip’s email)

https://youtu.be/uiOfjAzOXX0

Please view it as it is and not on a big screen.

One of my best items at this time of the year is the Sumac tree, beside the decking. It puts on a great show every year, much later than other of the same trees in the area, I think due to it’s sheltered site.

I nearly took this out when the decking was going down, that would have been a mistake if ever there was one.

I am adding an album dating from the 5/11 to 20/11 so you can see how it changes. 

Has anyone ever grown Crocosmia from seed?

feels more like santa arrived. well he brought

cosmos bipinnatus "double click" , crocosmia "lucifer",euphorbua pasteurii, meconopsis sheldonii " lingholm",meconopsis "cambrica "welsh poppy", papaver orientale "pizzicato", pelargonium"paintbox mixed F2", phormium tenax purpureum, potentilla nepalensis "miss wilmot", primula vialli"poker primrose" rudbeckia hirta "giant tetra double" and " rustic dwarfs mix",salvia superba "rose queen",salvia farinacea "victoria blue",thumbergia alta "black eye susan",carextestacea "prairie", musa velutina "velvet banana",musa violacea"violet banana", campanula pwesicifolia alba" white peach leaved bellflower", campanula carpatica "bellflower",cosmos sulphureus "cosmic mixed",geranium pratense "dark reiter",geumcoccineum "cooky",hosta mixed hybrids,trachycarpus fortunei chinese windmill palm,phlox paniculata" new hybrids mix", verbascum thapsus"mullein", verbascum phoeniceum" hybrids mixed"musa acuminata" dwarf banana".

this order has been on hold for a month until i had saved to get them so they mean even more to me. i will now have loads of reading to do. i got all this for 60 euro in seedaholics. it would have cost alot more in other companies.

You may remember when we met at Johnstown this year, some may have thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t. Shortly after that I had an appointment with Dr. Molloy in Beaumont Hospital. It entailed getting injections around the eyes. Well to cut a long story short I was in Beaumont again to day and everything worked very well. You may remember the problem with the parking meter. I got a refund later on . To day no mistake was made, travelled by train, luas, bus to Beaumont and got some more injections. I feel much better now. I suppose it takes time, more than one stage and I have another appointment in March. By the time I got back and had something to eat it was 4 p.m. before I got anything done the garden. A little pruning was done on shrubs in front. I hope to get a fair bit done to morrow.

looking at my kitchen garden magazine at new stuff for next year fruit and veg wise. i will be trying pumpkins also a water melon or two. new strawberry "Anablanca" from suttons and tomoato "lizzano"blight resistant cherrry tomato.

To day I did virtually nothing in the garden in the morning but in the afternoon got at the pruning of Cotoneaster. It is growing along the drive and gone too high. It wont be finished to day but as the fellow said When God made time he made plenty of it. Rain arrived about 4 p.m. It was windy but dry. It would have been ideal time to mow the lawn but the pruning got preference.

I will be doing a lot of work over the Winter in the front corner. I will be either sowing a lawn or laying turf at some stage next year. One thing I have always wanted was a few decent clumps of Daffodils in a lawn. I also want to brighten up the Leylandii hedge with a planting of Daffodils under a section of it.

So I am hoping to pick up a bargain sack of Daffodils as time goes by. There is no problem with planting them under the Laylandii, but in the area of the lawn is another thing. I have reverted back to my first plan for this area, after by Moon garden disaster.

So what struck me today was planting the clumps of bulbs now, and simply marking the areas with a decent bamboo cane and then I can simply work around them.

If I am laying turf, the problem of laying it around the then flowering Daffodils can be dealth with by laying a small area of turf where I can take it out later, when the Daffs had died down, or by getting some of the same grass seed from the supplier of the turf.

A simple idea, but a way of staying a step ahead in helping this area mature just that little bit quicker. 

Hey everyone,

Just to let you know that you can now subscribe to the Irish Garden magazine directly from Garden.ie

https://www.garden.ie/subscribe 

Going forward you can also get your copy digitally!

 

Have a nice weekend,

Craig 

www.garden.ie/subscribe 

I was thinking of this plant today. In my last garden I had one and never liked it.

When I moved here , looking for a wind break, I thought of Leycesteria and got a couple of plants . They seed readily and now I have a big clump. It is a very useful plant as  a wind break or to hide a shed or wall or just to enjoy it. I find it grows very quickly and in some ways  because the stems are hollow resembles a Bamboo, though a deciduous shrub. The birds love the berries especially the Pheasants! Many of mine would now be about 8ft which I gather is the maximum growth.

So I need to apologise to this plant for not appreciating it previously!

I have not got a close up to post but worth a google if you are not familiar with it.

I’ve been offered a fishpond, which I don’t need but which I will take and hold if any garden.ier would like it.  What do ye think I don’t want to take it and be stuck with it if no one wants it?