Month: June 2012

To day was great, good temperature, plenty of sun, until about 4 p.m. I got a fair bit done, between three areas, the drive where quite a lot of weeds mainly vetches were removed and also some pruning of Cotoneaster. The main type of Cotoneater tends to produce quite a lot of new shoots and removing them can be tedious. This was done in the morning and the hedges at the side look a bit more respectible. The second job was getting weeds out of the rockery. All or nearly all of the plants in the rockery have grown a lot  but so also the weeds. It was very warm at this time, early in the afternoon and I was attired accordingly. Everything except scutch was moved to the compost heap. The third item was tidying outside the front gate and the grass strip by the road. I didn’t complete this job as it began to rain. I had a meeting to attend and so after teatime which was somewhat early I had to leave the job unfinished. True it did clear up but I was not available. I believe that we will have rain to morrow (Tuesday) so much of the work undone will have to wait. Nevertheless I feel that a fair bit of work was done. Flowering shrubs such as Philadelphus and Hypericum are on the way and I hope to have photos of these soon.

put up a journal after reading and seeing Hosta’s!

 I had been avoiding Garden.ie for some days now because I was telling myself I didnt have time as there was grass to cut, weeds to pull etc., etc.!!

But I really must tell you about our Garden Society meeting last night. Our speaker was John McNamara, a rose grower from Cork. What a lovely man and with such a love and passion for what he does! I have heard him speak several times and never tire of hearing what he has to say on the subject.

It was really so refreshing to listen to someone who loves their work, and is so generous with his time and expertise not to mention his roses, there was one for everyone in the audience!:))

Geoff Hamilton will soon find a place in my garden!!

Instead of spending ages posting all the photos again, I’ve shared my facebook page with the Garden.ie facebook page, so please check out Facebook for the photos!  

 I have a slow modem, methinks, so it would take all night to upload…

 

Hey rain finally stopped now i can get back into my garden . Marigolds looking great again ,and roses smelling brill in the breeze HAPPY DAYS 

What have we got if we have not got HOPE!

I have been gardening here since 1983 and never have seen the high winds and rain that we have experienced today.  I could not nerve myself to go out and take photos of the destruction of Crambe in full flower knocked horizontal, Geranium palmatum ditto,  delphinium broken and beech leaves strewn all over the garden.   What is happening to our climate?  Feel like emigrating to a country with a mediterranean climate!!!

While visiting Mary Walsh’s garden recently I  was reminded of the importance ( I think) of having shrubs in borders. My first border has shrubs in it  and there is still room for many perennials. The two new borders Blue one and hope to be Hot one while they are pretty well filled for new areas do not have enough  shrubs.  In Mary’s garden though for various reasons she has not been able to devote much time to it over the past few years the structure and general appearance is still great because of  clever shrub planting.  The  only shrub I have in the Blue border is a Ceratostigma which is not doing well.  I have a small plug plant of Babtista australis which will probably go in there too.  Me  thinks there will be a lot  of moving and replacing in the Autumn.

There is an advantage too having shrubs as one gets older as the borders should be easier to keep when  the joints start creaking!

So I have not put enough emphasis on Mixed borders and need to rectify this situation.  No more perennials will be bought but much thought will go into a choice of suitable shrubs. 

GO AND LOOK ITS ON FOR 1  HOUR

While looking for sedums in the little garden centre in Gort I noticed they were selling off purple and white alliums for 50c each – they’d bought in too many and they didn’t sell. The foliage had died off and they’d all gone to seed. So I bought 5 of each and got some thrown in free. Not going to plant them out for now – I’ll collect the seed and replant the bulbs next year. No sedums alas, but quite chuffed with my bargain! Also noticed that despite the awful weather the last few days the little shrubs which got battered and blasted have all put on lots of growth and are looking much more cheerful. Think I’ll give them a nice feed as a reward!

Just come in from my first tour of the garden for 6 days. I am not going to list the flattened plants we all have these, sadly. But  it is the WEEDS I honestly don’t know how I am going to start removing them  ; it is a sad boast that  I have never been in a garden where such a huge variety of weeds flourish dock and brambles in particular love living here. Wonder  if there is a competition for the weediest garden.

Today I was in Virginia, Cavan, with the kids. We went for a walk down the lake and to be honest, I went also to enquire about the fishing. The walk thru the forest is lovely, and it is nice to get out and about on a lovely day. I never go up thru the village, only if I am driving. Today I walked up thru the village.

In the middle of the village is a lovely display on the street, that invites you in. Now I have being in a lot of garden centres, and most are all the same, threstle table of plants and displays. this is completely different. It is a wonderland of glasshouses, paths and walkways. It is just simply a joy to browse around it, and it is not hard to spend a few hours in it. Today I do not know whether the person I spoke to was the owner or not, but what a brilliant person. I saw him hold court with 7-8 people, all with different queries, answer them all, make a fuss of everybody and ignore none. he was a true master of ceremony and certainly knew his business.

If you pass thru the villge of Virginia and certainly have more than a few minutes to kill, this is the place for you. It I have to say certainly impressed me and I know it will you. 

 

Have you ever had a flower bed that you just can’t get right!!  I have a round bed not very big that is a big challenge. For the first two years after I  built it there was no scheme at all and it looked grotty. So out with the plants and in with Sedum’ Autumn Joy’. This is  the answer I think a circle of nice grey foliage and then the impact when they flower. But to my surprise even though it went according to plan it still was wrong. So this year out with the Sedum, not easy as you know it spreads so much. Next plan for this year was a Pastel bed, pale coloured flowers sort of dainty! I rooted loads of Lamium Nancy Ann?  which was to cover the base and planted such as Pulmonaria Diane Clare, pale purple Penstemon, White Campanula, pink Geranium , pale yellow Achillea etc and it is probably my worst theme!!! Granted all the individual plants are lovely especially a giant Verbascum in the centre, white and one Hosta kindly gave me. One thing sure is that nobody could consider that bed to be Dainty!!!  So what is my next idea?  Come Autumn out with all the plants and in with Tete a Tete daffodils and Tulips to be followed much later by Nepeta , lots of it so the whole bed  is blue. Or maybe someone who is coming to my Open day will come up with a much better plan, it will be welcome:)

Looking at these photographs today… I am totally depressed!!!… the garden will be a disaster I fear this year… maybe … I will just plant a ‘swimming pool’!!!

 

Starting to be a very experienced visitor and industry proficient, Flora Pereira owns discovered several areas around the world. The lady been to in excess of 20 locations; she got an exclusive and overall attitude. Flora Pereira willful Masters in Journalism; she’s drafted a great number of material on destination marketing, hotel and travel representation. She makes sense very detailed attention to the criteria affecting travel profession advertising and representations. Trip field has depended upon a few of the steady and most significant promising sectors, having at any point-finishing relevance.

Due to the fact that past 6 generations she is a role or travel marketing. Working and journey are the lady hobbies, due to this later she go with an occupation similar to a trip writer. Her go through in Journalism brought comforting. Due to the fact that, before stage of their work she activated with strategizing and progressing content for leaflets, preparing resources and marketing things used in travel field. Further in her own talent, her concentration was chiefly on Marketing Tourism Destination, Travel Representation and hotel representation.

 

My shears won’t cut anything, would I be better to get a file to sharpen or just buy a new one? Also looking to get a petrol strimmer, saw one in Woodies recently that I think was about 80euro while the others there were about 200euro.

The hubby didn’t want to get it, he said that there must be a reason that it was much cheaper and that we should just hire one when we need it.

I’d like the grass area to be nice and neat but I think he likes it when it gets a bit crazy đŸ™‚ 

Hi all wondering if anyone can help – Does anyone know if Mary Waldron opens her garden to the public it is near Mullingar – if not has anyone been to any good gardens in the Westmeath area?

This evening CorkTony arrived here with bags of horse errrrrr droppings for me. Now a lovely day no doubt he was at work and then he goes to his friend and fills bags and brings them down to me.  The kindness of people here continues to amaze me, how lucky to have a group like this.  Thanks so much Tony I hope you know how much I appreciate it.

My wheelbarrow wheel has been flat for several weeks. Great excuse not to gather up all the rubbish. So yesterday I  went to the garage and tried to put air in  it. No good just went in and out. Knew it had something to do with the rim. So today I headed  out to one of these garages that thankfully seem to be always busy and have rescued me and flat tyres a few times. I did feel a bit stupid heading towards this busy place with lorries and vans lined up for attention. But clutching my little wheel I headed forth and was met by a very large gent who took one look and shouted out to his mate…’ Hi John look here we have a big contract coming in’.  Dont know it was so spontaneous from him that there is a grin on my face ever since. Anyhow the trick is apparently to give the tyre a hard wallop to get it back on the rim!  So with inflated tyre and no charge I headed home in a right good humour.

 

I  got out in the garden after dinner today it was a lovely day and warm just right for a good tidy up and clear out.

so millie started by looking around her and by golly was the place in a mess so all the pot’s came out to the back some were revamped some were turned out ,washed and refilled the front was all swept up and washed  than i got stuck into doing some final weeding and brought the wheelbarrow around with me ( as we all do i’m sure) i went out into the big garden and shut my eyes oh my god the weed’s were smothering the few flowers and shrub’s  i had  planted there, looking around in bewilderment of where to start i spotted a lovely orange lillie it’s small one Jemo gave me at the get together with other lovely plant’s people gave me so i got stuck in and weeded that area it was a pleasure to see the plants i was given growing and blooming so a BIG thank you to everyone..

i went over by the shed wall where all my big pot’s are and here was scallywags ( MY JACK RUSSEL) going cracked running in around the pot’s and no matter what i said or how much i called her she just would’nt come away so i went to investigate and here she had cornered a VERY large rat , ( IT LOOKED HEAVELY PREGNANT) so between us we killed it scallywags  looked at me as much as to say we done it yippeeeee. it’s not something i want to see again so i put down poison in all the shed’s and in pipes around the garden YUKKKKKK…anyway i got the place tidied up and my bed’s weeded then i went and fed all my plants and flowers just as i finished the heavens opened so it was boot’s off and a cuppa made and on to look at all the journal’s and enjoyed them all as usual..

i wonder when summer begins?????? we could do with some  long warm  summer sunshine and good gardening day’s……….

oh i forgot i found some pumpkin seed’s and planted them up it will be interesting to see them come up……

Well CHIN’S up everyone !!LOL!!!!!

The bridge is made from material left over from my roof, it is treated scandinavian timber so it is much dencer and stronger then the rubbish you get here, it will stay natural, but another bridge that i am constructing at the bottom of the long path in the photo will possibly be painted the Japanese red.

Finished the first lot of the jam. I got almost 10lb of jam out of 4 lb of fruit. I could do nothing in the garden due to the rain. Now I look forward to another fine day.

Only a new member and finally figured out how to upload a photo. would appreciate any messages from any other members, i lots of advise at times.Thanks

The leaves of my tomatoes in my Pollytunnel are starting to go brown,would anyone have any idea what is causing it please

I have a reasonable sized garden, unfortunately, I only rent the house, so the garden is borrowed, as it were.

The are borders all the way round the 3 sides. There were a lot of overgrown shrubs,which needed a good prune, so over the past 16months My husband and me have been pruning.Due to bad health, my husband is unable to do his bit, so it’s left to me to prune, sow seeds and plant out flowers and vegetables.

My favourite flowers are orchids,my bathroom is overun with them.

This year, I have gone vegetable mad, trying my luck to grow a big diversity. First thing though, was to rig up a rope all the way round the border perimiter to stop my dog, Fred from having a good look at what I have put in the soil.

The weather has really stopped the plants from really getting on, I do hope it chers up soon.

 

 

 

 

Please check my journal with th list of potential visitors – I mixed up Elizabeth7 from Cobh with my sister Elizabeth – Sorreeee! Put it down to stress or a seniot moment or wishful thinging as I would have loved to have BOTH Elizabeths at my Open Day! Sorry Elizabeth7 – hope to see you in the near future.