Month: June 2012

While Badger was over in our garden I noticed this weird cloud – first it looked like a feather and then some sort of ship from out of space……………….

I came home from work this evening, quite tired and pretty famished. But first I’d have a quick email check before I launched into making the curry that I had thought about frequently during the hungry hours of the day. I decided that I would take strictly timed medication and get chopping chillies and garlic as soon as I had a quick scoot around the garden to see what my beloved (just buttering him up in case he reads this 😉 had been planting out today in my absence. I refused a cup of tea, as I don’t think tea and curry go well together and I would be eating this longed for curry within 20 mins. Then something strange happened. I popped outside, picked up a pair of secateurs to deadhead a few roses and suddenly two and a half hours just vanished. Seriously, it just disappeared, whoosh, vamoose, gone. I reckon the hoblins must have stolen it, because how else can you explain where it went too? 6.30 became 9pm in the blink of an eye. Ok, so I did have use of a pair of secateurs in that time frame, and chopping back is my absolute favourite gardening task, and I know that they say that time flies when you are having fun, but two and a half hours? And there was me planning to spend a relaxing evening eating said curry in my bed where I have spent most of the last 4 days fighting off an evil virus.

The deadheading turned into a major pruning session. Rosa Teasing Georgia slipped had through my pruning net when I broke my ankle in Feb and she has been doing appallingly badly ever since. Her long limbs akimbo, splayed and spotted, tipped with dieback and studded with blackspot. It was not a pretty sight. Now I haven’t got a clue if roses like being pruned back pretty hard in June, but my gut instinct told me that I might have a chance to save the situation if I got chopping now. The new, fresh shrimp-pink growth is just starting on some of the branches and although I wanted to wait until after our open day this coming Saturday, I realised that I would then decide to wait until after the flower club visit on the 7th. And then there’d the next open day on the 14th. So it was now or never, so hundreds of flowers & buds have been sacrificed for the greater good. Poor Georgia is looking scalped, but fingers crossed she will be back to her glorious self within a few weeks.

In the meantime the curry never happened, the tablets hit my throat three hours late and were washed down by wine rather than water (that’s the difference between 6pm and 9pm in this house 😉 But this woman sitting here is as happy as Larry. Evil virus, you thought you’d get the better of me, but my secateurs showed you who is boss!

I hear we’re back in business! It is hard to know where to begin as gardening stands still for no man (or site).

So I will skip straight to today where, after a few hours gardening and a minor felco incident, I headed off to meet ex-students from last year’s Plants Person’s Course at a get-together. We had agreed to meet at Coolaught Gardens in Wexford.

If you haven’t visited Coolaught, then you should. The nursery is excellent and the gardens are full of inspiration (photos will follow).

There was a bit of an incident over Deutzia ‘Strawberry Fields’!!! I mistakenly picked one out of a friend’s trolley and, realising my mistake, put it back. Unfortunately, I then managed to pick it out of another friend’s stash and buy it! He was not a happy bunny (despite my generous offer of a cutting) until the nursery managed to find him a last plant somewhere. I also came away with Hydrangea ‘Love You Kiss’.

Then it was back to Bunclody for a garden visit. Our host was another fellow Jimi Blake student and I have mentioned his garden before. It was my second visit to Philip’s garden and I was not disappointed. Everything, including the meadow and woodland, looked fabulous in summer. And a new tweak, based on the Arts & Crafts Movement, really helped meld the whole garden together. There was food and drink and plants too.

I have just uploaded photos of Coolaught and Philip’s garden to this site.

For those doing  Jimi Blake’s course this year, my photos of Philip’s garden will be a bit of a spoiler. I believe you are going there soon to see his Meadow (and it is well worth seeing!). It has an ephemeral quality that defies words.

Coolaught Gardens

Philip’s Garden

Apologies. Some users may still have experienced some difficulties uploading pictures. This should be resolved now

i willl get out and finish planting and weeding. picked up some paving slabs for a small area which will have a bench when finished. all will be revealed when done. i will be able to sit and enjoy the garden for a change. it will look better when finished promise

this is the area that i was working on for the last week or so now it is all planted and very pleased with it so far. had planned to get out and finsh weeding and planting but too tired and weather not helping, goin to sit down with hot choc and irish garden mag and been on site for the evening and tomorrow will be a better day i hope 

Tried loading a long journal with this picture a while ago but didnt work, so just trying again!

decided to move some heucheras that were in the wrong place to new home and put canas in instead as this get loads of sun some of the greenleafed ones are showing signs of flowering cant wait to see them. i gave it a good weed and  i also put coreopsis, geum cooky,lobelia that i got in lidl last week, will have to check label.looking forward to seeing it in full bloom

This is planted in my WHITE bed. I was delighted when I got it. Rosa Iceberg.  Had wanted it for ages. It is blooming now and is a beautiful rose, However either I am looking at it with rose tinted glasses or somebody got their labels mixed up because from my perpspective it definitely looks pink – So no idea what it is 🙁

weeded and planted this bed up with some prunella, verbena bonariensis and one of the festucas i will put up pick of this grass tomorrow 

Hi all, have tried to post this journal to go with photo album uploaded Tues evening 26th; no luck before today but hopefully now…

I’m back from a week in England’s beautiful Lake District.  If only the weather had cooperated; after a couple of fine days to start, it was rain and more rain.  Fortunately we escaped the flooding that other parts of northern England experienced and I hope garden.iers in the Cork area escaped this week’s floods too.

Finally, on the morning of departure it dried up and we got an all-too-short visit to Levens Hall Gardens, famous for their magical topiary and with lots more to delight the visitor.  The gardens date from the 1690’s and have been lovingly developed and tended ever since.  I certainly hope to get back one day to take it in properly and see the areas we had to miss out this time.   Have posted a photo album (on Tues 26^th).

 

Great weather for the past few days but plenty of rain in the night and plants are just loving it .

I got some  Ricinus  seeds from Rachel after she came back from her holidays and I did do as she had written on the pack and one plant started to grow and it got a bit big for the pot so I potted it on but my luck it was dead in a few days …. so I started all over again and this time I got 3 to grow and they all are doing great ,  I love them and thank you Rachel  

why am i posting this journal? cause i can……. now.

This Astilbe was bought two years ago for 50c.

 A few small flowers on it last year. But this year the plant has bulked up great and it is covered in flower spikes, which look great against the greenery behind.

This is one to be divided later in the year and added to other areas. 

Mallow Homes and Garden show is on today, tomorrow and Sunday, so I decided to pay a visit today.  The show gardens area has been revamped and there are some good and some not so good ( in my opinion ) ones on show.  Of course of much greater interest was the plant sales area.  It appeared to me that the number sellers was less than other years but that the quality of plants was better. The list of my new additions is as follows :

Begonia grandis ssp evansiana — company for one Bill kindly gave me last year

Bergenia ciliata

Bomarea edulis

Cautleya spicata robusta

Epipactus palustris

Gentiana lutea

Pinellia pedatisecta

Primula florindae ‘orange’

Abutilon — the man selling the plants hadn’t a clue what most things were as he was only standing in for his wife so I will have to figure out which one when it flowers.  In any case he gave it to me for €5 so I was pleased with that.  There are buds on it so won’t have to wait too long to identify it hopefully.

So I am pleased with my haul and saw a few others which I might go back for — that’s the trouble with it only being about 10 minutes away  🙂

The recent The Irish Garden has some excellent information about roses. I do not have many in my garden, but one of my favourites, now in flower, is Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’, also called Rosa Mundi or Fair Rosamund’s rose.

I see, https://gardenofeaden.blogspot.ie/2009/04/historic-roses-rosa-mundi.html

"However there is an earlier legend which states that the ‘Rosa Mundi’ was named after Rosamund Clifford, the mistress of King Henry II who reigned as England’s monarch from 1154 to 1189. Rosamund Clifford (1150-1176), also known as the "The Fair Rosamund" or "Rose of the World", was the long-time mistress of King Henry II. Henry was forced to marry Princess Eleanor who, jealous of her husband’s relationship with the fair Rosamund, is said to have had her murdered by poison.

After her death, Henry and Rosamund’s family paid for a tomb at Godstow Nunnery near Oxford and put an endowment in place for it to be attended by nuns who were instructed to place Rosa Mundi flowers upon it on the anniversary of her death. This became a popular local shrine until 1191…"

Looking at all the Roses in The Irish Garden , which I got today in the post as I won the years subscription , I just love it …… 

Here is my lovely Rose called Compassion . 

Got this rose just last year. It’s looking lovely right now.

Got this little Chard plant from Hosta (Margaret) last year while visiting her gorgeous garden. I overwintered it in the greenhouse and planted it out in early Spring. I particularly loved the red stems that added a bit of much-needed colour to the greenhouse border in the colder months. 

However, a couple of weeks ago with very high winds, it keeled over, and was flopping into the grass horizontally. The weather hasn’t been enticing me outdoors too much over the last week. And yesterday evening, while having coffee on the patio, I discovered that this once-little plant had sprouted lots of side shoots which are now reaching for the stars. Looks odd, but very nice. I am afraid to attempt to straighten the plant in case I break it. I’m also now wondering if it’s possible to take cuttings from these new shoots?

these are looking good at the moment, against the green contrasting vegitation.

Just in for a late lunch and a rest! I dug up 2 of my selinium and re planted them in another bed, also dug up 3 cerinthe to fill gaps at the front of a border, then planted a dahlia which I had in a pot (a seedling from Concaw last year), I started out with a rain coat as we are having heavy showers but I got too hot digging as I had hedge roots to contend with.

All this was tackled because I had listened to Gardeners Corner this morning and they said it is good weather for planting! However I would only advise moving things at this stage if they are things that aren’t too precious!

Really love this rose which I planted last year.

 

We’ve spent the past 10 years trying to figure out the most satisfactory way of having our garden open to visitors. For most of those years we opened by appointment… ie ring to check someone will be around. This has proved to be quite awkward as people can turn up at a different time than stated – or not turn up at all! So this year we are trying just opening to groups and then throwing in a few, 5 to be precise, open days. Today was open day number 3. Will this be the winning formula? Todays turnout was very disappointing (for Martin, I was at work – as usual) Nowhere near enough people to eat the chocolate cake and lemon and poppyseed cakes I stayed up late to bake last night and got up ridiculously early this morning to ice. Oh dear, it looks as if we will have to eat them ourselves now :))))