Month: September 2012

At the beginning of the summer I had to resort to putting netting over the Lower Pond as the visiting heron was lurking on a regular basis. Not about to lose any more fish, I put up with the pond looking ugly with the net over it. I didn’t see the heron since then.

On Thursday, I removed the net, and was loving my Lower Pond again. But……

He’s back!!!

The net goes back on today, regardless.

The Persicaria plants you gave me, despite only been planted out a short time back are putting on a great show, they look fantastic.

Due to a change of plan they are on the move soon. I am copying your idea of a road side display. Needless to say,smaller than what you have done but will totally change the grass strip at the front of the house.

A small project to be worked on over the winter months.

Thanks for the plants and sowing the seeds of a great idea.

Only discovered yesterday that Dicksonia antartica ferns are also known as,

Man Fern

Either way, it’s a great plant for any garden.

Bought this gorgeous plant earlier in the year. When it started to go over, I cut a lot of it back in the hope……     2 days later, every shred of foliage had disappeared. Soooo disappointed. 

But look at it yesterday. Lookin’ gud!     This is Polemonium ‘Stairway to Heaven’. What a gorgeous name, don’t you think?

I must put a September album up. Might do it on Sunday.

Harry’s my new pet hawk.

I have him tied to a pole so he can’t fly away and he’s brilliant. He’s scared away all the nuisance birds out of my garden but he doesn’t bother nice birds like wrens.

He got rid of the swallows, sparrows and blackbirds. Harry’s brill.

You can buy a hawk from Cappoquin Co-Op. 

It has been lovely to see so many bees around the garden in the last week or ten days. 

Nice to be able to provide them with some food  🙂

I am trying to work out whether it is worth making a garden.ie calendar for 2013. Can you please let me know if you might be interested in buying such a thing?

Like last year, the calendar would show photos of garden.ie club get-togethers, taken in 2012, and the many club members in our ever-expanding group. It would also show any known horticultural dates for the year (plant fairs etc).

The calendar, like last year, is a wall-hanging one with a big photo above and individual squares for the days of the month below.

I imagine the price would be the same as last year – €10 and €2.50 for postage.

Let me know who would be interested.

This morning I took cuttings of Fremontodendron. Liga had taken a few some weeks ago and informed me that nothing was happening. So they are now on heat inside the propagator. It’s usually not in operation until March here. But, c’est la vie. Fingers crossed that I will have a few to share around.

While the weather was reasonably ok this morning, I gave a few sheets of Marine Ply some Creocote. These will be used tomorrow, weather permitting, to position over some of the cave soil to prevent a possible landslide. I had just got these done when Steve arrived home, skiving from work early, it being a Friday and all that. lol 

While they were drying, I donned the waders and uprooted my Atropa belladonna (Deadly Nightshade) from the Island in the pond. It needs to recuperate over the winter months after such a dastardly summer with rain and high winds. While in the pond, I took this opportunity to weed in at the greenhouse border, and observe.

I prepared a lot of Begonia tubers for the winter, drying off all the existing soil. But lots of them are still flowering. So that remains for another day. Also dried off some Hymenocallis bulbs.

In the greenhouse, I removed all tomato plants that have stopped producing, and cucumber plants. 

Dug up a few perennials that were totally in the wrong place, too tall, and potted them up.

I 

Added 20 more hyacinth bulbs to the existing 40 bulb bed. Experience has shown that slug bait is needed as soon as growth appears.

Also made a new spring bulb bed and planted:

20 tulip Fringed Elegance

20 tulip Kingsblood

20 tulip Happy Generation

20 tulip Curly Sue

20 tulip Attila

25 Chionodoxa Lucilea

25 anemone De Caen Mixed

All part of Mr. Midleton 250 super spring collection.

Thes rest are earmarked for the bank of the stream.

I mean the wall. 🙂  First two of five ovals going up.

The top of the pergola is level but the wall is sloping. Grrrr! Quite a few adjustments needed.

Finally! A little bit of sunshine….better late than never I suppose.

There does seem to be a pattern forming of better weather in September. We definitely deserved it this year and it gave a much needed boost to the gardens as well as our spirits.

This month’s jobs include: finishing hedge cutting, tidying the vegetable garden, tying in growth on climbers, harvesting fruit, planting of shrubs and moving tender plants indoors to protect from early frosts.

Bulb planting season is coming up and we have a large range of bulbs ready to be planted throughout the estate. This will enhance what is already a pretty impressive spring show and includes crocus, tulips, iris, anemones and a large variety of alliums (ornamental onions) to be planted on one of our islands in the river.

The dropping night temperatures will soon put an end to our hanging baskets and bedding displays and it will be time to replace them with something for the winter. From my experiences with winter’s harsh conditions I would recommend Pansies over everything else. They can take a real beating and still continue flowering into the spring when all else has given up.

Our Friday morning volunteers have taken on the Himalayan Walk project and will be working on this on a gradual basis over the next few months. We are planting varieties of magnolia, camellia, rhododendron and azalea along a sloping bank in the shadow of our walled garden. It should develop into a wonderful spring walk in years to come. Any readers who are interested in joining our happy team of volunteers would be very welcome. We meet every Friday from 9 to 1. Email blarneygardens@blarneycastle.ie for more info.

Recent visitors to the castle will have noticed a lot of work going on in our Poison Garden. Unfortunately our box hedges developed box blight and had to be removed to prevent further spread. We have replaced them with a variety of Holly called Ilex crenata ‘convexa’ which is similar in appearance and will not be at risk from the blight. My advice for the moment would be to avoid introducing new box plants where you already have established ones, and keep a close eye on them for signs of infection, such as browning and dieback.

This year has been pretty bad for fruit in general, but if you are lucky enough to have them, pick apples and pears as they ripen, and store them in trays with shredded newspaper, straw or cardboard liners (as used in the greengrocers). For storage the temperature needs to be cool but not frosty. Most homes will be too warm so it’s better to store them in a shed or garage, as long as they are rodent-proof. Windfall or bruised fruit is better used in desserts, jams or wine making. Speaking of which….my wine has been a great success and two batches of apple and blackberry are just going into production. There is a lot of satisfaction to be had from making something yourself (and it working).

Autumn is a wonderful time here in the gardens. Watch out for the trees starting to colour up and come to see our Lime tree avenue, which turns bright gold. Adam

Just dug up my prized Deadly Nightshade from the Island. Sadly, it was looking pretty delapidated after such a horrible summer, and a week of rain and wind, which broke off most of the remaining branches. The main plant is to be potted up until I decide where next to plant it.

In the soil were two fairly decent-sized roots that had come adrift. So they got potted up. If they take, they will be sent on to whoever is willing to give them a good home.

All is fairly good on the Rhodo front with the only disappointment being the failure of R.markeetas prize which I bought earlier this year. I know Sallysarah bought one at the same time and I hope that it is doing better tahn my one has fared. I finalised my Autumn order so for those of you who are interested, here is what I have ordered. Firstly there is R.cephalanthum, which is a dwarf species with Daphne like flowers.Next is R.oreodoxa var fargesii which will be tall growing and it has the advantage of frost resistant buds as it is fairly early flowering. Then there is R.pachysanthum, which is replacing one that failed for me as I had it planted in the wrong place, R.pseudochrysanthum, R.flinckii and R.recurvoides, all of these I am buying mainly for their foliage.The last two are the species R.makinoi and the hydrid R.graziella both which have narrow leaves. When they arrive, I will put up photos when I have them planted. Shown is the hybrid R.curlew which has decided to flower again this year, it’s flowers are large considering the leaf size.

The gunnera was planted about 12 years ago and has not developed much. It might be a small variety, I don’t know, or the location is wrong. I had a close look and discovered that it had grown daughters, so I separated two and added them to my current project which is the Bank by the stream. (Srutháin)

This was getting way too tall for my liking so I got Steve to lop of the top ten feet. Aren’t I so glad he did. It’s now much more in proportion to the garden. The wall behind is about 7ft.

Today was a big day in the saga of the front gardens. I went to Timahoe to my newly found Garden Centre “Tree World” where I took delivery of two replacement Thujas, several laurel hedging plants, a Cornus Kousa ‘White dream’ and a Rhus ‘Tiger Eyes’ – all fitted in to the boot of the car! Made for an interesting drive home as the two Thujas were trying to get out  through the fron window !!!! – and I’d forgotten that being too close to conifers makes my nose run – so by the time I got home eyes and nose were both streaming 🙂

Started to unload the car but had to admit defeat when it came to the Thujas! Fortunately Kevin was able to come over to rescue me – so while I was waiting for him I dug out planting holes for the thujas (which are far too shallow so he will have to rescue me again by planting them!) but I also planted the Cornus, the Rhus, and the contorted Hazels and Robinia (thanks Hazel Lodge) that have been waiting patiently for their new homes!

The re-working of this part of my gardens is a major task and I’m really grateful for the help I’m getting from Kevin – and his girls who were sent to load up stones for me !!! – it is finally feeling like a real opportunity instead of the disaster it was a couple of weeks ago.

Another couple of days and it will be largely completed – all that will be left is to plant out the spring bulbs and other bits and pieces of ‘plants in waiting’ from my Nursery bed. That part doesn;t feel like work! Its the fun part!

Just to say a very Happy Birthday Fran ……

This is an early photo of you and you have not changed much ..

Hope you had a good one .

Greg and Clare .

A friend asked for a piece of my Red Hot Pokers a couple of years ago. The clump have been in the orchard as long as I can remember so by now have developed a huge root ball that now has as much on top of the ground as underneath. I told my friend he was welcome to a piece so long as he dug me off a piece too! (I knew I could never do it myself). He kindly did so and I planted it up in the red corner of the Outer Circle.

Im so pleased with how they have come on. Its not a plant for a nice neat border as the leaves can be a bit straggly and take up quite a bit of space. But where I have it, it is perfect! Its leaves are partly hidden behind other plants and the trunk of the red maple but the flower spikes grow so tall that they stand out above everything else!

Looking at Kate and Graham’s pictures I think they have the same one – dont know if they are readily available in garden centres these days?

This is what the little Fatsia is asking it’s sibling.

Bruno gave be two little babies two years ago, both the same size.

The one at the back took off last year, while ‘Tiny’ at the front did nothing.

I refuse to throw plants out till all hope is lost. Well this has paid off as Tiny has started to make up for lost time.

The big one has been in Angela’s corner for six months and has done really well. So it will now come out of it’s pot and be planted out and allowed to do it’s thing.

Thanks again Bruno.

The rain and wind earlier in the week took it’s toll on my Cosmos.

Pity about these as there were still lots of flowers about to open.

Plenty left to save seed from, so all is well for next year.

I have a few of these growing down here in Roscommon and this year they seem to have done really well. Today I picked some of the flowers and put them into a jug with Persicaria and foliage from Smoke bush …very happy with how it looks…. Spent today in the garden cutting back and tidying up ..Graham is still not able to do anything because of his injured leg so it is going to take me twice as long this year to get it all finished… 

I have a little gentian plant which I think I bought in B&Q about 5 years ago for very little. It got  sadly neglected and this spring I decided that I would get rid of it as it was covered with moss. But there was a little bit left and I just thought I’d give it a chance and it was worth it just to see these beautiful blue flowers today.

Just for your birthday, Fran!

Have a beer!

Well, have some hops at least!