Month: January 2013

When you see signs like this around the garden, you know Spring is here.

In a few weeks this Malus ‘red sentinel’ will be covered in blossom, and the dark grey days of January will be a thing of the past.

you may remember my delight at getting two replacement Thuja conifers to replace the ones the cows ate ….. I was coming home from shopping this morning when I noticed that they were both at a very peculiar angle ….

The winds of the past few days had managed to loosen the roots of the two trees so remedial action was called for.

Literally dumping the shopping in the kitchen I raced in and changed into the gardening gear and out I went.

What to use? Well, I have an abundant supply of short steel rods from the early days when I had rabbit fences around everything so I loaded some fo these into the wheelbarrow (they are rather heavy when you have a bundle of them!)

And you may notice from the photos the very fetching blue twine – beore we even moved in here we had bought a huge reel of binding twine for marking out the site – so this just proves that if you keep anything long enough you’ll find a use for it!

Attaching the stay-ropes was harder than I expected as the wind was still trying to do away with my beloved trees but eventually by dint of great bear-hugs and much tugging they were bot restored more or less to the vertical – now don’t anyone comment that they are still off-centre …. they are worlds better than they were this morning! Never a dull moment in the garden!

Looks like it will  be cold there tomorrow, but hopefully dry.

Altamont has become a favorite place for me to visit. Meet in the carpark at 11.30, and we’ll see who shows up and I can ring the Forge about lunch then.

Wrap up well and bring boots ;-))

No trowels or forks allowed LOL

I don’t know how I ever existed without my greenhouse. It has been a riot of colour throughout the whole winter, with pelargoniums and rhodochiton flowering, and it’s great to keep on admiring the foliage of exotic, summer plants like cannas, hedychium and the like during the bleak months.

I have a couple of pots of Arctotis too, which are supposed to be tender. These have been flowering contnuously throughout the whole winter. 

If you can afford the space, get a greenhouse. You won’t regret it. And buy the biggest one that you can afford, as you will ALWAYS be looking for more space.

Hope this helps, Fran. 

One of the most enjoyable parts of gardening, when you spot something that has just started to flower or bulbs starting to sprout. For me it can either be when I deliberately go out looking for something or, as this morning, in the middle of doing something like weeding or tidying. I spotted my first Crocus of the season, and then later, looking out the window I noticed the way the sun was shining through the Hellebores.

Think about the kaleidescope of colours that present-day primroses are available in. Yes, they are all very beautiful, and do great things to cheer the winter gardener up during the transition period from winter to spring, and summer. And the more recent addition of all the Kennedy primroses (Irish bred) are all beautiful too.

But my very favourite has always been, and always will be, the common Primula vulgaris – the ones you find in country ditches and hedgerows.

Well it was such a beautiful morning, I couldnt resist having a ‘little’ look in the local garden centre…just to see what I might use when Im up and running so to speak 😉

There isnt a lot in the garden centre at the minute as its only January BUT I did find these three lovely little babies.

I love Primulus…these are Primulus Malacoides Mix……..and then I spotted this Hellebores Christmas Carol…Just need the flipping rain to stop so I can go outside and plant them all up.

Oh and I was in that shop Dealz too and came across some lovely packets of all sorts of plants. Each one only €1.49…..amazing…so couldnt resist these either 🙂 Ive bought bulbs here before and they have been amazing. Especially the anemones! love all of those……

Happy Gardening 🙂

Bought the following in Woodies: Bird Table@€8.99; Flower seeds:€8.68 Alyssum, Antirrhum, Penstemon; Bedding plants: €3.59. This includes discount : €2.99. The reason for buying the bird table is that the small birds don’t get a chance to feed as a number of pheasants tend to devour what id on the open bird table. They may get a better chance. The very small birds like blue tits are ok as they can feed from the cylinders that are hanging from the side of a tree but those like robins find this a bit difficult..

I opened the curtains this morning and was greeted with the sight of the 10ft high Melianthus major broken and on the ground.

I had thought it would be ok planted close to the wall, but last night’s winds had other plans. I had twine holding it from moving to much. When I went to cut the main stem down it took some effort, and I am wondering if it would have been ok without it. No point in thinking about things like that now.

Saddened in one way, but as I cleared leaves away from the base I spotted new growth showing already. There is always hope in gardening ;-))

I was really surprised to see this little plant flowering this morning.

Rachel gave some of these to a few people at Johnstown. We are calling this one P ‘Rita D’ as it was Rita D where the plant came from. Sadly Rita is no longer with us, but it is nice that her plants are still been passed around on the site.

I never met Rita, but she did send me a message when I joined the site, welcoming me and urging me to keep using pots in the garden. I had mentioned that I was going to reduce the pots I had. I’m glad I took her sound advice.

I would still like to say,

Thank you Rita, I will do my best with this plant.

This is the first time this winter that the siskins have appeared on the feeder.

Maybe their natural food is becoming more scarse.

The tits are not impressed though.

January is not gone yet and I have my first daffodil. There is however a difference. This one is in the greenhouse not outside like the crocus I showed. Still it is a daffodil in January.

I see it is a week since my last journal and it is a week since I got any gardening done due, mainly, to the dreadful weather conditions.

However, today was much brighter and I ventured out! I had read or heard somewhere recently that now is a good time to take cuttings from plants like Picea, juniper and heather so I decided to try some. From an earlier journal you will know that my lovely Picea Orientalis was ruined by the deer. So, with nothing to loose, I took some pieces of what remains of my tree and potted them up.

They are now under a clear plastic bag on my kitchen windowsill!!

One of my Mum’s favourite mantras was: “Nothing beats a trial”! I eagerly await results!

Came home at 2 30 pm today and it was so mild outside so got my wellies on and gloves and of course my coat oh!  my gardening coat…and out I went … Well I did not know where to start as there was a lot of  leaves in corners that I did not know existed ..yard brush and  swept  all into a corner and oh! forgot the bag so had to go look for it and when I came back to the place where the pile of leaves were ….yes you guessed it all over the place again,

It was good to be out and wait for it I was still out at 5 30 pm .

Am looking forward to Friday as am going to Alltamount yipee.

After a long long time Esmeralda has finally found her voice. She is the large goose that has been featured in some of Scrubber’s photographs. Funnily enough it was just after Terrishoo’s stone had been placed beside her that she began to speak-or repeat, as that is what she does mostly. If Cherub suggests ‘move that rock an inch’ she will chime in with ‘an inch an inch’ Mind you she would not be in Sr Josephine’s top hundred but then neither was Scrubber! She has one strange gift though ,that of reading minds. For example Scrubber had decided to ‘rake the rockery’ today and as he passed her he distinctly heard, ‘-ake the rockery’ in his mind again. I dont quite know how she does it but it will be hugely useful in future. We all have our own gifts.

Well when he went to ‘-ake the rockery’ he realised what a silly Scrubber is to have a big rockery just under the beech trees! Such an amount of leaves-and like sand on the beach they get into all the crevices! It takes an age to rake them all out and not take the alpines with them. Added to this there was a fierce wind in the trees all around so it was quite like being on a ship in mid ocean. Exhilarating. especially as when I got the leaves off, all the rocks and  crannies were revealed again. Bonus-the three dwarf cryptomeria japonica -bought for a euro each as the vendor thought they would not live-have all come through the winter and the leaf coverings and are very healthy. Lost were a few azalea and some of the Alpines. But it was great to see the wall rockery emerge.

Then of course there was lots of carting of tarpaulin fuls of leaves into bottoms. After which Scrubber went back up to side garden to weed and to straighten a rock, which he had straightened a few days ago but wasn’t right! Got some weeding done and cut out crocosmia stems. So a great day’s work with the sun sometimes in the sky and little or no rain.’-ittle or no rain’.

Have put up some more pictures in january album. but mostly rocks and Lord buddha. 

Clara gave a Hippeastrum bulb to Maria before Christmas.

Fran potted it up, Fran watered it, Fran moved it to the light when he spotted the first signs of growth, Fran kept watering it when needed,

and then this evening when I looked to see how close the bloom was to opening,

Fran was asked?

”What are you doing with my plant”?

Armchair Gardening at it’s best…………………………

These seeds were collected in the Bots on the Plants Persons course, (with permission I may add) LOL

What looks orange is a bright red colour, light not great for the photo.

I’m fairly sure it was from a shrub, can anyone give me a name please.

These 2 Hellebores are the darkest and lightest shades of pink that I have out at the moment.  I have a darker one but it’s a bit shy for now.

The paler one is a seedling which turned up in the garden a couple of years ago and proved too nice to evict.

A nice day here today once the wind died down around lunchtime but the place is sodden. There is a nice stretch in the evenings which is great.

Did  anyone see the BBC programme about Sissinghurst this evening?  I thought it was outstanding.

You might like to look at https://www.invectis.co.uk/sissing/.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly some seeds germinate, especially with the likes of Ricinus.

But Jeez, Louise……I only sowed these on Monday.

I have been pondering this mystery today where despite the howling winds I ventured out in my “Antartic Gear” to do a chore that had been long-fingered for too long. Last Autumn I got a gift of a trailer load of stones & rocks from the clearing of a field or tillage. I used quite a few as edgings for my new non-grass front areas but then ran out of steam so the remainder has been sitting in the trailer ever since!

I did a bit of rough grading as I unloaded them – Large in one pile – are they large enough to be qualified as ROCKS? Flat-ish ones went in another pile – they may be useful as stepping stones in the beds. And then there are the in-between ones – rocks or stones? The final lot are definitely stones – they are roughly the size of a tennis ball and are perfect for edgings.

The afternoon turned out much better so I ventured out again and tackled a nice little project. I used some of the (small) stones from the trailer to edge a new path along by the willow fence. There was always a kind of track there which I used when trimming the fence but I wanted a more inviting path to encourage people down this way where the shrubbery can be seen to best advantage.

Then all that was needed was some of the left-over gravel from the front to give a nice dry surface for walking on! Done and dusted in an afternoon! It felt wonderful to be out in the garden again after what felt like an eternity and this kind of work is perfect for the chillier days – I was roasted when I came in but still enjoyed the stove!!!