Month: July 2013

Agastache Apricot Sprite, as requested.

A great plant that came through the bad winters ok, was a little slow to take off but has done great sice then.

Ask and ye shall receive, 

if you so wish my Lady ;-))

Two different cosmos but both equally as nice. I love the petals on the second one the way they are like tubes.

Today headed out for our walk to the Douce  forest and the road s were colsed as there was a film being made so we decided to go to the Waterfall in Powerscourt and we got our walking boots on and suddenly Thunder …rain and of course plenty of Lightining …one of my fears but we had a lunch  with us so we waited until the storm passed had our lunch and then went for a lovely walk  oh! I had the camera and headed for the Waterfall and Greg spotted a beehive in the rocks so close to the waterfall , I could not believe it , so I get the camera out and I move in to take a shot but I got a shot on the hand from one of the blighters …he did not leave his sting luckly for me .

Nice day after all.

I had a visit from Tina today and we spent a good relaxing time walking around the garden chatting.

It was great to catch up and talk about real gardening because soon enough we’ll be into “orchid o’clock” all over again and, as we all know, this affliction hits myself and Tina quite badly 🙂

And I would just like to say a big thank you , Tina, for the presents you brought. There was absolutely no need but I am really delighted.

After Tina left I planted out the last of my Echium and Verbascum seedlings and some Erigeron karvinskianus that had also been raised from seed.

Steve recently went home to his parents house and came back with precious ‘stuff’ stored in the attic, from years back, that means so much to both of us. But, Steve, being a diver, it has a lot more meaning to him. However, it is all very welcome in our garden. We already have lots of memorabilia of his past diving days, and holds great memories for Steve.

The latest addition is my new planters – fins that he acquired years ago, while diving on a U.S. naval ship in 1989, when a Special Forces diver gifted him with these fins which Steve used throughout his diving career.

Watch this space!

This is Gladioli Blue Isle which i also grew last year and left some of the bulbs in the ground and is back up again flowering and just love it.

I know I tried these before some years ago , but things happened to them, like me letting them dry out as seedlings etc., anyway I tried again this year and got quite a few, mostly pink and a few white.

I have a lot of different plants that were sown back in Spring and over time were moved about between my dining room and then the greenhouse…so of course some of the labels went missing…..

So Im asking if anyone has any idea what this little beauty is?

Its quite tall about 24inches and these little flowers are just coming into bloom now….

Thanks guys! 🙂

You know how sometimes you can see ‘faces’ or ‘animals’ in the clouds!……well look what we saw in our Sunflower today…..

A FACE!!!!….two eyes and a nose,….but no mouth….

These two bumble bees were having a feast on our sunflower and were in no hurry to buzz off ;)………and they kindly got into position so I could photograph them lol

If you want a salvia that is different, I recommend Salvia nemorosa ‘Schwellenburg’. I bought it at Bloom last year and I am really pleased with it, of course this summer has been good for salvias.

The lily is in a pot and is a real beauty and the perfume is wonderful. Rachel, I hope you are not on holiday when your lilies bloom as you have so many the garden will be a perfumed delight!

Another Buddleja is just flowering. It has lovely yellow little globes on it. It’s very slow this year  – i actually thought it wasn’t going to flower at all…so was delighted when they appeared over the weekend.

I was lucky to get the opportunity of staying in Morzine in the French Alps.  My friend’s daughter owns a holiday home there so at the beginning of July I went off with my friend for 8 days, leaving Peter at home to look after the garden.   Just a glorious place and how the French love their flowers, both wild and cultivated!!!  Have put up an album just to show flower displays that we came across.

I thought I would put up a little journal about some of the plants people asked about at the Open Day.

Maybe others, who didn’t come, are interested in them too.

1) Paulownia tomentosa

These are magnificent trees that can be treated in one of two ways. Either…

a) Leave the tree to grow and it will grow tall and produce flowers or

b) Do as I have done in my garden and pollard these trees every spring. As a result the trees grow tall and produce leaves of massive dimension.

A real show-stopper that can be easily managed in a small space or used to create that jungle effect.

2) Veronicastrum ‘Album’

This is a lovely perennial with a candlestick like habit. It is very neat and tall.

There are a lot of mediocre veronicastrums out there so make sure you see it in flower before buying. I got this one from Kilmurry Nursery last year.

3) Monarda ‘Croftway Pink’

I spotted this beautiful Monarda in Altamont the day before my Open Day. I bought it and it was planted about twenty minutes before Myrtle arrived 🙂

I love the contrast of the pale pink flowers against the darker bracts.

Mount Congreve Gardens will be open on Thursday next, 1st August. Opening days have been somewhat erratic this year – the last open day was on June 20th – so this is an opportunity to be grasped if you can at all. At this time of the year the interest will be in the walled garden. The main garden is the woodland garden and the main flowering season is past there thought it still makes for a very pleasant walk. 

The photographs are from the last open day. 

If you use Facebook, I have put up a link to an album from last September. 

Paddy

Trying to deter the white cabbage butterfly.. Marigolds and herbs… and eggshells which are supposed to fool them into thinking that there is a rival already there!

Lots of bees in the garden after the sunshine..

Our new Aussie member is going to get very bored with us all wittering about the weather, but it’s just about perfect here just now. Sunny & warm, but fresh and showery too. Irish summer at its best! 

We’d had first-time visitors from the Uk for three days so we were off round the Burren, over to Inisheer and up to Connemara. Wonderful weather – even the dog went for a swim! What an amazingly beautiful country we live in. Yesterday we were tired from all the travelling so we pottered about, weeding and cutting back to encourage autumn growth. The trees are lookinhg much happier for the rain, the aspen we were worried about has put on new leaves, thank goodness. 

A few photos to remind us that in a good summer Ireland knocks everywhere else into a cocked hat. 

I was working on the raised planter all day yesterday.

I decided to reduce the size of what I had earlier planned, limited space etc.

All the pieces of ducting were first bolted together. Then the sides were faced off with wood. A few small slips to be fitted today and then I can fit it in place in the gravel.

Even though I want to plant it up, I need to hold back and really think about what is going into it. 

I need to google more images of Japanese gardens to get more ideas.

My back and knees are shouting at me ‘no more, please no more’……………

trying to get the photo thing right.

It was all going so well – I was resisting ALL temptations to buy for the garden this month as I am trying to get things ship-shape for the visit of my precious Princess Cliona at the end of the month. Then Jackie mentions the magic word BARGAINS and guess what there is a Heatons in Portloaise that I pass on the way to visit Brendan – so i just HAD to have a look ….

As always late to do things….. late to arrive, late to comment, late to say thank you…. Finally got home after my weekend visits.

Friday me and Violeta visited Kilquade National Garden Exhibition, beautiful selection of different styles gardens.. every corner is filled with nicest plants. Enjoyed sunshine and company of my good friend Violeta.

But the real treat was a trip to Rachel’s garden. I have visited it last year and it has develop so much, the growth is fantastic, selection of plants is huge…. Honestly Rachel how do you keep on top of weeds, edging is perfect, dead headed in time….gosh. Thank yo so mych for all the plants you gave us… well i thought i will be strong and will not take any seeds or cutting….. but the minute Rachel said – would you like……. yep can not refuse another unusual beauty. and  June Blake primula is  the dream come true. 

thank you. you know i did enjoyed the garden but the best part was lovely chat and cup of tea,,

we had thunder and a massive downpour round two or three clock today but once it was over out i went and spent two hours deadheading glad that job is done now. then i went my 5k, i hadnt done it in a couple of weeks and was feeling very guilty as i was doing 10k before i started work want to get back into that soon as and get the weeding done very ambititious i know but i was so happy when i was getting in 10k a day. 

i love the croscosmia they have taken over one corner but i dont mind because they are fab i have them in orange in an other area and i have yellow also that i got at the tullamore show which i hope to go to this year again.

i have this grass in pot it starts with an O after that i am lost but i didnt realise it has a flower it is small but cute 

I bought the polytunnel to grow veg in and that I do but when I looked into it today I had to laugh at the amount of flowers there are growing in it – most of them are self sown.

They are –

double feverfew 

nasturtims

Ipomea ‘Star of Yelta’

Rhodochiton

Calendula ‘Sherbet Fizz’

Nigella damascena

Cosmos bipannus

Nicandra

agatasche 

Nicotiana sylvestris

poppies (gone over now)

sweet pea – Matucana