Month: August 2013
A Fairy HAS been SEEN in the Scrub-by a three year old whose eyes are much sharper than Scrubber’s. ‘It was a puwple one’ my little visitor told me! This, despite the fact that my visitor had rung the warning bell so vigorously that it nearly came out of its socket! One would think all the fairies would have heard it but maybe the ‘puwple one’ has hearing difficulties.
Then later on the whole of the week was taken up with really important things like making Dracula masks and cutting out castles and peopling them with Knights, and laughing at the babies on You tube ‘Charlie bit my finger’ (Go see it!) And successfully flying a kite and swimming together in a slightly colder river and going for ice cream ….. ‘Gardening? … I was coming to that! Well we brought the big hose down the scrub and the top came off and grandad said the bad word! But apart from watering we were just too busy to garden.
Today however Grandad went to the Arboretum and heard a good talk on bulbs from Dermot O Neill-lovely man- and chatted Carmel Duignan-lovely lady and went walkabout with Dermot and Rachel Doyle and twenty or so others in Rachel’s lovely show garden in the Arboretum amid thunderous showers and had a lovely time indeed and Grandad never said the bad word once! And he has got more violas and is going to put them into the long green plastic troughs and put those on planks supported by upside down flower pots and these fit into the box beds at the front of the house. Oh and Dermot said we should sterilize shears and secateurs as some kind people trimmed his hedge having trimmed their own and gave it box blight!-It has recovered but one cant apparently be too careful!
So a strangely unhorticultural week but a hugely enjoyable one and long may one visitor remember her ‘puwple’ fairy and the other visitors the swimming and the kite flying! I know Scrubber will!
I had great expectations for work in the garden today, but what with domestic chores and what have you, nothing much happened. It was quite showery too, so the most I did was cut off all the lower leaves of my tomato plants to let more light in, and removed any flowers and tiny tomatoes as they won’t get an opportunity to develop into sizeable fruits. They would also take valuable energy away from the developing tomatoes at this late stage.
Spent a few minutes ‘chilling’ at the edge of the greenhouse pond just watching the antics of some Pondskaters. Fascinating, to say the least!
i had time to spend in the garden today and take a few pics too, their was a bee on any
available flower, but no wild honey bees, even after the downpours their is still plenty of
colour. i will take the upstairs window pic when i get my 135mm lens back from repair.
Let there be no tomfoolery, Autumn has arrived. Look at all of the rain we have had recently. Look at the dry warm sunny weather we had in June and July and even late May. Look at the way the evenings tend to be shorter now. look at the way the strawberries, raspberries gooseberries are gone. Finally do you all feel the biting insects at the moment? They are biting, biting, biting everywgere you go and as the where they bite, they are not selective. The part of the anatomy where they really bite, I don’t like mentioning it. You may ask why do they bite, is there something in our system that is essential for their survival? Again August is on record as a wet month and yet people tend to take their holidays at that time, why? Again, the number of counties remain in the GAA competitions is reduced to four in the hurling and eight in the football and by Monday it will be also four. So let us be honest, the summer is gone
Alas the best of the colour in the garden seems to have gone over.
I must get more late flowering plants for next year.
At least my containers are still going strong.
This is a new plant for me this year and I think it is gorgeous. The only problem is it is very straggley and with recent challenging weather is looking the worse for wear.
I think I will have to put in earlier and more effective support for it next year.
Still think it is gorgeous though.
HELP !!
I’m a only a man,
GET ME OUT OF HERE :-))
Q today,
Hope there won’t be a big Kew into it LOL
I have this growing down at the bottom of the garden and it realy does take over ..as it comes up everywhere and it realy is a lovely thug .
Every year I say I am going to get rid of it and every year is just comes back after all I say about it …I chop it back and away it goes again .
I suppose I will keep it for another year.
Can anyone identify this plant? I planted it a few years ago, its just looks after itself year after year, and even though it is does not give a colourful flower, it fills space and I like it because of the oddity of its flowers.
Well, I haven’t done much gardening this past week or so, being busy with other things. Finally got the grass cut this afternoon and had a stroll round.
As Elizabeth said earlier, there are a few signs anticipating autumn: leaves starting to crisp on the hawthorn tree, some plants gone over etc. But others are coming or looking their best right now. Here are a few in the early evening light:
Clematis ‘Star of India’ … bought at Bloom last year.
Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’. I had this plant before and lost it over a relatively mild winter. Replaced it with this one from Mount Venus and am thrilled with it this year.
Agapanthus and Inula … old and new respectively, like them both.
I hope you are all enjoying your gardens in early August.
I think this is a Meadow Brown, but I’m not sure. Hopefully some of you experts will put me right!
many people believe I only grow veg and I suppose the majority of my journals would be about veg. However for the last few years I have being growing a few flowers around the place. However the flower I love the most is the rose. I believe there is no flower to equal the rose and even though I only have a few, and to be honest have-nt a clue of their names, no flower compares to the rose. Thousands of books have being written on the subject from the history of the rose, to the best method of growing and pruning and to be honest a lot of the Authors disagree with each other. It is the name given to children and the subject of many of a poem. The humble rose of my garden has airs and graces in the garden of the experts and rose fanatics, but at the end of the day, there is nothing to compare to the flower of the rose, it is simply beautiful and perfect.
Great Dixter, Merriments & Sissinghurst done today. Beth Chattos and Hyde Hall yesterday. Kew tomorrow. World class gardens in the company of wonderful people.Sunny weather, good food. Perfect. Sigh……
It is amazing what occurs in a few months. A few weeks ago I started with bare soil, today I am trying to find a space for the last of the cabbage plants to be planted out. Even the weather has amazed us in the last three months. A beautiful sunny june, a warm but wet end to july and hopefully we will see a return to the sunny weather.
On my day off during the week I decided to drop into a relatively new D.I.Y. store called Arro, that has a very small garden section attached to it. I’m sure there are lots of branches nationwide but this one is a novelty for me.
The new one opened up in Omni Park Shopping Centre in about March. The first visit to this place just left me despairing. The plant quality, and choice, were pathetic. But this time round I got a pleasant surprise. And 95% of the plants are IRISH GROWN.
I was tempted to 3 nice plants and at relatively reasonable prices – Lobelia ‘Elmfleuer’ (Queen Victoria) for just €6.99, Geranium ‘Black Beauty’ with lovely almost black foliage and blue flowers for €7.99 and finally Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker Red’ for €6.99. The Penstemon has lovely beetroot coloured stems and pastel pink tubular flowers. Looks great with my lilies.
Needless to say, I will be keeping my eye on this place. The reference to Cupid in the journal title may apply to whether I ‘love’ shopping there in the future.
After all the rain we have had over the last week, it seems like my plants are heaving a sigh of relief with the extra moisture. Everything might be looking a bit unruly here but they are looking soooo healthy.
Well it was two days since I walked around the garden, during which much wind and rain had blown/fallen. But the change was quite amazing, a definite late Autumn garden. BUT not a moan from my lips , when I think it was only three weeks since my Open day and how lucky I was to have so much in colour and such a terrific sunny day. Dramatic change though. All the same there are still some plants still to perform. The Lilies are looking well one is just ginormous with a huge thick stem and loads of blooms. The Cardoon is impressive and the different Crocosmias are about to bloom, some already have. But cutting back can start and there will be a lot of it. I think maybe because my big round raised bed where I have lots of Geraniums which have gone over is looking particularly straggly and when these are cut back it will improve a lot. So onwards and upwards there are still elements to enjoy and if the heat wave is partly responsible for the early demise of many plants well for me it was worth it!!
And my most favourite Lily, Casa Blanca is still to come and oh the scent of that !
Check out Woodies, they have lovely dahlias at the moment priced at €7.99 each. Or two for a tenner. I couldn’t resist these two. Will overwinter them in the garage.
i thought the rose i had in my garden-the one i dug up from a delapidated garden and replanted-was Fragrant Cloud but now i’m not too sure
the new rose IS fragrant cloud and looks very different to the existing one
the existing one is beautifully scented. i was under the impression that it was fragrant cloud but seeing the 2 together i’m not sure
any rose lover out there help?
Well this is the worst year I’ve had with lilies.
I realised I planted them in the wrong place and the trees just shaded them too much.
We did trim back some of the trees that were taking over the garden and now finally the Lillies are starting to shine. Well one so far.
Very disappointing. But I’m going to make sure they are in the right spot next year. I just adore Lillies.
I have a lot of sunflowers dotted around the garden that Nicola planted
Amazing the difference in height even though both of these came from the same package. The small one is in flower which nicola is standing beside is about 5 1/2 ft tall and the one beside it is over 7 ft and just coming into flower now.
The second photo shows another one from the same seed packet. We put my granddaughters name Cara on this one. This is only about 3 ft. Strange.
Miracle grow indeed!!!
Here are a couple of photos of Mystery Day in my trough Peter.
I think the combinations work quite well.
Things are looking really bedraggled here with all the heavy rain.
tiger flower in bloom shot taken today
God I can-t believe it is 95 days since I did a journal. I have being logging in but just did-nt have much to say, plenty to do but for some reason, little to say. however I have reading some of the journals, but just could-nt find anything to say myself. However I felt if I did-nt write a journal, I would abandon the site, and this is very easy to do, because the greater the time lapse, the harder it is to return. So I have returned and will stay
Today being the first of August and so many plants have gone over but a new batch have started to flower so here are 3 I do like at this moment.
