Month: November 2013

Only had a little time in the garden yesterday and today isn’t looking great at all, sadly.

One small job that was done was a slight rearranagement of the fern trough. Some of the ferns were moved out to the main garden and some of the baby ferns were planted in their place.

I changed the position of the pieces of bog oak as they were not been seen to their best. Thanks again to Ladybird for these bog oak pieces. I had other plans for them but sometings things are best left alone, Thanks again Ruth.

November so it’s hedge-planting time again, thankfully the last bit. And it was dry this year, unlike last year when it didn’t stop raining. In a few years we’ll have a nice thick windbreak and I might just have a spot where I can plant a Japanese acer! 

on the little Euphorbia theme that is running here at the moment.

This is Euphorbia ‘White Swan’, it was looking great this morning covered in a light coating of misty rain that was falling on and off most of the morning.

From the Ashes the Phoenix will rise!

Received a pleasant surprise today as I pruned and tidied up the back garden. Under the rotted stump of a once proud Cordyline I discovered three nice 18″ baby Cordylines.

When I dug them out they even had a nice root stock so they are now potted up in a sheltered area awaiting the Spring. I wonder will they grow after my hurried potting up? Time will tell and isnt that the joy of gardening.

grass beds that JoanG posted the other day. Bu I am pleased with how my little grass bed has come on.

Still a little shuffling around to be done but isin’t there always.

The garden looks like a car crash, with added leaves, at the moment.

But I did capture some photos today, mostly of rogue blooms…

Douentza, November 2013

One of my Clianthus is in bud at the moment.

This can only end badly!

I think this photo says it all, 

Fallen golden / brown leaves, yellowing leaves on plants and a big clump of Kaffir lilies.

Just to stray off topic for a little while, ten of the staff here had been participating in Movember. For the whole of the month they have been growing what proved to be an extremely varied range of moustaches. With their “Mo’s” men raise vital funds and awareness for prostate and testicular cancer and mental health. It was a great success and certainly provided added interest for our visitors.

November has seen a few frosty mornings and the first hints of winter. The colours in our arboretums and woodlands have been exceptional this year. I hope some of you got to see.

Christmas is approaching fast and the hustle and bustle and general madness is definitely upon us. Work in the gardens has become very typical for the season, with emphasis on tidying, cutting back and mulching. We have also started planting bare root trees, including new apple varieties in our orchard which will add to our range of traditional Irish trees.

We have put our tree ferns to bed, well wrapped up to protect from the elements, or in some cases, moved indoors for the winter. Dicksonia antarctica is the common tree fern and is generally hardy in light frosts. The crowns of our tree ferns are protected by first stuffing with straw, which is then wrapped in horticultural fleece. For anyone who has a couple of specimens in their garden though, my advice would be to bring them indoors in a pot, and not take the risk.

A big job for us this time of the year is leaf collection. We compost a lot of our leaf litter, as it’s a free source of extremely good mulch for plants. Let’s face it the natural ways are usually the best! We do not however collect up the leaves from our main Lime tree avenue. These are pushed back under the trees to provide a protective mulch and feed for the snowdrop and bluebell bulbs that live there.

December is always a month where we aim to finish up projects etc, but I have learnt to be fairly realistic. Life goes on in January!  Other work for the month includes wind lopping roses to prevent wind rock, roughly digging over vegetable beds, tidying up and disinfecting glasshouses, planting or moving bare root trees and shrubs, sorting out compost bins and spreading on the surface of vegetable beds, tree surgery and general housekeeping.

We have had a great year here in the gardens and I feel that things have progressed very well. We completed our fern garden waterfall in March which added a missing element to what was already a beautiful location. We have renovated several overgrown areas of the gardens and added more paths along the river which have been well received. Our main aim is to constantly strive to improve the overall standards of the gardens and add more labels and educational information for the visitors.

I was lucky enough to spend a good half of November in Sikkim, studying native plants as part of a 12 person expedition. It was wonderful and hugely informative and this has provided great inspiration for our own Himalayan walk, so watch this space.

All of us here would like to wish everybody a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year. We hope to see more of you in the gardens next year. Do make use of the season passes, as they represent excellent value for money. I look forward to seeing you in the gardens in 2014.

These bubs flowered for me the first time this year, loved them.

What I find strange and the same thing happened last year also was, after flowering the foliage died down quickly but in a couple of months new growth appeared and the photo shows the stage the growth is at now.

The foliage will stay like this through the winter. 

Is this the norm for this type of Gladioli?

There were three little ladybirds flitting about among the Lisimachia roots today and I was really surprised to see them. Do they hibernate or die off in winter?

It was a grand mild day today and Elizabeth was visiting so we spent a few happy hours potting stuff up, dividing and replanting and getting a bit of weeding done into the bargain. 

We started off with a stroll round the garden with Elizabeth diligently taking notes of the tasks that we spotted on our way round. of course the list is only the tip of the iceberg but it is a good place to start.

A number of plants were identified that Elizabeth would like, so when we were reviewing the list we picked out those tasks first. It was actually pitch dark before i could get Elizabeth to come in – she had started planting up some bulbs I had lifted the other day in the rockery area and was determined to finish them before she came in!

I divided my big blue Geranium (labelled johnson’s blue but not sure it is) from the Stream Bed replanted one piece, potted up elizabeth’s bit and planted another bit in the Stream bed also. Two more have joined the “Plants in Waiting” corner.  Elizabeth moved the Gaura that was too close to a fairly horsey Stock – the Gaura was getting overwhelmed by the strong brilliant white of the stock. She also lifted a few Centuarea Montana, one for herself and a couple of spares. The lovely Bowles Mauve that I got from a friend recently was also planted. That part of the main herbaceous border is filling up nicely.

I also moved a Francoa “purple spike” that was planted right beside the Salvia Forssakaolii that did so well -but the delicate purple of the Francoa was drowned out by the brilliant blue of this lovely plant.

All in all, a great day’s work! It was the first proper gardening day in quite a while since the reconstruction of the compost bays is still under way!

Tomorrow night promises to be a great one for the Limerick Garden Plants Groupwhen Stephen Butler Curator of Horticulture at DublinZoo comes along to give us a much anticipated talk. Starts at 8pm at the Southcourt Hotel, Raheen, Limerick. Everyone welcome! Members €3, visitors €8, includes refreshments afterwards.

November 28th
Planting for Illusion
An illustrated talk by Stephen Butler
Stephen is head gardener at Dublin Zoo and has this to say about his talk tonight “Dublin Zoo has undergone remarkable development over the past 10 years, with an Asian Rainforest for our Indian elephants, full of bamboos and tropical looking plants, an African savannah with many South African plants adding colour through the seasons, and a densely planted African rainforest for our gorillas. Plants are now accepted as crucial to the design, and much thought goes into plant choice and layout, this talk will give an idea of how a modern zoo uses plants to improve visitors impressions, and create better habitats for our animals.” 

I was really surprised to see this Cirsium coming into full flower again this late in the year.

It is nearly December but there is plenty of colour around. What you see of the Liquidambar is perhaps the last good photo. I never had it like this before. Looking on TV, I was informed that on account of thewarm sunny summer there were plenty of sugars in the leaves, thus the great colours. I include two roses, yellow and red. I still have a reasonable number of roses. over the last few days, I was out in the front lawn raking leaves. The number must be a record, while the temperature was in single figures, you would be warm after a while. It was interesting the effect of the raking of leaves on your system. Raking those of the silver birches was not as enjoyable as doing same to acers or Liquidambars. referring to Rachel’s article in the irish Garden, I cannot understand how she is in some way against yellow. I love it.

Went to the car boot sale on Sunday.  This heavy metal display caught my eye.  It was on sale for 25 euros but I got the seller down to 20!!  He thought it could be a tea-set display unit.  My mind was on other ideas like how great would my auriculas look displayed on that!!!  Does anyone have any idea what its original use could have been.   Each shelf has a hook on it which would of course point to perhaps a tea-cup being hung from it.   Anyways, I really love it and it’ll go in the garden somewhere………………………..

I am just wondering if there are any more votes in the Which Cattleya Will Open First Competition?

So far we have Tina, Clare and Joann voting for number 6, Johnstown’s Orange.

We have Jacinta and Scrubber voting for number 8, Voilà.

We have Pwiseman and Fran voting for number 2, Bob Betts.

And we have Spider voting for general confusion!

Come on now, there’s a prize up for grabs! Do we have any more votes?

Just to tempt you all, here are photos taken today!

From the top left…

1. BLC Huatand City ‘TY Naughty’

2. Cattleya Bob Betts

3. Cattleya forbesii

4. Noid Betty Boop

5. LC Coastal Sunrise

6. Noid Johnstown Orange

7. BLC King of Taiwan ‘Dashin no. 1’

8. Guarcyclia Voilà

9. LC G.C. Roebling ‘Sentinel’

Following on from Fran’s journal earlier this is another Euphorbia that is looking good at the moment. This picture was taken on Friday after a heavy frost

I am absolutely delighted because the Epidendrum, which has been growing upwards for an age, has finally opened.

I am delighted because the colour is somewhere between red and orange.

I already have a pink one so orange is infinitely preferable.

And, besides, I do love orange!

I took this close-up of the first flower to open.

Doesn’t it look like our favourite Muppet, Beaker?

just like to share some pictures of plants that did so well   in the great summer we had ,keeps the gardening buzz going for us on these dark days

I was over in the Glasnevin area this afternoon and, with just half an hour to spare between dropping off and picking up a friend, made a flying visit to the Botanical Gardens, mainly to check out the grass beds.

It was late in the afternoon and the light was beginning to go, but gosh the grasses were still looking good!  I’ve put up a small album if you’d like to have a look.

And to cap it off, there was a brief but fantastic sunset on my way back to the car.

Striking is all I can think of saying.

Continued on tidying up and cutting back last weekend.

Saturday was a cool, dull but very calm day, just perfect for this kind of work. Once again spotted all kinds of signs of another season about to start. No idea why, but seeing the pinkish shoots of Dicentra pushing up through the soil always brings a smile to my face.

Is it just me or does anyone else find it satisfying clearing and cutting back borders at this time of year. Looking at the cleared border, seeing where another plant or two could be squeezed in, spotting what can be divided and shared.

Hoping to get a bit more done Thursday,

slowly getting there..  ;-))

Just to quash some rumours that are going around (I can’t imagine why) that I don’t like yellow, here is a photo of a lovely yellow flower I have at the moment.

Honestly, I don’t know where these notions come from! 😀

Maybe it is the mild weather this autumn that a number of plants have started to flower so early. Rhododendron ‘Christmas Cheer has been flowering since early November and a number of snowdrops are well ahead. Galanthus elwesii ‘Barnes’ is in full flower, as is one of our Irish snowdrops Galanthus ‘Mary Healy Hutchinson’, which has beautiful markings. These snowdrops are all growing in the garden and we are looking forward to a few more coming into flower before Christmas, Galanthus ‘Castlegar’ (an Irish snowdrop) and also Galanthus ‘Three Ships’. Bergenia ‘Eric Smith’ which flowers from late autumn into spring never fails to put on a show no matter what the weather throws at it. I picked my first Iris unguicularis ‘Mary Barnard’ last week and hopefully if the weather stays mild there will be many more to follow.