Month: February 2014

These daffodils are in the Secret Garden, sheltered from the cold wind.

As in life the spontaneous decisions are often the best, this decision was well made.

A few quick messages were sent to Joan and Clare re a visit to Burton House, sadly Joan was not free.

The display of Aconites was just gone over. As Clare said earlier, the largest display you will see in Ireand. The owner says they would have taken a 100 years and more to reach this extent. The total planting would have been bigger than many a garden.

Interest everywhere you looked, even at this time of year. 

A delibertely divided steam in the woodland walk creates an Island. Bumped into Scrubber and his good Lady Anna, been guide by the owner, I have to say our ‘Scribe’ gets the red carpet wherever he goes. Lovely to meet you both. 

Lovely coffee shop, that also seves lunches.

Will be returning in the Summer without a doubt. Open again from April to September.

Not a bad start to the morning.Though quite damp and cool,it is fine for the greenhouse and tunnel.I hope to get more seeds on to go,and to also move any more liquid comfrey feed to marked areas there. 

As i went for the early morning power walk i checked the post box for any details from yesterday,and my March copy of the Irish Garden had arrived.A good start to the morning and a good read.

I have a few babies and if anybody wants them can pot them up. There are three there for grabs. It really is an amazing plant and grows so quickly.

Roofy requested me to show how my tomato plants had come on. Here are 20 of them. A total of 50 are potted up. About  12 more are to be potted up. Variety Alicante.

This tiny flower opened up for me. I nearly always overlook it as it is so tiny. But oh, so welcome.

Actually, two plants come under this category for me –  Pulmonaria and Myosotis. I love their blue/pink spring flowers. But I detest the way the leaves go brown before the flowers even appear.

What’s YOUR pet hate?

After a little pick up with the weather,the rain has returned.No plans until this evening.Last night i spent a few hours working on the moving on of seedlings.

The weather will get better,we hope.With the mornings and evenings getting brighter March weather can bring anything from 11 to 12 hours daylight.Time to get the hat and coat.

Good to get a show like this so early in the year. Ignore the date on the photo ,old camera and that date seems stuck!

Did my first real work in the garden today as it was a good sunny day and not cold. The ground is of course sodden but good for weeding. The amount of wood in the beds and just everywhere is amazing ,small bits , big bits and branches but in time I will get them cleared.

Having potted the Begonias yesterday, I decided to get at the Dahlias to day. I had lifted the Dahlia tubers late last year and housed them in large flower pots, some as big as buckets, in the greenhouse. To day, I was not free until the afternoon. It was probably 4 p.m. by the time I got at the Dahlias. They had grown to be quite big so I decided to divide them. Then it was a case of getting some more big pots and . In went the Dahlias and over them some multipurpose compost. Not all were potted and some will wait for another day. All of these are yellow. I know that Rachel is not fond of yellow! Looking at the number I have, it may be difficult to find space for all. By the way, among the Promotion Packs I got in Woodies there was one packet of Dahlias, Cactus Dahlias this time and three colours, dark red, pink, white and yellow, four tubers in all.

Just to put a smile on your face,

aren’t they just great for doing that job.

Just abit of history on a favourite of mine.

Introduced by Reimer Kordes-Germany.1958.                                                                Type- Floribunda.

National Rose Society Gold Medal 1958.

An oldie but a goodie.

I have been busy with seedlings of the human variety recently ! we are delighted to have a new little grandson! We thank God for grandchild No 7 and we are looking forward to the safe arrival of No 8 in about 6 weeks!

This promises to be a great night for gardeners and wildlife enthusiasts. The venue is the Southcourt Hotel, Raheen, Limerick at 8pm. Hope to see some of you there!

Thursday February 27th
The Wilder Side of Gardening
A talk and Q &A session with Dick Warner
Dick Warner is a well known naturalist, writer and broadcaster. His travels around Ireland’s canals are well documented in the RTE programme ‘Waterways’ and his columns in the Irish Examiner and The Irish Garden magazine make compulsive reading. From beetles and leeches to jackdaws and bats, Dick’s knowledge is encyclopaedic.

This plant has really settled into it’s new home very well. Lovely shaped and coloured foliage, tall and distinctive, what else could one ask for in a plant.

I spent a while this morning treating scale insect on plants. One Nerium oleander in the greenhouse has a bad infestation. I dragged it outside, where it will stay, and treated with a mixture of ground mustard seed, water and soap. I chose this treatment over paraffin as I was a nervous of using paraffin on plants. I am sure I will have to do several more applications.

So after all that messing, imagine my delight to find clianthus in flower in the garden. Yes, clianthus in flower in February in my garden!

I dismissed it when I saw the buds in autumn because I knew I would loose them but wind rock has made the tree lean and this branch is sheltered behind some other shrubs now. The buds on the exposed branches shrivelled but not this branch!

We were out today and came back just as the sun was going down looking out the kitchen window this was like a big light in the garden …so of course out came the camera …This plant was in a 12” pot with 2 other plants which were Ivy and a grass  plant …they were squashed in it so I moved this one out to a very large pot and a grass beside   it it was like that for about 6 years until I had to break the pot to get them out ….so now they are side by side and looking good and the sun makes it look even better .

Some of you will know of the small decking area in the corner at the end of the back garden here.

There was nothing else I could do with the area so I decked it over. It is a favorite place for me to sit on a summers morning.

Due to my increasing interest in tender plants, I am giving up my throne area. I picked up one of the Lidl €40 greenhouses. I fits on the spot just perfectly(after a slight trim of the hedge).

I will be fixing it to the decking nice and secure, and Clare kindly giving me some bubble wrap. Along with the wooden decking (natural insulator, shelter of the fence and hedge, I think I have the perfect spot of my plants for the winter.

And I can still just about get my seat there, but sadly no room for coffee table LOL

It’s a regular occurence when mowing the grass and it sprays up and into the Lower and Greenhouse ponds as they are on ground level, and have no barriers around them. I was just about to scoop out the glass clippings on Thursday when I realised that I could possbly be removing any frogspawn that may be there. I suppose I’ll have to get over my urge to clean it for a while more.

I decided to buy some peat pots while I was in Dealz a few weeks back. Some came in a starter seed set and others were sold separately.

I thought they were a great idea and that I could plant my seeds in separate cells etc and then pot them on.

But I was surprised to read an article that said NOT TO REPLANT them once the seeds have germinated.

I spent a while yesterday potting on some seedlings, peat pots the lot….only then today to uproot them all and peel off these pots and discard them.

I read that the pots dont always allow the roots to penetrate the pot and that the roots want to be able to ‘roam’ freely and advised not to use them.

So if you use peat pots what do you do? do you keep them or discard them? Im interested to see what everyone else would do!

I bought garlic in the local supermarket, but as there was some left over I planted the remaining cloves into a big tub. Did this mid-January. Looking fine today, and looking forward!!!

Spent a few days in Killarney and the amount of moss is incredible and ferns too.

Today was such a pleasant sunny day, and it was made even more enjoyable by a lovely visit to Fran’s house together with Joan and Clare. I had never seen Fran’s garden and really loved it, particularly the way it is shaped and has different areas and corners so you don’t see it all in one go, and the great variety of plants – so much interest even at this time of the year. I admired lots and lots of plants, and really liked all of the ferns dotted in different places. Thanks Fran for your hospitality and also Joan and Clare for the great company! (and sorry Clare for dragging you in the school run at the end 🙂