Month: June 2014

We have been away quite a bit this month and I havnt had time for much gardening or writing journals but I did have a quick peep at what you are all up to and you seem to be doing a lot more work than me!

We were in Donegal for a week helping Periwinkle with her open garden, it was a huge success this year with the weather playing a big part and I have never seen so many roses open for her weekend, all looking really lovely as was the whole garden. As usual she had put in a huge amount of work to get it looking really great.

Then a quick visit to Waterford where we went to see Mount Congreve, I really loved this place and will definitely be going back, I can just picture it in Spring with the rhodo, magnolias etc. In a couple of weeks the walled garden will come in to its own with the herbacious plants all getting ready to show off. I loved the border with roses, peonies edged with nepeta, really stunning. We were lucky to get reasonable weather but not great for photos as there was a misty rain which later in the day turned into downpour.

I thought of Mary & Paddy’s garden which I know must have been near but I reckoned they would be up to their eyes preparing for their open day today so decided it would be better to wait till our next visit to Waterford. I have seen their garden in Spring and would love to see it at this time of year too.

I feel I am having a feast of beautiful gardens at the moment and it is a great way to celebrate life!

I spotted this Cosmos in I think Wisley last year and loved it straight away. The ramdom closed or tubular petals give a great effect. It has been a long time since last year, buying the seeds over there, waiting to sow them, germination, potting on, hardening off.

A finally the first one opens.

Happy Days.

My herbaceous clematis ‘Gazelle’ is just coming into flower. Very dainty flowers and much smaller than most clematis.

… and the rains stops ……

I managed to get a lot done today despite the showers – had to resort to the raingear but I’m satisfied with what was achieved.  I had about 25 small escalonias in pots since last year that I grew with the intention of creating a hedge but over the winter and spring I kept changing my mind as to where to locate the new hedge. It will be evergreen and what I wanted was something that would ease the wind across the garden.

I finally settled on a surround for the Sedum Bed. This bed is very successful but I want to create a bit of an air of expectation in that part of the garden – at the moment there is quite a broad path and the whole area can be seen from the deck – so give it a few years and there should be a better definition to that area.

On one fo the many trips to the Compost area I noticed a new angle on the Hot Border – the Kniphofia really look like Red Hot Pokers, don’t they!

Not trying to compete with Fran (LOL).  Here’s my Penstemon ‘Garnet’ for comparison if it’s any help to you Tina.  Photo from July last year; it’s coming into flower again now but there’s no point in going out to take a photo at this hour!

the Water man came and we are good  to go, water test came back good so we dont need to much filtration  just got to dig trench from borehole to cottage and they reckon it will only take a day or less to fix it all up.We have had a lovely evenig the sun came out so we picked more strawberries and had a look at the spuds not ready yet middle of next month we think. John cut the grass and the place looks beautiful.

Looking good right now, this is The Pilgrim.  A David Austin rose, it has a beautiful scent and I like it’s form a lot.

Arrived home from Country Market and had lunch. Included in the meal was the first of the tomatoes. Delicious.

This time…

3rd attempt to upload…

There has been a nice lot of rain now you can see everything picking up again planted out some french beans and sowed another row of beetroot. in the greenhouse we have sown wallflowers a bit late usualy we like to have them in in May. Today we hope to have a visit from the Waterman from Galway to see if our borehole is viable to come intothe house should save on the water bill in the long run.this pic was taken few days ago it is now out fully im well pleased with it.

This is some kind of conifer, growing extremely slowly. It has been in my garden for ever but I did not plant it and it had no label so I don’t know its name. This morning it looked like it was covered in thousands of diamonds, glistening with drops of water in the sunshine. I’m not a great fan of conifers in a small garden, but I like this one.

After all the rain yesterday and overnight the morning’s misty with a blue haze, so I think the sun might be coming back. Just what the gardener ordered!  I’m not very good with sweet pea seeds, but one of the few that did germinate and survive was this one, ‘Captain of the Blues’. Took me a few tries to get a good shot, but then I remembered Andy’s advice: lower to the left, bend from the knees, and exhale…. 

Not even sure where this one came from as I don’t remember even planting it. It’s in the sunny border near my Astilbes, and to be honest set first I did think that’s what it was. 

But then all the leaves and buds appeared. 

Isnt it it a pretty little thing. Only very small. No name though. Any ideas? 

Love this evergreen succulent in the Alpine Circle. It’s just begininning to flower now. In another few days there will be an abundancy of colour.

This morning I decided to tackle the lawn as it was crying out for help………….it was full of weeds as we feed the birds  ( or should I say our son feeds the birds to take photos of them…)

I treated it last week with feed and weed and it turned black and looking out at it looked awful as I am up steps to my kitchen window and can see very clearly what a mess….so this morning I skipped the walk with Hubby and decided to tackle the problem …..I spent 5 hours scraping ….mowing  and scraping again 4 times more …lunch time came and then back out scrape with the rake …..and I just felt a little triclke of rain   …oh the heaven have  opened …all done and I took this photo as it was getting late and RAINING ….yippee.

Look at the black grass lets hope it turns to green.

Growing Nasturtiums here both in pots, and open ground. Love their zingy colour. Nasturtiums in the ground are fine. Potted Nasturtiums never cease to be plagued by black aphids. Pardon me if I don’t use them on my salad!

One little bit of colour in the Deep Shade area of the previous journal is Geranium St. Ola. I got this plant from Long Acre plants in England and was ordered for this area. First few flowers are showing now and I’ll b ewatching this plant closely to be sure it’s ok.

A pure white Geranium is a first here and I’ve got to say I like it.

At the far end of Angela’s corner is an area that only gets sun for a tiny part of the day and only at this time of the year. This area was only planted up in early spring and it has to said that it is a bit of a gamble as to how well the plants will do. But so far all is looking good, the real test will be next year and see than how eveything has done.

The is little or no colur here (yet) but I really enjoy the shape, form and texture plants alone can give. One mistake I did make was planting Astibe Inshriach Pink behind Hosta Sum and Substance, what was I thinking? That will be sorted easily for next year.

There are no sign of flowers on the Astilbe but that may be down to when I divided it. Even if it never flowered in this area, I would be happy to see it’s lovely glossy leaves.