Month: November 2014

I was determined to finish the clean-up on the Front Border today! It was a beautiful day so first I took my morning walk  along the seafront to the pier. The sea was like glass and the sun was warm as I just took time to drink in the sheer beauty of it all.

That was followed by a walk around the garden with the camera, the sun was too bright really for good pictures but it gave me time to enjoy the garden and to marvel at nature.

The robin was flitting about and he seemed to be saying “what about some digging” so it was time to get started!!

A lot of dividing of asters and sedums, dug out all my Obedient Plant, drastic I know but it is a terrible runner, so, although I love its late flowers, it was going to take over.    Then I dug up a huge clump of crocuses, I’m sure there were more than 100 bulbs in it, and also a large clump of daffodils. Each year I remove daffodils from this border but there always seem to be some left!! Anyway, with the encouragement of Mr. Robin I completed the clean-up!

But there were still those bulbs! My poor back! But they are all now planted in the Orchard with some 25 Galanthus ‘Elewessi’ that arrived by courier with my order from Heritage Bulbs this morning. More of that on another day!

Really like this combination of foliage. The Crocosmia will be coming out of it as it has served it’s purpose of filling the spot. Other things of more interest will be going in.

Thinking of what Monty Don said in that recent TV programme, ”cram the plants in at first, then take them out later on as needed”. So I didn’t over plant at all, ever. LOL

I wonder if it’s sheltered spot, but the Acer is showing no real colour all so far.

Got home this evening to see that my seeds had arrived from Rachel from her competition. Really delighted with these lot. Can’t wait to get sowing. A Question for Rachel is there any I should sow now or should I wait until March?? Again thank you so much.

The following two plants are looking good now in the garden.

The first is Pennisetum villosum ‘Cream Falls’. This is one of the grasses I wrote about in my article in the December Irish Garden. When you see this photo you will understand why I rank it among my favourites.

Oooh, spoiler alert. The December magazine isn’t out yet!

The second plant is the hardy ginger, Cautleya spicata, which I think I journaled about before. It is also still looking good.

Went to a great talk tonight by Deborah Begley all about hers & Martin’s garden Terra Nova. It was great to see how the garden was when they first arrived and how it progressed into what I can say is one oustanding garden. Everything about the garden is just fantastic and the range of plants she has is insane. Deborah is a true plantaholic and a patient one too as she has sown seed that can take possibly 2 years to germinate alone or even 7 to 10 years to flower. The talk for me really draws you in and would make any gardener even more enthusiastic to go out and really get stuck in because any work they have done and it’s a lot of work over the years it pays off. I learned quite a lot from the talk too and she really knows her plants. A great talker and also makes the talk light hearted and fun. I really enjoyed it tonight so thank you deborah for coming to cork and giving such a great talk. Also I finally got to meet Martin, hi Martin it was very nice to meet you.

Also tonight Deborah brought along some plants for a draw and my number got picked so took the Equisetum Camtschatcense, she gave em great advice about this plant and warning about it being invase so into a little barrell in the ground or builders bucket and it should be fine. Love it and grows about 5 foot tall.

And aswell the IGPS had a plant sale so got a lovely Geum Chiloense Red Dragon.

Bidens Hannay’s lemon drop, is a late season flowering plant, but not sure if it’s still meant to be looking so good in November. Another bonus to be enjoyed.

I have Elizabeth to thank for this one 😉

Amateur Gardener’s Calendar 1847 by Mrs Loudon – “General Observations and Work to be Done in November”

Jane C. Webb Loudon (1807 – 1858) was an author and one of the first science fiction writers. She became interested in agriculture and gardening, but finding the books on the subect of gardening overly technical, she decided to write her own.

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There seems to be lots of large spiders taking refuge indoors from the cold in the last few weeks. I found this little chap in the sink in my workshop a couple of days ago. He (She) happily posed for a portrait. Apparently this is called a common house spider. When I posted this picture on Google+, it caused a lot of alarm as US readers thought it was a brown recluse!

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The silver ragwort (dusty miller) turned out well this year and I collected lots more seed. Too bad I’ll have to wait two years for new plants. I tried sowing seeds but unlike the foxgloves they didn’t germinate after collection. Either it’s got too cold or the seeds have to be stratified or exposed to cold temperatures for germination to occur. Anyway the plants grew quite big after flowering. I hope they aren’t going to get too straggly next year.

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Finally picked the last of the tomatoes today. Very happy with the crop I had, with just four plants being plenty for Steve and myself. I did think at one stage that I would end up with lots of green ones for chutney. But I persisted, and left them in situ to avail of all that lovely late sunshine. 

Believe it or not, but those little ones are ‘Gardener’s Delight’. I’ve never seen them produce such small tomatoes. But the other ones are ‘Ailsa Craig’ and ‘Shirley’ which produced good-sized tomatoes.

I have now removed all tomato plants, which were all in pots so it was handy enough. And now I can push my geraniums in further to make more room. Mind you, I think I have just about everything in there at this stage that will need protection. Courgette, cucumber and gourd plants taken away also. Must remember to start off the gourds earlier next year.

Tomorrow I’ll cut back the vine which is in at the very back. Pity I didn’t read Dick’s journal before I went out there today.

The postman came today with a nice big box for me.

It contained three new, named epiphyllums.

Cactus orchids may be the next big thing for me since I was so impressed with the two that flowered this summer.

The photo shows Epiphyllum cooperi, which I grew from cuttings given me by RitaD many moons ago.

I was completely blown away by the enormous exotic flowers they produced and since then I’ve had visions of these beauties, cascading flowers from hanging baskets on the roof of my greenhouse!

It’s a nice thought for winter anyway 🙂

To day, I got working on the vine. The amount of material, I got off it was away ahead of other years. The leaves of the vine were making the greenhouse look messy. Now there is no more of it for some time again. The greenhouse is more roomy now and some Pelargoniums are gone in. Next time I am in it will be a case of washing the inside of the glass and putting back as much bubble wrap as possible. Some more pruning was done to the ash trees nearby but lack of daylight and drop in temperature said: time to go in. 

If someone tells you you have enough plants and you don’t need any more, stop talking to them!

You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.

What joy to be able to do an arrangement so full of Summer colour even in November.

i’ll just let the flowers speak for themselves.

happy to see this flowering still

Yesterday I caught a glimmer of colour behind some of my Escallonia. Couldn’t believe it when I spotted Verbascum chiaxii in flower again, despite me having moved it earlier this year just before it flowered the first time. Needless to say, I then got out the secateurs and did a bit of judicious pruning.

Lost the garden bug over the last while and the effects are really showing. Garden looking realy sad for itself, thankfully mother nature is giving a helping hand with the continuing display of fantastic colours.

If I wasn’t working today I would be out there now but so be it.

Enjoy the day while you can, lovely here at the moment but rain on the way.

1st November has arrived and a lovely gardening day so I decided to get out there and make a start! I had been busy with other things and the garden is still quite colourful so I had left it to look after it’s self for the past few weeks! (By the way, its not very good at that.:)

Today I wanted to tidy up the new Border/ Hedge along the side of the orchard that is adjacent to the area where visitors to the garden are asked to park.

I put up a journal about this project earlier in the year but for the benefit of those of you who may have missed it let me explain that previously there was just a wire fence along there. Now there is a row of Rose ‘Harlow Carr’ interspersed with Pittosporum ‘Irene Patterson’.

I had cut back the roses a few days ago and today I cleaned and edged the border. Now it ready for the seaweed that a neighbour has promised to deliver when he gets his tractor fixed!! Life wasn’t meant to be easy!! Ha-ha!

All Saints and all colours. I have this Liquidambar for some time. Every year the colours seem to be different, sometimes lighter than before, sometimes, darker. When I showed it about a year ago,some of the iers said that they would buy one. It never tends to get really big and would suit a small garden.