Month: February 2015
Just thought id tell you all, last year i won a 10 month subscription for a readers prize on The Irish Garden, yes really happy i was, and i got an email last week to say i had won another one for 12 months, so pleased i am again, Thank you Gerry Daly for chosing my question on the March 2015 edition,,
2015
Feb 20th planted all the seeds from packets, saved & lidle boxes, in raised beds and by conservetory, lets hope they look lovely during summer
As you may have seen from Tina’s journal, she came to visit yesterday and I had a great morning.
Since then I’ve been doing a little potting on and taking chrysanthemum cuttings. The weather is very variable and I must confess that I have only been out to the greenhouse. It is nice out there as plants are beginning to wake up.
I got another great surprise yesterday when an unexpected orchid arrived in the post from an acquanitance, and it still in bud!
We are going to the Val Bourne’s lecture tonight at the Foxrock Garden Club and maybe we will see some of our members there. At this time of the year what else could she be speaking about but SNOWDROPS. Looking forward to it as we were not able to go to Burton House on Sunday due to the terrible weather.
Val writes for The Telegraph and many UK magazines and also has written a number of gardening books. She has appeared on Gardener’s World over the years. She has in the last few years moved house and now gardens in the Cotswolds. The lecture starts at eight and is being held near Foxrock Church, fee seven euro. The Alpine and Hardy Plant Society, Cork, are hosting Val on Thursday 26th also at eight. (Not sure of admission fee here).
Here’s the beastie that’s causing all the trouble. Won’t bother me much as until I can get to the osteopath I’m stuck in a chair again, knitting Easter animals for my grandchildren. We did have a great day out on Saturday though and got a lot done, including re-planting some pretty big pots, which is no doubt why I’m now banjaxed. I fund two bags of saved seed spuds which had gone very leggy in a drawer in Alan’s studio so planted them in the polytunnel, nice and deep so they should be ok. And I put out the geraniums and phlox I bought in Lidl last week and put the first lettuces in the poly, under a cloche of bubble-wrap. Plus some other jobs, working on for a good hour after it really started to hurt. I’ll never learn! The sun was shining and we were having fun, what can I say?
Hope the storm doesn’t doo much damage!
You will all probably think I am mad but I am after the hand lawnmower in Lidl or Aldi I always get confused with them , now it is not to do the entire site here just little bits at a time Mr. Burke bless him can take care of the real lawning but the little bits as I clear away will be lawned with the hand machine in order to get clippings for the compost etc as the weather is so bad at the moment it is going to be hit and miss with the lawning I am afraid for March. Today was awful the only real nice thing was I made home made pizza yipee and it was lovely easier than cheese on toast cant wait to have my own tomatoes for same . The great thing about home made pizza is you can decide the size therfore no waste. Happy days everyone. Towmorrow I have to go out into that garden even if its snowing I have cuttings and they need to get into the ground I have them in soil in the shed , its an open shed so there not too stuffy etc , and my rhubarb plant is sitting all alone at the front door , I am going to visit my daughter in Manchester on Tuesday only for 2 days so I really would love to leave things a little organised. Happy gardening everyone. Kathy.
I forgot to mention that last Thursday I went up to Dublin to a talk by the Alpine Society of Ireland, where I met Liga.
We had great fun and I came back with a tray of little plants too 🙂
I was surprised not to run in to any of you there!
I spent the last two days repotting my streps.
Whew, how did I get so many!!!
Here I am again , I started a blog about my garden on the first of Feb, this year . I have posted the link here where there are photos of the area that I hope to plant this year, so far the work has been a wonderful challenge and I must say that to be out in the fresh air is totally invigourating. There is a tremendous amount of work involved in this challenge as the photos will testify but I have to say it has been a throughly enjoyable experience so far and I look forward to sharing the challenge here and also gaining some much needed advise by reading posts from other gardeners and the articles posted here .
I dont think that my link works so I will try and post a little of what the challenge is all about in order to share the challenge and as a newbie gardener with very little experience I will be most happy to read any suggestions or advise other members may like to share. The land is pretty rough and windy and the aim is to plant more trees and also make a lot of no dig beds so as to enrich the soil by mulching. There are some roses and other plants scattered here and there and in summer parts of the garden look nice but my aim is to nurture this land and create a more eco friendly environment using many of the ideas taken from the permaculture way tending the land. Over the next week I will be planting a lot of cuttings and trying to establish some shelter also to the area .
Here I am again , I started a blog about my garden on the first of Feb, this year . I have posted the link here where there are photos of the area that I hope to plant this year, so far the work has been a wonderful challenge and I must say that to be out in the fresh air is totally invigourating. There is a tremendous amount of work involved in this challenge as the photos will testify but I have to say it has been a throughly enjoyable experience so far and I look forward to sharing the challenge here and also gaining some much needed advise by reading posts from other gardeners and the articles posted here .
I dont think that my link works so I will try and post a little of what the challenge is all about in order to share the challenge and as a newbie gardener with very little experience I will be most happy to read any suggestions or advise other members may like to share. The land is pretty rough and windy and the aim is to plant more trees and also make a lot of no dig beds so as to enrich the soil by mulching. There are some roses and other plants scattered here and there and in summer parts of the garden look nice but my aim is to nurture this land and create a more eco friendly environment using many of the ideas taken from the permaculture way tending the land. Over the next week I will be planting a lot of cuttings and trying to establish some shelter also to the area .
Here I am again , I started a blog about my garden on the first of Feb, this year . I have posted the link here where there are photos of the area that I hope to plant this year, so far the work has been a wonderful challenge and I must say that to be out in the fresh air is totally invigourating. There is a tremendous amount of work involved in this challenge as the photos will testify but I have to say it has been a throughly enjoyable experience so far and I look forward to sharing the challenge here and also gaining some much needed advise by reading posts from other gardeners and the articles posted here .
The weather here wasn’t good today – it was very cold and with heavy hail showers but I just couldn’t hold back any longer – the work had to commence.
I got some sweetpeas, tomatoes and peppers sown, potted on 3 perennials I got in Lidl (Echinacea White Swan, Geranium himalayense and the purple/pink form of Centaurea dealbata), got a bit of weeding done in the tunnel and my flower seeds sorted out. I shelled quite a few of the outer husks of Ricinus impala seeds and have quite a few seeds got from my plants this summer. I just hope they are viable. I’ll find out soon as I hope to sow them in the next few weeks.
Declan and Francie came and started on a very long list I had given them. They moved about 7 trees back into the scrub area and started trimming the beech hedge. Yes, I know the hedge should be cut in July/August but I couldn’t get them then. A horse chestnut planted in the gravel area down by the cottage had keeled over a few months ago and they cut that up and we were planning to move a crab apple into the hole left but we found that the hole kept filling up with water so we haven’t planted anything in there and might just fill it in.
Can’t wait to get out tomorrow again as I have the bug now.
Allendale Charm today. The other Saxifrages won’t be too far behind. 🙂
The vine in the greenhouse has made good progress recently. I am expecting a good crop of grapes this year. I wonder how PCON’s vines are doing, in particular the ones I gave him two years ago. What I handed to Fran at the time looked just like sticks and to tell you the truth, I gave them no chance. but Peter has the power.
The first strep of the season to flower
Here’s an extra video, made today when my Irish Garden arrived…
Why I didn’t think of this before I don’t know! I suggested to my farming neighbour that I would clean out one of his roadside sheds and take the dung or farmyard manure for the gardens only 50m away. Work away he said. Today ten wheelbarrows were duly transferred to various roses and veg garden. There must be another thirty in the shed still . One mans manure is another mans gold ..
If I were an artist I would call this composition, ‘Still Life With Weekend Essentials’. Some people go to the pub for a binge on Fridays after work. We go to Lidl for ours!
In case you’re wondering, the ‘Bright Eyes’ packet under the paving weeder is a Phlox Paniculata. And no, we didn’t get biscuits AND chocolates – the dog biscuits are kept in the Roses tin – honest!
Another of the ones I bought from Tipperary last year has opened for the first time today. Funny, but they say that snowdrops grow better when planted ‘in the green’, and indeed I have lost so many bulbs bought in packets. But not the case with these ones I got from Guy De Schrijver.
I removed my pleione bulbs from the fridge this morning and when I opened the tub, I was delighted to see that they had started into growth. Tiny little shoots were growing from the bulbs so it was time to pot them up. Looking forward to having them flower soon.
The March issue of The Irish Garden magazine has today arrived in letterboxes and on shop shelves around the country. It has got a stunning group of cyclamen on the cover.
This edition features articles on: Garden paving, Re-inventing shrubs and a visit to a woodland garden.
Rachel Darlington, well known to Garden.iers and already a regular contributor, begins a new page based on her own greenhouse growing.
And we are delighted to welcome Helen Dillon as a regular contributor who will write on her favourite plants.
The magazine arrived this morning and there is plenty of reading in it. Gerry Daly ha a number of interesting articles in it. I miss Rachel.
I’ve just spent the last hour or so going down Memory Lane with my journals. But when I try to enlarge the photos it comes up ‘Request content cannot be loaded. Please try again later’. Not sure how long it has been like that, I’d like to think that this little hiccup is only temporary.
The Irish Garden has just arrived in the post. Yay!!!
Epimedium, I’m only new to this plant in the last few years but I’m coming to like it a lot. It’s foliage never lots poorly or bad, odd leaves need to be cut out now and again. I will be cutting back the foliage shortly to allow the minute flowers to be seen to the fullest.
This is E. ‘orange glow’, lovely solf colouring on the leaves that is different on each leaf.
I was away in Connemara the last two days with work and had been looking at this pot at the weekend and knew the daffs were very close to opening. When I got home today it was still bright so went out around the garden for a look and spotted this explosion of tete a tete after opening in the pot. A great welcome back.
