Month: March 2015
I am always tripping over the hose in the tunnel. There is no room for it and I have to manually wind it up which I find difficult with my dodgy wrists so I end up leaving it out. I have thought about a retractable hose which I have in another part of the garden but there is no wall to put it on and the post the current hose is on would not be strong enough.
Anyhow, long story short, I want to buy an expandable hose but the reviews on them are really mixed. I am favouring the Magic Hose which is the most recent introduction as opposed to the X Hose and I am currently looking for it at the cheapest price.
Any advice?
I saw these in Lidl today and was thinking I could use another compost bin. It would seem good value at €30 but before buying I wonder do any of you already have one and is it sturdy enough? They are boxed in the shop, none on display. It would go in a sheltered spot in the garden.
Also, the bin comes with a perforated base plate to “keep pests away”. I suppose they mean rodents. Normally I would place a compost bin directly on the soil. What do you think? All comments welcome.
I have just posted an album of most of some of what is in flower in the garden at the minute. Due to the weather the garden is a bit like myself, shook for shelter. As can be seen there are a good few Camellias but I didn’t get to take photos of them all. They are tremendous despite the weather. The barbatum photo shown here is from last week. Hope ye like the album.
Does this combination help sell the primula as a regular in your plot, or is their no situation where you will have them?.
Really like this Daff and one up flowering at the moment and hoping for a few more for a better display of them from last year.
A bit windy to day, little or nothing done in the garden. We should have it good around Easter Sunday. A happy Easter to all.
What a marathon. As suggested went to upload the video to You tube. It took overall 70 mins to upload a 2 minute 3 second video !!!!! Is that normal , if so hats off to those who do it regularily like Rachel. Is there a way to speed up the process does anyone know, any advice gratefully received. So I am giving the address of this hard fought for little video only because it is my very first ; sorry about the wind noise. Video is of the centre section of my garden.
This is the first in a series of videos that looks at the same border each month over a year’s period.
In it I describe what is looking good in March and give some gardening tips and advice for those plants.
Thanks to Fran and Elizabeth for the idea…
A Year in the Life of a Border – March, Cherry Border – YouTube
Another lovely daff here and such a reliable one for coming back year after year. I know Terrishoes will love this haha ; ) The wind is really howling out there tonight.
If there is one flower I look forward to every spring it’s these, I absolutely love them. I have them all over the place in the front and back garden. Spotted this fella out the front this evening poking up out of my Hellebore Argutifolius.
I have a beautiful pink streptocarpus that a friend gave me some years ago. It’s put on a huge amount of leaf lately, but the leaves are turning yellowy and th veins are very prominent. I’m not very good with houseplants but I’d hate to lose this one. Any idea what’s wrong with it, Rachel? All advice gratefully received!
I was checking the spelling of something today on my lunch break, when I saw a site called howtopronounce.com
I have tested it on several difficult plant names this evening, it may not be 100% perfect but it seems to be very helpful.
Worth book marking đŸ˜‰
Margot, here is a photo from the nursery from which I bought my doubles. I think it is probably the same as ‘Southcombe Belle’.
2 years ago I had my mare at home in my back garden. Of course this ended in a big pile of manure too. We used to load it into a huge trailer and take it away. But for the last load the trailer broke and I ended up with the pile of manure in my front drive !
We shovelled it in a corner of the drive (were my new load of manure was located in the pictures in my album … only 3 times as much ) , hoping to fix the trailer and take it away.
But the trailer was beyond repair and the manure lingered. The horse poop was already a good few months old as it took a long while to fill the trailer and now it was another few months older and I really needed it gone from my drive. So in pure desperation, I landed it in my beds. Straight on top of the weeds and all.
It was a good layer of at least 2 or 3 inches of well rotten horse poop and tiny bits of old woodchip, nothing else. I must say, it looked good and I know manure is good for flowers. But only this year I realise just HOW good. The beds that got manure are sooooo workable, so digable and sooooo easy to weed. Even deep rooted weeds come up cleanly and easy.
Definitely my best decission on my garden last year. But also the worst, as those bloody tree seeds have taken to it just as easy and are now like a green carpet.
Cant win hahaha
I don’t have to tell the members that we put the clock forward, last night. I had an extra clock to deal with this year. It was a free gift from Bakker some time ago. It looks good and keeps good time. Wasn’t it great this evening (Sunday) that we had that extra hour. Now we cannot complain that the darkness comes in so early. In fact, we could have that extra hour over a month ago.
This is my planter with the Hyacinth Dark Dimension and White Hyacinth. When repotting this last year I took out the blue hyacinth that had got in there and popped in white Anemone and is working well at the moment, very pleased with it. Was hard enought to get a good shot of it as it’s been quite windy this weekend.
Into new time! Long evenings await us and lots to do. At present it seems as if the garden is holding its breath getting ready to jump! The daffs are out and the snowdrops are gone. Some of the clumps of daffs haven’t produced much so will divided them this year and hope for better. Its still quite cold out though isn’t it?
Have been barrowing up wheelbarrow loads of compost and spreading it in as many places as possible. Vegetable beds should benefit. I have them fairly clean at this stage. Rockery has been weeded and looks a bit bare but that will improve. Tulip foliage is up and strong and I put in a good few last year so am hoping for rewards. But it is a waiting time all the same. Were I to sow seed for later plants I would be very busy but I aint got a greenhouse.
Speaking of which, I attended a talk in Myshall by a young lady. You probably haven’t heard of her before. I think she writes for Garden .ie magazine -the greenhouse pages. Rachel Loveable or Sweetman or Darlingshon or something!!! Well she was brilliant! She gave us a long list of exciting annuals and showed us lots of lovely slides of what she had done and even where she had flopped-which wasn’t often. Even though there was a coach training children (loudly) in the hall beside us it didn’t phase Rachel in the least. She was informative (very) Easy, Humourous, Approachable, Authoritative (without being superior!) Modest, Capable, very natural in delivery and had the entire room in the palm of her hand from beginning to end. She was very good at handling questions from the floor and Scrubber was very grateful that she kept his identity hidden (well I was outnumbered,26 to 1!) referring to him as the ‘gentleman at the back’. Were she to give another talk within striking distance I’d sign up right away. Well done Rachel. Garden.ie can be proud of you!
So now back to the barrowing. I haven’t had a lot of gardening days recently due to birthdays, concerts etc. all pleasant, but hope to get back to business over the Easter holidays. I got two nice small terra cotta pots, simple bowel shape for Seven Euro each-they are in lots of garden centres and they tie in nicely with the valentine pot in my side border. Now to plant them!
I acre . Extensive mixed borders of colourful cottage perennials . Large pond , waterfall & Bog garden . Woodland shade garden . Grasses/prairie planting . Annuals border . Many varieties of rose . Herb parterre , walled garden . Fruit & vegetables .
Teas . Plants for sale . Easy to walk . Groups welcome .Coach access /parking .
love this one
Thanks for all the brilliant feedback, guys. It is much appreciated.
Here is a bit of a specialised video that may not be of interest. But it’s one I feel I needed to make as there’s not much on YouTube about disa orchids.
I’m posting the link here, just in case anyone wants a look, but more mainstream videos will follow…
Bruno has just named this beauty for me as it is in the front garden under the hedge and has been there for 3 years , it seem to be happy there and I will divide it later .
Photinia ‘Red Robin’ is ticking all my boxes in the garden at the moment. The reason I planted it here was to eventually hide all those ugly electric wires at the back wall. Another growing season should do the trick. It was looking quite striking in yesterdays’ sunlight.
Another Fritillaria in flower here at the moment, a great doer and multiplies quickly too. Got a couple of hours in the garden today and most of it was spent on raking the moss out of the grass which even for a small lawn like mine is tough work but done now and mowed this evening. Tomorrow now I will aerate the lawn with the fork and brush in some sand and compost and hope it gives it the boost it needs.
Magnolia ‘Stellata’ is just peeping through. Although these flowers really take their time to open up. But it’s very pretty even at this early stage. Only its second year in the ground and flourishing.
Yesterday, at the Country Market, I sold six tomato plants, all Alicante. The other plants Beafsteak and Ailsa Craig are coming on. I will be meeting my sister soon and will have about seven plants for her, mainly Ailsa Craig. It was she sent me the Ailsa Craig packet of seeds. My other sister will get plenty when I see her and some members of her family too.
