Month: April 2015

Have a great day and weekend!

Happy Easter to you all.

A very happy Easter to you all

It’s that day when the gardening tea-breaks involve chocolate. Gotta love it! Have a great day outdoors whatever you do. 🙂

I wish you all a very Happy Easter …..

Happy Easter to everyone on Gdn.ie.    Went to a Dawn Mass at Murisk Abbey just opposite Croagh Patrick.  Left home at 6.30am with a couple of friends for the 7am Mass.  A foggy morning here but at Murrisk by the sea, it was clear.  Just a beautiful morning and the sun came up through a ghostly mist.  Did my heart good!!!

Happy Easter, everybody.

Jacinta recently published about the colour orange. Here’s mine…

Monster Cattleya – What Happens to the Greedy ! – YouTube

Happy Easter to you all.

I spotted these words on Jimi Blake’s F/B page, I’m sure he won’t mind me borrowing them.

Very Apt!

After seeing all those gorgeous double Primulas here (that’s didn’t even know existed) I started looking for some to purchase. I saw one variety in the local garden store but that was 6.99 for a little plant. So imagine my surprise when I passed a little mixed goods store in town today and saw some for sale outside for 3.99 each!  One looks just like the one in the garden store. So I couldn’t help myself but buy 3. Do you think they were good value?  

On tidying up some plants yesterday noticed plenty of new shoots on this plant. Surprisingly did well through the winter and look forward to an even better display this summer.

I bought this two years back in johnstown .It is filling out nicely and i think it is one of my favourite primulas .

First auricula to flower this year for me .It is one from the Barnhaven seeds 

A very nice colour .I would describe it as a very deep blue

This is for a friend, I think it is Laurel 

This Rhodo is one of the very first plants I bought for the garden and was looking great today with plenty of flowers. It seems to really like it spot out in the front shade. Thanks to Sean last year for the I.D. I think he posted about the same recently.

I  was looking at photos from this time /date last night and flowers that were open and I am about 4 weeks behind am wondering is it the same with you all ……

I went down the bottom of the garden just to see any damage and OMG ….so many pots upside down  empty and a very large window box smashed on the ground  but all ok as I got all up and have to get another box …..

But a suprise was this beauty open ………..love the white .

Hope you all enjoy the weekend ahead and get some time in the garden at some stage as the weather is on the up.

Despite the terrible windy weather of the last week or so the garden is still endevouring to put on a display. The primulas are now flowering their socks off but the poor magnolias are taking a terrible battering from the wind that seem to be relentless. I have put up an album of plants that are flowering now and Jacinta was wondering how slow magnolias are to grow in one of her journals a few days ago, so I have put in a photo of Magnolia ‘Leonard Messel’ which is about ten years old and Magnolia ‘Waterlily’ which I planted to mark the wedding of my son David and his wife Mary five years ago. 

I did a journal last month on placing the Fascicularia into a piece of thick Eucalyptus bark that Scrubber had given me. I had made nest of chicken wire lined with weed membrane wedged into the bark.

Four times since then, either the plant of the whole thing was found on the ground. A large srew was fixed in place in place to support everything but that didn’t work.

I have to say I was really puzzled, but with some time and watching I sussed it out finally. 

Depending on the weather, sun, rain whatever, the piece of bark which is basically a semi circle shape opens and closes as the wood expands and contracts thus allowing the plant to fall out.

You just never know what nature is going to throw at you in the simplest of ways.

But all is well I know how to fix it 😉

Tought this Euphorbia was looking fantastic today. really great colours on it and just really stands out in the front garden border.

Hi All,

I visited my local Co-Op and found this fab Pieris, always thought that it was just the cream little flowers so was over joyed to see this little beauty, going t plant it up in a nice big pot until i decide where in the garden it would look nice when it grows up a little.

In light of her growing awareness of the need for environmental sustainability, my wife Rachel Darlington has made the dramatic decision to turn over her garden, DOUENTZA, to the production of potatoes. On 1st August 2015, the ENTIRE SITE will be ploughed, so it is strongly recommended to take advantage and visit this charming garden for the last time during her open days this summer. Naturally, Rachel feels somewhat emotional on the subject, and has asked me to make this post on her behalf. Thanking you all for your understanding and support.

I have been doing a bit of painting as there is an Exibition on at the art class  just for us painters ….so I thought this would do but it is to big as we must have a special size …..

I love the colours in this ………..and am now on an other smaller one .