Month: June 2015

With no name – will have to go through my notebooks.

I planted this into the Tropical area earlier in the year when I planted the entire area. There was just a few shoots of green on it. It has added nearly a metre of growth, I can the first flower buds forming.

These are super climbers and I can see it reaching the top of the post and streching accross the rope by summers end. Just what I had in my minds eye when I put in these posts. Really delighted with this result.

I’m now only a month from my Open Day so yesterday as i had some delightful guests (Elizabeth and her friend Carmel as well as my daughter ciara) I took advantage and had a complete relax day, full of garden chats and little strolls around whcich really recharged the batteries! Ciara stayed down and we tackled the freshening up of the paintwork on some bits and pieces in the garden.

After two whole days and not a single weed pulled I was definitely having withdrawal sysmptoms – so in the brief time while Ciara was getting ready to travel home before I gave her a lift to the bus, i found myself down on my knees as usual with a trowel in my hand attacking some of the pots on the deck that hadn’t had their spring planting tidied up. 

Can’t wail to get back to the REAL gardeining tomorrow LOL

I did take time to water my Ipomoea in the greenhouse – first time I’ve had any success with these – the photo doesn’t do them justice – the one on the left is reappy pale blue with the dark stripe, and the one on the right is deep blue with a strong magenta stripe!

I did manage to take some photos today, like the contrasts in this one.

A few years ago I got the urge to have a ‘living sculpture’ in my garden. Hazel kindly donated some willow cuttings and I set about planting them with a heron in mind in the lowest part of my garden. I was assuming the lowest would be wettest. Any that I had left over I gave to my next-door neighbour. He was letting out his property and wanted to make a willow arch.

All was doing ok with mine, until I forgot to water them. They dried out and died. Lesson learnt.

But Peter, next door, is letting out his house once again now, and cutting back his arch this evening. I’ve been gifted some nice stems to try again. A different shape in mind, and a lot more diligent about my watering regime.

It’s nice to see Hazel’s willow going from ‘Billy to Jack’ so to speak. Thanks Hazel. And thanks, Peter Next-Door-Neighbour.

Fingers crossed now.

This is the first flower on my iris Kilmurry Black.  I think it looks well planted near Hordeum jubatum..

Sending a ‘THANK YOU’ to Hoeys for this Iris sirberica.   You gave a big clump of it to me at get-together 2 years ago!!!!   First time of flowering!!  It’s in the perfect place at the top of slope and I can see it from my dining room window, so thanks again Hoeys.

Here is Diplarrhena moraea in flower.

Thank you, Mary (MaryJoe) 🙂

I grew this climbing rose from seed I got from Deborah of Terra Nova.

This is its first flowering.

It’s nearly tall enough to grab the lower branches of the pear tree it is planted under.

The colour is really special. I feel like I see with a bee’s eyes when I look at it 🙂

Very fragrant, open to day 18 June.

Now it’s almost as bad as mentioning the C word in June lol.  So I won’t mention Halloween, Ooops there I said it !!! 

The Grandchildren were over one day and I had spotted some pumpkin seeds in the shops. So I said we must plant them for Halloween. To say they were shocked was an understatement.  Growing pumpkins???????? They come in the shops don’t they????? This was the conversation as I tried to explain to them that not everything in the shop just ‘appears’. 

So we sowed our pumpkin seeds and yesterday I noticed some great growth on them. Two huge leaves have popped up. The ladies will be delighted when they come to see them. I hope they survive and we get pumpkins out of them. Otherwise they will be so disappointed at Halloween, plus me too 😉 

About three years ago Brendan and I made the trip to Donegal for Dorothy’s annual Open Day. What a treat it was! A truly beautiful garden and a warm and friendly welcome! As we wandered round the garden I spotted a Queen Elizabeth rose – it seems to have fallen out of favour recently but it is a rose I have loved since my first gardening attempts in London in 1969. I inherited a very overgrown one there and didn’t have a clue what to do with it! I got my gardening advice in letters from my dear mother at that time (pre-internet !!!) so when I described this rose – it was about 7 feet tall and was completely blocking the light in our sitting room – and the blooms were all at the top where they couldn’t be seen properly – she replied by return of post!

The advice was terrifying – Cut it back hard! Gulp!

But I trusted my mother’s gardening knowledge so I did as I was told and down it came to about 2 feet and I spent weeks and weeks waiting anxiously to see if I’d killed it, but instead it rewarded me with a magnificent display – and continued to do so as long as i lived in that house!

So I had been looking for Queen Elizabeth to grace my Rose Garden without success!

So move forward to Dorothy’s garden – I told her the story and she suggested I take a few cuttings – now I had no really confidence that they would strike but with Dorothy’s encouragement I gave it a go!

Took a while, but here she is! 

Thank you so much Dorothy, not just for the cuttings, but more importantly for the encouragement to try them! 

After I finished planting out the remaining grow house seedlings and potted on plants today i decided that the only plants I wanted in the grow house were tomatoes and peppers . This has been achieved apart from the 144 young Geums which are quiet happy it appears. The tray of Poppy seedlings have also been planted out in plugs about the place . Sink or swim now chaps you are on your own ! Eldest daughter arrived home with a nice pineapple to make some smoothies. I found myself regarding the leaves with interest . A little Googling says you can grow these from the crown so the experiment begins….. Twist. Off the leaves and suspend in a glass of water until roots appear. This could take a while ……

I really like this corner area of the back garden with the bamboo, heucheras and Hellebore. They are all enjoying the shaded spot and can be quite wet too as I would water the bamboo alot.

Finally this has flowered for me on it’s 3rd summer here, it is a small flower and has a second bud but don’t think the second will flower. Think I will move it again and hope for a better display but all in all delighted to see it. The photo doesn’t do the true blue justice I think.

Hopefully when Wee Davey sees the Dianthus cuttings he and I took on 13th July last year, it’ll give him an extra boost of enthusiasm for gardening. All starting to flower now. He’ll be a Happy Camper. I’m actually quite surprised to see flowers as the cuttings were really tiny.

Hello all,

My brother in law moved houses and has a new garden, most of his plants i was able to mname but one, so i would appreciate any help in idefying this one, Thank you all in advance, it had long green leaves like those of  the Montbretia

Last September, I took cuttings of roses. This one, Evelyn Fison, I think is now in bloom, quite early, you might think.

I noticed this honey bee on the geranium. I have seen plenty of Bumble Bees this year but very few Honey Bees. I wonder what is the problem. A friend of mine kept bees for years but not now. In the Country Market, Wicklow honey is available for sale but not Carlow honey. Some people have been looking for honey made by bees within a short distance.

This is the sum total of my lovely last years Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’. The label!  So, what did I do wrong?

Following on from my journal of 9th June, visits are now booked for Friday 10th July to Knockrose garden and Shirley Beatty’s.

A third garden is expected to confirm at the weekend and I’ll post a journal with all the details early next week.

A number of you have already expressed interest in going and perhaps others may like to join us.  Information about the gardens is on www.dublingardens.com .

Abutilon

The colour orange features quite a bit in my summer garden. But one of my favourite self-seeding annuals are Californian Poppies (Eschscholzia californica). Can get a bit untidy after a while. But the strong colour more than makes up for that.