Month: October 2015

The old back deserves a break as lately I find potting on jobs leaves me with a very sore lower back . Hopefully once this gets finished I can potter away without pain . I downloaded some images do this will be a Hybrid type . I think I made it a little too wide at 4 feet 4 inches while the length is ok at 6 feet 4 inches. It won’t blow away anyhow and I’ve put it in place to finish off with a top and a bottom shelf . Now Iam thinking of a drawer once I figure out how to make one ha ha. I might put two wheels in it later.

Any suggestions welcomed as I know some of you have potting tables or benches. Should I put raised edges on three sides or not ? Should I leave some gaps between timbers for rain to run off? 

Mary thought she was getting some nice new Garden furniture !! 

With all the mixed weather over the past few days when the sun came out for a bit today I rushed out to capture anything still flowering after the storm the other night.

Imagine my delight when I found that the three Fuchsias I left out last winter that I thought I’d lost have suddenly burst into flower!

So take a bow – Voodoo, Royal Mosaic and Seventh Heaven ….

I took these photos yesterday evening just before it got dark. I love this Acer at this time of year. I love the two tone on it too. 

My front garden doesn’t really feature much.  I give it a little bit of attention occasionally, mostly when I’m passing by or getting out of the car I might spot something. But otherwise it is generally left to its own devices. 

Sometimes things catch my eye and yesterday this happened. I was admiring a few plants that are still in flower or just coming into flower. 

The Campanula is flowering away nearly all Summer long and still going. 

Second is a little Chrysanthemum which I bought a couple of years ago and just leave them out. And each year they come back in full force. Have a little white one too. The flowers are very pretty on this one.

Third photo is a red Dahlia. I honestly don’t know how this is surviving. Our garden looks up the main road so the wind and rain howl down this road when it’s bad and this border gets the full force. Really surprised to see how well some plants do here. Others don’t!!! 

When we moved here almost 3 years ago now, the back garden was very mature with lots of trees, lawn and a small dumping ground in the top left hand corner. 

Anything from builders rubble, blocks, drainpipes, poles, bottles, plastic bags, leaves, Ivy……you get the picture, basically a dump!!! 

So over time we have taken out all the rubbish, given it a bit of TLC and now it’s looking  less of an ugly duckling and more of a swan :). Well in my eyes anyway. 

Jimmy moved my bamboo down to this area along with my Tetrapanax and in time these should really look well together. 

I’m  toying with the idea of a very small pond in this area, under the Sumach tree here, but Jimmy isn’t too keen, think it’s the digging is putting him off, but we will see, time will tell. 

But for now I’m really enjoying this little area and in Spring it will be full of snowdrops, bluebells, daffodils and the like. 

The Nicotiana sylvestris you gave me earlier in the year are just about coming to an end now. Well impressed with this plant, it’s a keeper in my book. Many thanks.

Perlagonium ‘vectis glitter’, a gift received on the day I visited Liga’s garden back in the summer has been in flower from shortly after I brought it home.

It was either from Tina or Liga, so if either of you could remind me please, I’d love to know.

Love it.

I love colour in the garden and it’s great if you can have it all year round. 

Foliage, as we have seen from many recent journals, is beautiful at this time of year with the many different colours going on. But at the moment I’m really loving the Melianthus major foliage, especially when a new leaf unfurls. Just stunning. This is only a new plant since January and I think I need to move it as it was overshadowed by other taller plants. It didn’t flower yet but to be honest the foliage is doing it for me anyway  

And of course we love the flowers too at any time, well I do. I moved this Solanium jasmoinoides in Spring, from a South facing wall to the back wall as it’s much taller. It had to be pruned right back and it took a while to get going, I thought I had actually killed it.  But over the next few months new shoots appeared and it’s flowering away nicely now, covering the back wall as I had intended.  

Yesterday evening we headed down to Cork to a talk given by John Massey of Ashwood Nurseries and it was well worth the effort. With his wonderful photos, John brought us through the glorious days of Autumn to the snowy days of winter in his garden. He spoke of amazing plants that his garden is home to and their use in the overall design. His passion for plants was obvious and he sprinkled his talk with humourous tales. He finished with a slideshow of the most beautiful hellebores imaginable .

Margaret, Ted and Peter were there and it was great to have a chat. We also met Kevin from Coolwater Gardens in Limerick.

The photos are of Ashwood’s current catalogue. Mouth watering.

I would like to thank Mary Jo and all the committee of the Alpine and Hardy Plant Society for the great  speakers that they bring to Cork.

A hornbeam getting a bit of a trim today.

Only three Dahlias here in my garden. Two of them have already blackened so I’ll cut the flowers for indoors and hope to take them up today. The other one is one that I grew from ‘mixed’ seed given to me by Terra Nova (third photo). No sign of it blackening so far, and yet it’s in a more open spot than the other two. But I have this one about three years and haven’t lifted it so far.

To day began dull and humid, then out came the sun and for most of the day it was a case of being outside to enjoy it. I tackled the ash trees behind and at the side of the house for pruning and got two done. These trees had lost their foliage so with the secateurs, loppers and pruning saw, the two were complete. I had some pruning of the vine done a few days ago and got at it again so no more in that area until new growth comes in the new year. Photos were taken of Liquidambar(2), Acer Crimson King and Orchid Habenaria (in the greenhouse). I believe we are in for some more good weather.

My Lithops (Living Stones) didn’t flower at all this year. But today I noticed a protrusion on it and immediately thought ‘yes’!!!   But not so sure now as last year the flower was a complete surprise, appearing overnight.