Month: January 2016

today I am considering what to take out or what to put it.

i have a new medium sized weeping birch which should go to 15 or 20 ft.

also have two new hydrangeas, one is a white lacecap and the other is pink with oak leaves.

a timber panel fence is between me and my neighbour and I cannot gtow anything much near it.    I was thinking of either putting an iron           just inside the fence on which i could grow some climbers roses and also give me some privacy OR ELSE put in some trellis.     the first proposition seems the easiest for my age group and maintenance………..any advice anyone?

this garden faces east and is difficult to cosy up.   when i go to the seaside i always try and bring home some seaweek …………it nourises up everything.    i also have a compost heap going and rarely have to buy any stuff.

Yesterday a friend of mine and her husband came for lunch, so out I went in the rain and picked a few flowers for the table. The combination of pink and yellow may not be everyone’s choice but they did bring a lovely scent to the table. Manonia media ‘ Charity’ is just starting to flower and the scent is just beautiful and it is not a fussy plant to grow. 

Snowdrops, cyclmens and hellebores are making an impression at present in the garden and will only  improve as we head into February. The weather here in Waterford has been rainy and miserable since last Sunday afternoon, a big change from the sunny, cold days of last week.

Such a cold morning after a heavy frost last night. I had to walk to the nearest shopping centre as I’m having car trouble. Spotted this lovely colour Chrysanthemum in full flower outside a garden that leads on to a main road, which is very exposed. Thought it was a Dahlia until I went up closer. But I wouldn’t have seen it, or believed it, if I had been driving. Lovely bright day, but I chose to sit and vegetate once I got home. I just didn’t have the energy left.

I did go out to the back garden to have my daily wander though. Lovely to see the clumps of Galanthus coming up now, and the clumps are spreading nicely. My Spring Border is suddenly coming to life with all the Tete-a-tetes coming up, and Cyclamen spreading well too.

I think the weather is to become milder for the weekend. Maybe I’ll manage to get something done outside.

The garden is looking so neglected of late. My own fault really as I have become a bit lazy over the last two or three months. So I spend a bit of time not in the ARMCHAIR, but the dining chair just being entertained by the antics of small garden birds. Wrens are so quick that it’s quite difficult to get a photo of them. But I got some today.

we need a little cheer in the day.

Today is suppose to be the most depressing day of the year and looking out the window now one could not disagree. It is so dark and grey with little chance of the rain easing. Last week I took a few photos of some hellebores, so clean and white. I wonder what they will look like after the wet and windy weather of the last few days?

On the 10th January I posted a journal about my Aeonium tabuliforme with a little bulge in the centre. Have been reliably informed that this was the beginning of a flower. 

This is how it looks today. Just wondering will it remember to stop growing before it eventually flowers. LOL

To see snowdrops in the garden at this time is not unusual but how about daffodils. To day, a lovely day for January I was working in the garden. In the area which I reclaimed some time ago ( I called it the Secret Garden), I noticed a daffodil in bloom. Others in the same area are about to open while at the back of the house there is another, nearly open. One may feel that the spring is about the corner.

I know that gardening had hardly stopped at all in many areas further south, but here in my heavy and often waterlogged soil all gardening had to stop well before Christmas when we had that VERY wet weather.

But the past week has been much drier and calm and mild, in fact, extremely mild for January. There is that niggling thought in the back of my mind that it is very similar to last winter and the question tends to surface: “will the rest of the year follow suit”? 

But, thankfully, we are not in control of the weather so onwards and upwards, making the most of what we have!

So this week saw me getting into the garden and cleaning up the borders in the upper parts of the garden where the drainage is good and much of the borders can be worked on from paths. 

Also some planting took place! This is where I must ‘own up’!!

These are some of the plants purchased at Johnstown and now planted in the Shrub Border.

This is a super plant and has grown so well. The underside of the leaves are a super colour and were catching my eye all day yesterday as I was working close to it.

Highly recommend this one 😉

I didn’t get any work done in the garden yesterday but I did have a little walk around once the children had gone home.

Arent the little birds on the feeders cheeky. Lol

This little Blue Tit practically looked at me as if to say ‘what are you looking at??’ Before he continued pecking at the nuts that were laid out for him. 

I love how they fleet in and out without a care in the world!! 

The snowdrop season is starting to warm up with the first of the big snowdrop sales starting today at Myddleton House, Enfield, near London, the former home of E. A. Bowles, a well know galanthophile from the middle half of the twentieth century. I have just been looking at some photos of the event with both a huge number of stall holders and purchasers there, it makes any plant sale here in Ireland seem very small indeed. Two weeks from now the Snowdrop Gala in Carlow is due to kick off. The speakers this year are Colin Crosbis, from the RHS gardens at Wisley and Jennifer Harmer, whose talk is entitled ‘Meet the Galanthophiles’, sounds interesting.There is also a guided tour of Altamon’t  snowdrop collection and a number of snowdrop nurseries from the Uk are there selling snowdrops. There is a number of gardens open over the next few weeks in Dublin, Galway, Carlow and Tipperary. Full details of openings are on the back page of the current Irish Garden Magazine, so no excuses to get out visiting. 

I bought a variegated Helleborus argutifolius at our Johnstown get-together. Still in its pot, it made the perfect subject to practice my macro photography with my new camera.

I’ve a lot more practicing to do, if I can find the time and patience, but I’m happy I managed to get some ok-ish shots so far.

Spotted this this morning, also wallflowers getting going and this rather dilapidated argyranthemum has been flowering all winter! Even though it wasn’t raining most of the time today, everything is soaking.

This is a test to see how I manage putting up photos. I have put them up easily on FB.

My only surviving plant that Stephen Butler from Dublin Zoo sent me in 2014. This is meant to be very tender but it has been outside all this winter in a sheltered corner in the front corner. I had planned on taking it in but forgot to do so, and at this stage I guess it shoule be ok.

Again this plant is in a Terracotta pot and lots of drainage.

As I was working today, Aoife took the photos, job well done 😉

I have been in awe of Rachels’s magnificent Greenhouse since I first visited her garden and i have been paying really close attention to all her advice on her great videos so when I finally got myslef into my very small and unimpressive greenhouse I was totally inspired! Now I may not have the range of wonderful exotics but I’m pleased with my attempt at a bit of “staging” of the Auriculas – and the Ginger plants are doing well too – still no idea if they are hardy or not – and this lovely Kalanchoe ‘Tessa’ that I got from Liga is coming into flower too! 

I have to confess that this is the Tmenu_orderY side of the greenhouse – the rest is not for public viewing LOL

Just back from a week in Tenerife. What an island of contrasts – the south side is desert with cacti and scrub, the north is lush and marvellously floral. We picked a resort out of the hat and, yippee, ended up in the flowery side. We were drunk on the colours! Puerto de la Cruz had 4 gardens to visit, plus our balcony overlooked a pretty residential area where the hedges as you walked into town were of bougainvillea and all sorts of other spectacular plants. I must say the Burren does look very bland and gray now we’re back. I’ve never liked exotics at all, but I could be tempted if I thought they’d survive. 

The clouds just blew away so I had a meander round the garden checking up on things, and ended up going back for the camera. Astonishing what’s in flower. We also have a resident in the as-yet-unfinished circular lily pool, so we’d better get our fingers out and finish it! I was feeling very post-sunshine and gloomy, but it’s cheered me up no end. 

I bought two packets of this Iris last autumn just because of the picture on the packet. I am very pleased with the result and in the low light this morning the colour of the flowers was so intense. Hope they continue to increase over the years as some early flowering irises seem to dwindle away.

Beautiful sunny blue skies here in Waterford after a dull grey morning.

I must admit I too use Facebook for gardening, not nearly as much as here but there is one page I really like and it is called Hardy Tropicals UK. The gardens on there are just stuning and I get so much tips and information on what I could do here. Anyway there is one man in paticular than has an absolutley super garden and was selling seeds of plants he grows himself and quite cheap too so I indulged and bought a few and look forward to trying them. I will do everything as per instructions to try and get these going.

abutilon hybridum

fuchsia boliviana

iochroma coccinea

beschorneria albiflora

1st sunny day here in a long time but I was at work so no gardening but I did manage to enjoy the sun as I was working outside.

I’m thrilled to see any early spring bulbs or flowers emerging but the hellebores are a special delight.  

These are two doubles, one called Harvington’s Double Red which is actually a deep pink and the other an unnamed beauty which Krista gave me a couple of years ago and has really taken off this year; thank you Krista. 

I lifed a section of paving slab out of this section of a step about three years ago. I planted 5 of these lovely bulbs. This year it looks as if there will be about 14 + blooms, that is a great return.

I have more of these bulbs in a large pot just 4m away and these have totally gone over, isn’t it great how things like this happen to extend interest in our gardens.

I’m putting up an album of my favourite flowers from our holliers. The colours were so lovely, and they all seemed to thrive so well. The north side of the island is damper and cooler than the south, and the flowers absolutely love it. Most were in the gardens there, the Jardín Aquatico, Jardín Orquideas and the Botanical Garden.

With the weather so miserable today I thought you might  like to have a look at this video of The Snowdrop Week in Altamont Gardens from a few years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/letter-from-ireland/2013/02/19/dac385ca-722e-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_story.html