Month: January 2016

Perhaps because the sunny days have been few and far between I’ve been aware that the special light quality of January sunshine is very special. When the sun made a brief appearance yesterday I did my best to capture that light. Please check out if I am right in the January 2016 Helebores album!

Jean-Baptiste has been working away at the willows for me and has trimmed the willows in the whole garden and shredded the proceeds as well! We got very brave yesterday and pollarded two of the Salix Alba Chermesina (with the pretty red stems). I’m hoping they will grow a nice mannerly head on them this year!

The Tulips are making ground every day . At least in the containers I should remember to lift them ! 

Bought a 25 KG bag of peanuts today . They increase in price every year though. I was feeling generous so happy dining little feathered friends . €39 a bag makes it considerably cheaper than buy in the 1 or 2 kg bags . 

The weather might not be very pleasant at the moment, but it’s very obvious that Spring is in the air. What with all the bulbs popping up all over the place. Getting itchy feet to get out and do a bit at this stage. Lovely to see this wallflower starting to flower I think it’s E. ‘Golden Sunset’ or something like that. Must look for the label later today. And it has such ‘oomph’ with its sunny colour. Another one that brought a smile to my face yesterday was my Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’ (in the greenhouse) which has been flowering for months on end. And of course, you just can’t beat the Hellebores and Galanthus right now.

i bought a couple of Fuchsia plants last year in Tesco and popped them into two terracotta pots I have here. They did well over the months and then when Winter was settling in, I took them into the back garden and left them sitting along the side of my potting shed. 

They are slightly protected but they do get the Wind coming down the side of the house. 

To my surprise, one of them hasn’t stopped flowering all Winter long. The other one has given up I think at this stage. 

But this one is really coming into its own just now. As I say no name for it but it does cheer up that little corner where the she’d stands. Obviously it likes its little corner where it has been protected for so long. 

Other things needed taking care of yesterday so no time for the garden. I was very wet and windy, the rain cleared off from lunchtime. It never fails to hold my interest watching the Bamboo at the decking flexing and blowing in strong winds.

Plans for this morning may have to change as it has just started to lash rain. Time will tell, I had planned od attacking the fern bed in the front garden, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Hope you all noticed the strech in the evening yesterday which was really obvious due to a clear sky.

Happy Days, just checked Rainfall Radar, rain should clear in about an hour 😉

………….an addict!! 

I confess I just can’t resist. It sends my serotonin levels sky high. 

After being to the get together and spending the weekly wages on plants, I thought I might just have a look at their website, I suppose to research the plants I bought sounds good!!! 

Wrong idea? Not at all , because then you see things you ‘missed’ while out and about in the garden centre on the day! 

Like this gorgeous Heuchera ‘Black Taffeta’ and it’s gorgeous dark curly foliage. 

Also you could easily have missed this Acanthus ‘Tasmanian Angel’ with its beautiful pinkish flowers but gorgeous variegated leaves too. 

Plus the Eryngium ‘Neptunes Gold’ and of course I never did get to look at all the wonderful seeds they have on display and I could easily have missed out on the new Cosmos Xanthos, their new yellow variety. 

Well fear not as they have all arrived safe and sound and waiting for the day they are introduced to their new friends;) 

And just in time to be introduced to the new yellow and white Begonia I picked up in Woodies yesterday!!! 

See all in the day of………….  😉 

A couple of weeks ago i posted a photo of the flowers of Hamamelis ‘pallida’ after it had started flowering and today i would like to show it in all its pomp. It truly lights up the garden on these dull days. The second of my witch-hazels, ‘jelena’ is just starting to flower and i will feature it in the near future.

In the same post of a couple of weeks ago i also showed the buds on my Chimonanthus praecox ‘luteus’, surely one the sweetest scented winter flowering shrubs and today i am showing  a close up of one of its opened flowers which has an almost translucent quality. I paid well for this shrub a good few years ago and even though it is not the most of spectacular of shrubs for most of the year, it really comes into its own at this time of the year and i wouldn’t be without it.

Rhododendron ‘polar bear’ is a shrub that looks good all year round with its lovely large foliage and it has really grown very strongly in the last few years. When it flowers, late in the Rhodo season, it has beautifully scented blooms. Heartily recommended.

spotted a flower on Silene today. And last year’s coreopsis is still flowering away.

I haven’t posted anything for a long time but the garden was looking really nice through summer 2015 and into the Autumn.  Winter days have made it look pretty untidy and the work must start again as we come into the Spring.  Towards the end of September last, prevailing circumstances following redundancy in 2013 left me with no option but to put my house on the market which is why I take the opportunity to post this journal.  My house and garden deserves a new owner who would have a special interest in the garden itself.  It’s a fantastic space for the garden lover and I hope that when it sells it will go to someone who will really enjoy bringing it on, perhaps even more than I have been able to.  So if anyone knows anyone with a keen garden interest who is looking for a Dublin 20 location please feel free to pass on a word about my home and garden.

In the meantime because there will be viewings on the horizon, I will be working hard to keep the garden looking well as we welcome in the spring weather.

Garden Ireland’s email saying “Start early potatoes” prompted me to write.

Well I did say I would be back, but which year !    Anyway just back from The Alps last Monday in Austria having visited my son and his partner and to see our latest grandchild #11 Heidi, six months old now, again.

Lovely to be in the pure whiteout which we rarely get here. Lots of budding under the snow on the shrubs and sprouts in the ground inspite of it being -7°C, although they have had a very mild winter so far over there even in the Alpine Tyrol region.  It’s so beautiful there and in the summer too.

Will be intouch again soon, Cheers for now ………Ivor

I went into Lidl this morning to buy a few hellebores, but was a little disappointed as very few had open flowers and I do like to see what I am buying. However, I did pick up two plants, one which looked very nice, a double dark maroon, but labelled Hellebore ‘Double Ellen Green’. The other one had a dark red bud and was labelled Hellebore ‘Double Ellen Picotee’, but ‘Picotee’, will have to wait and see. If I am around any of the Lidl stores over the next few days I will call in and see if anymore of them have flowered, as you could not argue with the price.

A nice article in the RHS magazine, The Garden, this month on hellebores and another  one on Iris. Peter’s Iris ‘George ‘ is mentioned as well as some other fantastic looking flowers with brilliant names like Iris’ Sea Green, Iris ‘Velvet Smile’ and a beauty, Iris ‘Starlight’ which has a most delicate marking of sky blue.

Wild and windy here in Waterford this afternoon, so will spend the time reading and googling plants as I got Potterton’s bulb and alpine catalogues in the post today.

I have seen a few members commenting on Sarcococcas lately and seeing that i have shown some wonderful scented shrubs in my journals in the last couple of weeks, it is only right that the Sarcococca gets its day in the sun, or rain as the case may be.

I have two forms of this shrub, S.confusa and S.humilis, but today i am just showing S.confusa as it by far the larger of the two that i have and thus easier to photograph despite the inclement weather. It is now in full flower but its real glory is its scent, which i find travels quite a distance. I find that the scent is more pronounced a few feet from the plant rather than right beside it. Having said that it is best to place it where its scent can be easily appreciated. It also has these very attractive black berries.

My tidying continued yeasterday when I attacked the Fren bed and some of the pots and planters in the front gaden. Slowly but surely I’m getting there. Today I finished the main border and the remainder of the planters and pots, so that the front garden sorted for a wee while.

A Happy Camper I 😉

Up and out early this morning and headed off to Dad’s garden. Or more correctly, the small plot he gave me for veggies last year. My time was mainly taken up with lifting all the bamboo canes that the sweet pea and peas were growing up. Old plants still in situ. 

I had two troughs planted up with garlic during the summer. But they were placed beside the hedge reducing the light significantly. They didn’t do anything. So as Dad doesn’t really care about his garden any more I left them where they were. But today I was delighted that I hadn’t discarded them earlier as they are now happily growing away. The extra growing time seems to have paid off. So they’re now in my garden where I can keep an eye on them.

Found some onions that I had missed from the other window boxes. I was able to empty the compost into the plot as Dad is getting a company in tomorrow to cut back hedges, power wash tarmac, and a general tidy-up. I needed to make sure the window boxes and canes weren’t thrown in a skip. It’s the first bit of REAL gardening I have done in a long time and it felt great.

My first daff has opened. It made me laugh as they are just bare bulbs that I dug up last year to make way for the final pond. I just plonked them into the nearest empty pot. Either ‘Tete-a-tete’ or ‘Jetfire’. ‘Jetfire’ is usually my first to open.

I bought this little plant at Johnstown and it is sitting in the greenhouse waiting to be planted out. 

I just love the lime green flowers on it. And they are really opening up now. Hopefully in another few weeks I can put it outside and enjoy it some more. 

Very wild this morning but should be nice for a walk later. Enjoy your day 🙂 

The disadvantage of January holidays is that you do feel very greay and bleugh coming back to the cold and rain – I say this in the knowledge that I’ll get no sympathy from anyone who’s been stuck here and hasn’t had a break at all!  But around the garden there are these little treats and sparks of colour that just lift you up and keep you going. Plants have great courage, I think. I keep telling myself, well, if they can bloom in all this cold wet weather, I can surely appreciate them for it! 

My local Gardening Club have a meeting at the end of January every year just to make the St Brigid’s Crosses for distribution at Mass. This is a lovely event where visitors are welcome. Most of us (me included) forget completely from year to year how to make these traditional crosses but with a bit of help we get going pretty fast!

The materials provided for this session are the traditional Rushes and the crosses are secured wtih elastic bands – Fergal who is our instructor in the craft, assures us that St Brigid invented elastic bands!

I was inspired to try and make the same cross from willow and i am really pleased with the results! The willow is a bit harder to handle so it’s just as well I had a good bit of practice last night!

Jean-Baptiste came along too and proved to be a quick learner!

I have been saying for a couple of years now that I must go down to Paddy and Mary in Snowdrop season and today I did just that. It was a chilly but dry day and as ever I got the warmest of welcomes and was treated to some homemade scones and tea. Went on a good walk around the garden looking at all the various snowdrops and there is a lot. Paddy has a super collection of snowdrops and fantastic displays of them throughout the garden. For a lot of them he has great history and storys attached to them. I have only been really into snowdrops the last year or two so was amazing to see all the different types and also interesting to see the differences in some which might seem the same to the naked eye. Of course being the generous people that they are I did not go home empty handed and was given a few different types of snowdrops of my own to help with my little growing collection here and also a lovely variegated alstromeria. I can’t thank Paddy & Mary enough for a great day and I must say I really enjoyed it and some great laughs and good gardening talk which was just what I needed.

I have put up a small album.

Did a tidy up on this planter yesterday, really delighted with the way it’s developing and maturing.

Hello everyone, It seems I m completely useless at staying involved with the site but I’m once again going to try and change my ways and become more of a computer user!!

I really value the site and really apprciated how welcoming and helpful everyone has always been. Thak you for sharing all your journals and pictures – I always enjoy browsing through them. I have the best of intentions to join you and take so many pictures but I put it off – Now I ve up loaded an album of my garden from last year to try and make up for my lack of interaction.

I can not believe how topsy turvy the weather is and that my Daffs are out in bloom – I nearly missed them as I havent been out in my garden in months!! 

A belated happy new ( gardening? ) year to you all.

Declan

And hopefully this time I can make a point of posting more regularly! 

I love how this time of year you can almost hear the sap rising in those growing plants. Today I decided to get back out there and clear up the two beds, I left them alone over winter, I think I read somewhere that it helps keep the nutrients in the ground or something… justifying my laziness!

Cleared both of them of old dead nasturtiums, couldn’t get rid of all of the seeds, reckon I will just deal with the seedlings when they appear. 

Considering covering the bigger bed in plastic to try and raise the ground temperature ready for planting in March, anyone tried this? 

St Bridget’s Day tomorrow, the first day of Spring, well for me anyway. The Lane for the month of January has seen a lot of rain and wind resulting in some of the branches from the trees on the ditch to snap off. Paddy has collected two wheelbarrow loads of small branches and sticks in the last week. The Rhododendron ‘Christmas Cheer’ has finally finished flowering but has been replaced by Camellia ‘Donation’ which is covered with flowers, one benefit from a wet summer. The snowdrops that border both sides of the lane are now coming into flower and I think it will look good this year as we planted lots last spring. One sunny day last week I did notice a that they was a freshness coming back into the grass, a change from the mud.

Today was a good day after some initial rain this morning I got out for a few hours this afternoon and it felt great. 1st thing was to plant out Paddy’s snowdrops in their final position. Some of them were quite a nice clump so I took a bit of Brenda Troyle and Magnet and put them into some old pots I have with good drainage and finished off with some small gravel. Hoping these will make a nice little clump in the pot over the next year or two. All of the ones I got then got planted up at the back of the garden near the pond where I have some common ones with my Wendy’s Gold and Hippolyta. I was like a child on christmas morning going through the snowdrops today.

Also from Paddy and Mary I got a Primula Pink Petticoat which I divided in over 10 plants and put in a spot in my front garden where the drive meets the step there is a small strip of earth there that only ever had weeds. So I dug that out added some grit and compost and planted in most of the divided Primulas.

So again thank you to both of ye for such super plants.

Other work then with I got on with was cutting back all my Ostrich ferns at the back of the garden, also cut back my Canna Tropicanna Black and noticed some new shoots coming up already. Cut back various other things and started trimming my apple trees to keep the shape so was a happy camper when I came in today.

Other than being wet I found today very mild, hope everyone had a good one.