Month: February 2016

Spent a short time this morning scooping up lots of leaves from the front garden. As I only have deciduous shrubs in my front nowadays, all of these leaves have come in from the roadside trees and neighbours. But I don’t tend to tidy them up until this time of year. It was a revelation to discover lots more Daffs than I had remembered were there. A lot of them are a bit yellow in the stems, probably from the moisture the leaves were holding onto, and partially from lack of light. But it shouldn’t take too long to green up.

First full-sized Daff open now. Can’t remember which one it is. And my orange Hamamelis. Shortly after that, there was a steady fall of drizzly rain which lasted all day.

As the second photo shows, my annual spread of Wild Garlic, thank you Mr. Neighbour, has spread and spread. Fed up spraying RoundUp on this every year. Does anyone know how to eradicate it FOREVER???????

Must have a quiet word in Mr. Neighbours’ ear to let him know it’s NOT a flower, and to control it better. It would make sense to build a wall between us, but at the moment I have more important things to spend my money on.

I was watching out for my good sized clump of Galanthus Flore Pleno to open as I had planned on dividing it this year.

Well this morning I found all of two bulbs flowering away all by themsleves.

At some stage in the last 6/8 months I have given someone a plant (which one I don’t know) and mixed in with it now will be a nice clump of these lovely Snowdrops.

Been the nice person I am LOL, I am willing to divide the plants with you, whoever you are.

Many thanks in advance as ever.

This has to one of the strangest journals I’ve ever posted 😉

I love planning gardens! When I was little my favourite thing to draw were gardens and that hasn’t changed, love gardening books, planning what flowers and veggies to plant so in the absence of some gardening opportunities this weekend I’m happily planning out what new things to try and making notes… 

Hoping to to try beetroot this year, only ever eaten the pickled kind so not sure if I’ll like it, also going to make a better attempt at herbs. Wall mounted window boxes perhaps to maximise the use of space in my tiny garden.

Love this book, The Window Box Allotment by Penelope Bennett, lovely read and nice little ideas and projects. The month by month gardening by RHS is a new addition to my mini library and has lots of suggestions for gorgeous plants and varieties of everything. Lots I want to try out!! 

Its cup of tea style gardening for me today, hopefully next weekend will allow for more mucky hands on approach! 

With such a wet start to the day I was more than surprised to see a bit of a clearence about mid morning. So it was srtaight out and some more clering up and cutting back was done. Lots of buds forming and new growth showing everywhere, fantastic to see. Sadly the rain returned but delight with the time I did get.

Despite the grey wet day it was, nothing can beat the cheer that Daffodils can bring to the early spring garden.

Just had a look at a few photos that Paddy took today when the rain cleared and was very surprised at how well the snowdrops have bulked up in The Lane. We added a few last year and also divided some that were already growing there. There are snowdrop gardens opening their gates over the next few weeks starting with Altamont Gardens today. I am hoping to get to a few of the gardens and with any luck the weather will improve.

Despite what I did to the first bloom on Iris George, the rest of the bulbs are doing their thing just now. Really like this one, yesterday’s raindrops only added to the effect.

In 2014 I bought this plant in Altamont when we visited to see the Snowdrops. Then 12 months later just as the flower stems were coming up they seemed to rot at the base, and as some of the new leaves appeared the same happened, it was not looking good at all for this plant.

I dug it up and washed all the soil off the roots but could see no signs of distress at all. So I chanced planting it out again. It only produced three leaves last year, but there were large and perfect.

I am now delighted with how all the stems and flowers looking so far. Once again my thinking behind giving plants every chance possible seems to have really paid off.

Totally delighted with how this is looking today.

It surely is the time of year for witch hazels. We will be visiting snowdrop gardens over the coming weeks, but very few of us will not fall in love with the various witch hazels we will see blooming. It is a great small tree/ shrub both for the small and big garden that also has a wonderful autumn colour. They look so well with spring bulbs planted under them and they provide ideal  conditions  for their growth, shade in summer, mulched with leaf in Autumn and bare in spring to allow us enjoy the bulbs delicate flowers. They are expensive, slow to grow and impossible to photo, but nothing is perfect.

I picked these little feeders up in Dealz a couple of weeks ago. Not bad for €1.49!!

The birds just love them. Ideal for Niger seeds too as the opening is just about right to hold the tiny seeds. But will hold any seeds  

……… I want to be like my Manny 😉

That’s what I am guessing this self seeded Hellebore is saying when it looks up a sees the parent plant that it is growing beside.

Lots of the detail is missing from the flower but hopefully that may sort itself over time.

Going to be a frosty start today day, but should be nice once the sun gets up into the sky, enjoy if you can.

I know we have a heavy frost this morning and that’s the price we pay for wall to wall sunshine like yesterday. 

Wasnt it just a fabulous day. The sun shone here all day long and at times, when sheltered, it even had some heat in it. 

When I was getting out of my car I noticed these little Crocus wide open in the front garden because of the sun. And their colour is magnificent, reflecting in that amazing sunshine. 

When you see days like yesterday, it gets the heart racing of what’s to come and what awaits us in the garden  

Have a great day whatever you do!! 

What a beautiful morning and the white frost was beautiful too, the coldest morning this winter.

I went out to check on my Schefflera but it was enjoying the sun and seemed no worse of the cold night. It has to be moved a couple of feet, wondering when would be the best time to do that, will wait till the weather warms up again anyway.

First morning that the bird bath was frozen.

You have to feel for the fish in weather like this. I hope they’re well under the ice. The worst thing you can do is to break the ice. It transmits shockwaves throughout the water and jolts the fish, possibly killing them. I’ve tried putting a ball into the water but that didn’t do anything. Luke warm water poured in does help. But the fish are hardy enough to withstand these frozen conditions. So leave well enough alone.

I transplanted a couple of clumps of snowdrops into my lawn last year. They are positioned right beside the receptacle for my rotary line. They’re not looking the best just now as the grass is so long. Hasn’t been cut since way back in October, the weather has been that wet.

But now I’m thinking……..if I put ALL my other snowdrops into the grass, that’ll free up that border for other plants. Just sayin’…….

Although, my Galanthus ‘Spindlestone Surprise’ will stay where it is, in the retaining bed at the Upper Pond so I can keep an eye on it. One bulb increased to three last year. Now it has multiplied by 5. It’s a slow process but yay!

My first journal. A few photographs of my garden.

What a great day yeasterday was! I finally came in as darkness fell after 6.30pm!

Most of the afternoon was spent cutting down shrubs that had got too tall. Like my mahonia ‘Charity’. It had produced flowers all winter but it was now time for a chop! It is a rather prickly bush to work with strong gloves and coat sleeves are necessary. But I’m pleased with the results. 

The drimys in front of the mahonia will now have more light and space.

It is a long time since I posted as I was in the repair shop having part of my chassis fixed.  Hopefully it is now in good order and i start Physio tomorrow. The poor garden has been neglected for over 4 months but today was nice and sunny so I headed forth for a good look at what was happening. Weeds are happening in a huge way but the Hellebores are on the whole looking good. What a pity they are , for me anyway, so hard to photograph unless you are three handed.  The ones shown here are Metallic blue and I will put up an album with a few more assorted photos. I so look forward to the time when I can get going on the digging and building walls etc hopefully not too long to wait.

One of the snowdrops I got off Paddy recenty called ‘Magnet’ looking extremely well in the sun today. Got a small few hours in the garden over the weekend and it really did the heart good, even the sun was out today for a good while and really felt like a spring day.

Yesterday the main part of the gardening was power washing the paths and walls in the back garden, well I started it as it’s a very slow and messy job and after the winter we had everywhere is green so needs a proper job done.

Today then between fixing the car for the NCT and other things I got on with some of the last bits of cutting back and some planting. It was just so good to get another bit done and in the sun. Planted 2 foxgloves plants I picked up in Limerick last weekend called ‘Giant Spotted’, should look well in early summer and hopefully they will seed a bit around after. Also gave a lot of the plants in the greenhouse a good watering as they were gone bone dry.

More of these kind of days now and i’ll be a happy man.

Self-seeded Honesty flowering!

Came across this yesterday on a job in a woodland area and tought it was amazing so had to bring one home. Love how the ferns are just growing out of the piece of wood and moss. Will stick up by the pon I think. Couldn’t do something like this if i tried but nature is wonderful.

Some of the baby Ferns given to me by MartinB are growing up nicely, so much so that I was able to pot the last of the real babies on last weekend.

I decided to put all four into the one planter, all going well I’ll get a couple of years out of some of them before they need planting on out into the garden. The beauty of this planter now is that I can move it around the garden at any time.

Many thanks once again Martin 😉

As I’m a bit addicted to gardening magazines I ended up with not one but two packetd of Sweet Peas seeds so I decided to try an experiment. I put one lot of seeds into an unheated propagator at a south-facing window and the other lot on a west-facing window with the base of the Lidl heated propagator under them.

I was really excited when the heated lot appeared on February 16th – a definite winner ……. but by that evening the other lot were up too!

So now I’m kept busy turning them around to try and keep them upright!  

So can I ask for some advice please?

How soon do I need to nip out the tops? The leaves are only beginning to form. And how soon can I shit them out to the Greenhouse? The greenhouse has a frost heater so the minimum temperature is 5 degrees!