Month: April 2016
This plant has doubled since last year so I’m guessing it’s really happy were it is in it’s shaded position. It has been slightly nibbled at but still looking good.
After the lovely weather we had last week, one might expect that it would get even warmer. People will talk about the days that March borrowed from April. Some say nine days, while others may say twelve. This year it seems to exceed all expectations. I heard on the radio that there was snow in places not too far from here. Now the month of May is around the corner. Last week, I mowed the front lawn and I can assure you I found it warm, not this week. Edging was carried out in the rose beds. Most of the work this week was done in the greenhouse. Quite a bit of potting on of Tomatoes and Pelargoniums. It was warm in the same greenhouse but cold outside. I experienced the same in February. I had planned to treat the lawn for moss using ferrous sulphate but it was too cold. I gave a second pruning to the vine which has come on a lot.
A before and after photo of the back garden. First picture was taken in March 2014 and the second photo taken April 2016
The greenery was lovely at the back but way too much maintenance. I much prefer the open feel. More light and sunshine. My little piece of heaven now 😉
Finished it off today. I decided to take it well back from the house so the saw came into play. I did some of the shredding but still lots more, but the compost bin is full anyway so I have to wait for it to go down a bit, good excuse!
While I was dividing a Musa that came from Helen Dillon’s Garden last Autumn I noticed some small thin roots. Me been me, in they went to a pot and labled.
I can’t decide if I have two or three plants here. But coming from this great garden they could be anything at all 😉
I know their small at the moment, but can anyone give a clue as to what these might be.
Many thanks.
My second pergola was finished at the weekend and just needs to be painted up completely. I just haven’t been out to do it just yet. I’m delighted with this. It replaces the metal arch at the patio doors. Another one will be put at the other patio doors to complete the look, should be this weekend, although weather doesn’t look great. Then my Climbers can scramble all over them, well that’s the plan.
Really delighted at how these are turning out.
Though I still think ye olde Daffodil as in ‘host of’ is unbeatable it is very interesting to see the large variety that is now available. Maybe some of these are also old varieties I don’t know but they do add interest to the garden . I put up photos of three of the more unusual ones. I really like the one in the middle photo so if anybody has a name please tell me, thanks.
Looking out at the rain pelting down, and my arches swinging in the wind and trying to work up the courage to go out and do the shopping it is so easy to forget how lovely the past few days have been. Apart from the occasional hail shower it has been really wonderful gardening weather and I was able to take advantage of it for quite a few hours.
My favourite tulips are these little Kaufmanniana Tulips that my daughter Ciara brought back from Amsterdam in 2009 – Tulips from Amsterdam! What’s not to like? They are bulking up and get zero attention so every Spring they delight me and then disappear for the rest of the year!
Their flowers have a lovely graceful shape when closed, but when the sun shines they are so flamboyant the way they spread themselves and sunbathe!
There is a certain sense of dejavu about the lower area of my garden. It has always been a difficult area to sort out as the soil is heavy and the subsoil is pretty close to the surface. Initially I grew potatoes there and they grew well one year but then failed. Next idea was to put in raised beds to solve that problem but I didn’t have enough good soil to fill them so all the compost heaps had to be contributed to make up for this.
But the vegetables were still not great and all that compost meant that there was a lot of weeding involved!
This area is sheltered – well, compared to the rest of the garden – and gets lots of sun so I thought it would be a perfect place for a Rose Garden so all the roses scattered around the garden were relocated to the raised beds …. with compost and horse manure being liberally added.
The roses did well but the visual effect wasn’t what I had imagined. I looked back at photos taken when I had an Open Day in the summer when the roses were at their best and there were hardly any photos of that area which tells me that my lovely roses were getting ignored!
Then at my local Gardening Club I was given a few nicely sprouted seed potatoes ….
So can you see where this is going? I reckon the roses need to be on wheels they move so often, and the seed potatoes have inspired me to try veggies again!
So Elizabeth gave me trojan assistance in getting the beds ready …. some onion sets are planted, as are the spuds …. so as I said – Full Circle
So we’ve spent the last few months planning and creating a new little forest in our Garden. Let us know what you think!
..a love of invasive weeds, that is!
Sometimes I get bored of the jungly giants…
…and the tiny weeds win my attention.
Still avoiding college work but there’s always the morning.
These super bulbs are just starting to open now, looking like it’s going to be a great display in a week or two.
Nothing else to say other than I’m sure I’ll have a wonderful moss garden if this wet weather continues.
Edit: Sorry…photos aren’t loading for some reason.
On Thursday evening we launched a new gardening trail, the only one to exist in Co. Limerick. It is small but perfectly proportioned for a day out. We have designed and packaged it as ‘Five beautiful destinations in one day’ and the brochure depicts, with the aid of the little pink Ballyhoura beetle, the journey and distance between each of the destinations. So why not grab a few friends and head to Limerick for a great garden escape!
Enniskerry Gardening Club are holding a Social Evening and Plant Sale on next Wednesday, 6th April at 8 pm. All welcome and entrance €5 in the Parochial Hall, The Square, Enniskerry.
We will be having finger food and a drink as well as selling plants that you won’t always find in a Garden Centre, including the ones pictured. We will also be having a raffle, with great gardening-related prizes, one of which is a year’s subscription to The Irish Garden magazine!
For more information, check out the Enniskerry Gardening Club on Facebook.
After a lovely day, two days ago, the lovely weather with clear skies and some warmth, all seemed to change. Yesterday and to day Saturday gave us rain, rain, rain. Of course many will say “Oh No” , it’s all over, we cannot enjoy the sun, no work can be done as regards mowing digging sowing weeding. Of course it is not just the cons of wet weather but the pros as well. You may ask: “what are the pros?” Well if you have the rain and the seeds of flowers and vegetables sown, then you can relax as there is no watering to be done. I sowed parsnip seed a few days ago, also hardy annual seeds. Flower seeds that were sown inside, are getting lovely conditions for hardening. I removed all of the very big Pelargoniums and placed them outside. More than likely with this weather there is little chance of frost. Now to day i was able to get in properly into the greenhouse and examine plants that were parched. They all got a good watering. More tomato plants were put in instead of the Pelargoniums. The Banana plants had the leaves trimmed and were well watered. Also now i can get at the house and clean and tidy it. It needs it badly.
These two hellebores which I have in the front garden behind my tree fern in almost full shade are looking great at the moment and have really come on well in the last two years. I have no names at all for these but do really like them and enjoy seeing them out my living room window.
Now this weather would try the patience of a Saint. Now that I’m feeling somewhat better and would love to be out there, it’s raining. Wet and miserable, albeit drizzly, the worst kind I think.
But then it has been quite dry and in fairness my plants did need a bit of water, but really?? Enough now thank you very much!!
So to brighten up this wet and dull Sunday morning here are three flowers that are trying their best in the garden at the moment..
The first one is Hellebore Double Ellen red. Picked this up in Lidl last year and is really doing so well. In fact all of my Lidl hellebores are doing extremely well and they flower for so long too.
Next is Dicentra spectabilis ‘alba’ a nice contrast to the usual pink one. This is flowering really early as I have some more further down the garden and the buds are just appearing on it. Whereas my Pink lady in the bath is just in foliage now. But I love this and the grandchildren just love picking the the flowers to see ‘the lady in the bath’
Third photo is Fritilary. I just love these and I’m so glad they turned out so well. They really are gorgeous and I’m so surprised to see a white one in the midst of the checkered ones, but I don’t mind at all. All welcome.
Lets hope the weather improves soon.
Just a little update on a stolen piece of a plant from Lanzarote in 2009. It spends all summer outdoors, into the greenhouse when it gets a bit cooler, and into the house for the winter.
Contemplating putting it out to greenhouse at this stage. Who’d have thought that such a plant would survive, and even thrive, in our climate. It has multiplied well since I acquired it. 🙂
Despite the damp weather I had a fairly productive day in the garden today. I have had lots of other commitments of late which kept me from getting really stuck in so I will have to really focus on catching up over the next few weeks.
Today was wet so I got on with some indoor jobs. I potted on 6 plants of Gladiolus tristis – seeds given to me by Fran and they have now made miniature bulbs. Fran, if you read this – thanks and when might I expect to see them flowering?
I also pricked out some Agastache astello indigo that I sowed last Autumn. They are still tiny!
I scraped the old compost off the rest of my dahlias in pots and added slow release fertiliser and new compost. I must have about 20 pots or maybe it just feels like that!
I cut off the old leaves from the big Agapanthus – one is ‘Cloudy Bay’ and the other ‘Africanus’ and potted up some new Agapanthus ‘Black Pantha’.
Then pricked out 12 of the sweet basil plants into big modules.
I have 7 Ricinus communis gibsonii coming on and have sown some R. carmencita as well but they haven’t germinated yet. I don’t know where I am going to put them all – should have made a bigger raised tropical bed.
I have 2 new projects going on – one new bed that I am trying to develop using the no dig method and the formal area at the front that has been in the pipeline for a number of years. I’ll do a separate journal on these.
Isn’t it great to have Camellias flowering in all their considerable glory. I have quite a few in the garden and this evening i am showing the flowers of three which are in bloom at the moment.
The first is C.debbie, an easily acquired Camellia but none the worse for that. The second is one that isn’t as common, it is C.bobs tinsie and its flowers are adorable. The third is another not so common one, C.duchess de caze.
Both my biggest perrennial beds are riddled with ground elder. I have tried to eradicate it through physical and chemical means in the past without much success. Now I just try to keep it under control. The plants in the beds are fairly robust themselves, no shrinking violets you might say, and so they can cope with a bit of competition. I go through the beds at this time of the year and pick every leaf of the stuff. I also pull out as much root as I can but if I can’t get a lot of root because it is mixed up with some of the plants I don’t stress, I just pick the leaves. This means that the plants get a head start and crowd the ground elder out. It has worked quite well in previous years although the elder is still very prevalent through the beds.
I got one bed done this evening after work. Hubby took a snap though the window with Betty our chicken looking on and waiting for some tasty morsels!
My two blue pots that I planted up in October are now full of Narcissus ‘Lemon Sailboat’, which is a very pretty daffodil. The flowers remind me of ‘windmills’ that as children we would have played with at the seaside. These pots were in flower with crocus in February and now the daffodils are taking over and the tulips are yet to come, so a great display over a few months with little effort or cost. The only disappointment was that I was a little mean with the number of crocus bulbs.
Whilst there are many new amazing daffodils, that are reaching new heights and levels of colour and form, there is still a place for our native wild daffodils: species daffodils.
There is usually a class for these in shows and I entered three that I have in my garden.
“Narcissus pseudonarcissus” is the wild daffodil. I have quite a few of these and they really bulk up very rapidly. I suppose that is the secret of their longevity. They are lovely planted en masse in grass, but they also very sweet in a vase.
The next has several names, but we all know it as “the old double one”. Narcissus telamonius plenus is the botanical name, but apparently known in Ireland as “Butter and Egg” . Has anyone ever heard this name used? I haven’t! However in the Nederlands, it is called ” Van Sion”. It dates back to 1620 in London. In the USA it has yet another name: “Wilmer’s Double Golden Daffodil”. It can variy in size and form, being “rose double ” or “unburst double trumpet”. Even the colour can be greenish.
Looking for sweetness in Form and in scent? Look no further. This 3rd daffodil is my favourite. What more can you ask for than a vase of these which I am told is “Grey Lady”. Do you agree?
They all bulk up very easily.
Has anyone other species daffodils?
I was in Ballyseedy a few weeks ago and saw this little pot of tulips; they just had little buds and looked as if they would only grow to a few inches!! However in my kitchen window they growed and growed !! Then the flowers started to open and they are so pretty, not fully open yet . Took photos at night as you probably realise. In the background is I. nimnimiensis aka the cockatoo.
