Month: June 2016
I got this great Campanula a few years ago from SallySarah. It’s a great little spreader, and easy to pull up any unwanted clumps. I’ve given quite a few people some already but never hear how they are doing with it. I wouldn’t be without it. It’s a good height too, approximately 2-3 feet so great for the back of a border.
We have poppies popping up everywhere – among the spunds, the garlic and beetroot, all over the place. They’re self-set seeds from last year. Mostly we’ve just let them be as they’re all different and all lovely. But the garlic bed one reminds me of when we first started growing veggies for sale twenty years ago and a very old gentleman arrived on his bike, cast a dubious eye over the leek bed and asked, ‘What kind of cabbages is them yokes, anyway?’ We could start a trend in hallucinogenic garlic, maybe!
Rodgersia ‘Hercules’ was looking wonderful this evening.
This one is still planted in a big planter. But as soon as my knee allows, it will be getting a ‘forever home’ in my rich garden soil. This one is Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Diabolo’.
Not the beds you think I mean. But yesterday I was in awe with a thirty foot or so long flowerbed in Cappagh Hospital planted entirely with identical Phormiums, and all in flower with perfect synchronization. They looked fab planted en masse.
Sally, here are a couple of photos of Physocarpus ‘Lady in Red’ as promised earlier. This is the nicer of the two. It’s gorgeous if you plant it somewhere where the sun will shine from behind. Dull day here so we’re not getting the best of it.
I have discovered another way to enjoy the garden . Bee watching and it’s so relaxing . Haven’t been on the site last two weeks as youngest is doing the Leaving Cerificate . Only one exam to go next Tuesday. Iam more stressed than she is ! Eldest now home and finished college after four years . Job hunting do fingers crossed . Today was a edging the lawns day and they look all the better for it . The mild and showery weather is causing lots of mildew and blight problems I find. Roses too need watching . I have lots of strawberries that need a day or two of sun for sweetness sake . Almost all my seedlings are now planted out thankfully just a few dozen Zinnias polar bear ice variety potted on today .
Hopevall are well and looking forward to catching up
This one is P. Stairway to Heaven, and standing proud at well over a metre that seems to be where it’s heading for.
Have a good one, doing some gardening and then it’s the Ireland with round and oval balls so it’s going to be a long day.
Listening to the radio yesterday, makes you so proud to be Irish and so proud of the fans. One group even helped the local street cleaners clean up for over an hour, where else and who else would do it. But the group of fans who sang the Our Father to a group of Nuns on a bus takes the biscuit altgether, but the nuns joined in with them, no doubt that will help the boys in green at 2pm.
Have a good one.
We were talking about this plant in Joan’s the other day, so yesterday I had a look at mine and was delighted to see it covered in flowers, they may be small but this is a wee beauty.
A few hours of gardening ahead, have a good day folks.
I really WAS going to try and get a small bit done out in the garden today. But it was steady drizzle from the word go. It stopped briefly at about 6.00 but only gave me time to go out and get a couple of photos.
Delighted to see that my Mitraria coccinea (Mitre Bush) is starting to flower.
Someone told me last year that this was a weed and advised me to get rid of it as it would take over. However, I chose to ignore that advice as I couldn’t get in there for fear of treading of some nice plants, and I left it in situ.
It has grown again this year (obviously), and as I have been a bit incapacitated recently I had no choice but to let it do its thing once again. Can someone remind me what it is though. I’ll label it this time, and when the time is right, I’ll do something about it.
I do like it a lot, though!
We all spend so much time waiting for a particular plant to do its thing and ‘flower’. On a very regular basis, I admire unopened buds, plants in full flower, and plants that have ‘gone over’. Each stage in the plants development have a particular charm in my opinion. In this case it’s Phlomis. Just can’t get enough of this plant at the moment. It’s beginning to go over now but what’s being left behind is just as beautiful.
I like the clump forming foliage on this, my sis in laws plant . Lately it has thrown up nice white flower spikes . Yesterday I took some young stems with root attached and potted them up.
If anyone can name it for thank you.
Delighted to see my tadpoles have turned into little frogs
My roses are really good this summer. With a few exceptions there is no black spot. They were fed with 7.6.17 (potato manure) and later given plenty of garden compost. During the last few days, I was dead heading them every day but as some were dead headed others took their place. Some were propagated by cuttings and are looking good. There is one, Rhapsody in Blue which is much better than last year. I bought it in Altamont. The yellow rose, I am not sure but it may be Summer sunshine.
Headed over to Woodies this afternoon for a gander as I haven’t been there in ages. It was great to chat away to the staff whom I worked with in the old store. But when I eventually go back to work it won’t be to this branch.
Perennials here have gone up in price – from €7.99 to €9.99. But I couldn’t resist buying these two that will get planted easily into a planter, and taken under cover for the winter. Had hardy Gerberas before and they lasted a few years but then I got lazy and didn’t look after them as well as I should have.
Has anyone else had the problem illustrated on these pictures of foxgloves? It is only on one grouping, the others are still alright, but for how long?
Your help would be appreciated.
Jacinta put up a journal about the lovely Campanula she had got from SallySarah a while back and I suddenly realised that this was the very plant that I had thought was a weed because it had self-seeded so vigorously! I had no recollection of planting it and as usual any labels had long disappeared!
This year I left it alone and am being rewarded with a lovely display – and they have even managed to locate themselves beside two nice contrasting plants – the red cordaline and a pretty Penstamon!
I reckon I am one of the lucky recipients of plants you distributed Jacinta! It can seed away from now on!
This is one of my favourite garden perennials – Trifolium ochroleucum. I have it here a few years now and it has clumped up well. Grows in partial shade and to a height of about 2.5 ft. Great for the bees too.
Planted in the front garden and this is the first year I’ve allowed it to grow so tall. Hmmmmm! Needs some serious cutting back, and indeed it does benefit from a hard pruning. But I’ll wait a while longer. Love its greenish yellow foliage though. And it has a very graceful growing habit.
I spotted these colourful bales in the field next my house and am delighted to know that they are “Wrapping it Pink” in aid of The Irish Cancer Society.
Click here for more information
They certainly cheered up a rainy day for me!
Of all the ferns I have this is one of the top three. Growing to bearly 12” and forming a tight clump it holds this soft green colour for most of the year, but it has a wee secret, and on touching it you’ll discovered how soft it is, surprisingly so.
Take not Scrubber:- I can’t pronounce the name of this one either, I’m just showing off LOL. I know it by it’s other name, Long Beach Fern, much easier đŸ˜‰
I thought I remembered digging these up last year where we created the mini Jurassic border. If it was them, they were G. ‘Atom’. But now that they’re opened I realise that I left G. ‘Atom’ in situ just to provide that border with a bit of colour in a mainly foliage border. Then I thought I had dug up G. ‘The Bride’, which would be white.
Now I’m totally stymied. These have pink in them. Any ideas which ones they are, please?
I had to smile when I saw Accsean’s journal about foliage and flower buds on plants. I took these phots yesterday of Lobelia tupa that is bulking up nicely here.
The detail in the flower bud is amazing.
Despite all of the rain, the roses are doing well. I deadheaded a few this morning . Evelyn Fison is standing up to the rain, of course it was bred in Ireland. I took two shots of a lighter colour to day. The weather started very wet. Then out came the sun and it was quite warm. Then a shower which didn’t last too long , typical Irish weather. Some roses like this one seems to be free of black spot.
