Month: February 2017
I must be the worst in the whole wide world at getting seeds to germinate and survive. I am really bad at it. Now with cuttings I do very well….have to give myself a little praise to keep the spirits up!
So with Open day looming this year I need to have lots of ‘fillers’. Out with the seeds, a couple of Cosmos varieties and some others. All bought this year. Wash the seed trays fill with all purpose compost and grit mix. Sow seeds and put on heated propagator on the kitchen counter. As ever Cosmos germinated within a few days. They shot up to over an inch and yes already they are damping off or giving up or whatever. All within a week. In, Up, Dead!!! I have used seed sowing compost with and without perlite, honest over the years tried everything . Sometime a few struggle through to be potted on . I see my gardening friends show these seed trays with fabulous healthy germination and I growl, yes I do. Sorry!!
So how does this long time gardener get seeds to grow and progress to plants. I need to conquer this defficiency before I get planted!
I mean kids can grow seeds.
Greetings all. I am back on line again and the amount of time taken ringing up the telephone co. and getting two men along to work on the system plus my own precious timebut I will have plenty to tell you all. Facebook was ok but Garden.ie NO. I will have more news later.
Well, during December and January, a bit of November and a bit of February, while there were problems in communication, I had been in dublin with my sister for Christmas about a week, the at once January came, I sowed tome tomato (Alicante) seed and then proceeded to prune the roses. There would be about 100+ as bush roses. The cuttings were all taken to a point and the Dutch hoe took over. The weeds and moss were taken away and the three rose beds are much neater now. About the end of January, the tomato plants had the true leaves and most of the were potted up. My sister in Castlebar sent me more tomato seeds, Crystal, Choc Cherry, Marz & Marzand. They were sown late in January.
The first few days of February were mild but then the cold wind came to us from the continent so very little outdoor gardening was carried out. Due to the fact that for most of the winter, the weather was mild, snowdrops, crocuses and even daffodils have bloomed. While it has been cold during the past week it has been dry and from Monday next there will be a rise in temperature DV. I regret not getting to Johnstown but I don’t drive distances like that now. I was in Beaumont Hospital on wednesday, to and from the same day by train, between Carlow and Dublin and got the Botox injections around the eyes. I drove into the town centre this evening without the goggles.
Two Hosta plants per pack for €1.29 each in Aldi today ? I bought two feeling very greedy . Ok they were very small root balls but isn’t half the fun to be found in growing plants on .. No names on packets so these will now be called Hosta Aldi cheapisus ?
The March issue of The Irish Garden magazine is out now, and it’s full of interesting articles.
There’s a feature on planting flowers for summer; a visit to a romantic rural garden in Co. Wicklow … and a plant profile on the spectacular jewel-like alpine plant rhodohypoxis.
From Ireland’s top garden writers, there are 20 pages of WHAT TO DO NOW and KNOW-HOW.
It is already with subscribers and it is in the shops now!
came across RHS Hort show (in London) whilst googling for something else. Very interesting and the talent shown therein is mind blowing. Thought u might like this! Cold here with snow on Croagh Patrick.
Yesterday was so sunny and calm. I was out in the back garden, facing South early in the day.While Met Eireann told us that it would be cold, and true enough the temperature was down, nevertheless one could feel the heat of the sun. I entered the greenhouse and the temperature was in the early 20’s. I opened the vent for the first time and it was like that for some time. This was February 27. One would hardly believe it. One thing that seemed strange was that the snowdrops were no longer showing their lovely white petals but the daffodils were better than they had been. I fed the robins and at one stage there were three of them there.By the way some of you may have seen John Quinlan on Facebook with a robin in his hand, eating from the hand. John is a good friend of mine coming originally from Carlow. I got to know him from the hurling. In the late afternoon I ventured towards the front garden and spent a while at the rose beds. I had done a reasonable job on them in January, ach mo lean, I had to leave this area as it got quite cold, such a change in the temperature. To day I hardly went to the garden even though the temperature was a bit up from yesterday. The wind was the reason and to morrow March 1, definitely it does not seem to come in like a lamb.
I knew that the Daffs were about to open but was surprised to spot a couple of Muscari also.
Too wet and windy to have a proper look around Gretta’s garden. I have always admired her succulent/alpine dish and it’s looking better and better every year. And the moss growing around it gives it a real look of a miniature landscape. Love the lone snowdrop peeping through too.
Hi first Camellia flowers opened today , that is good. Hellebores all flowering as are many primulas. Jacqueline Postil spreading her scent..A very kind friend gave me a big box of snowdrops a few years ago. I planted them in groups around the garden and it is lovely to come upon them here and there. Horrid weather here for a while so gardening restricted. My poor Eddie broke a bone in his foot and is out of action. He was due back about 3 weeks ago there is so much rubbish to collect from cutting back. So I had to bite the bullet and heave loads of stuff to the compost and ‘ over the wall’ ugh. From weeding i can see that the sticky stuff , goose something , is going to be weed of the year down this way!! Tons of it everywhere.
Photo of Jacqueline has vanished.
Good morning, a cold & showery morning here in West Cork, in first photo you can see the very tall palm trees (my grove) which will be cut down later this month, i want them cut at different heights, making a bit of a feature, as this is also where my green house, she shed, not really thought of a proper name for it yet will be put. The photos show the super light and dark cloud on its way to heave plenty of water to us. have a lovely weekend all
Looking out at a grey wet scene this morning, I’m glad I snapped a few photos in the garden yesterday.
This is a lovely little plant with very deeply cut silvery foliage and again, this is one that hardly ever stops flowering. For a year now, I keep feeling its name is on the tip of my tongue …… but still no name.
All January, I have been out very long hours in the garden, but sad to say, you just don’t accomplish as much, and you get very tired. But it is the best medicine ever. A long hot bath sorts out the aches and pains. And you can dance the light fantastic in the morning. By long hours, I mean min. 3hrs but usually 5hrs.
This morning, the Met forecast was for heavy gusts and then rain from 1pm. I just had to get out and pick up all the heavy branches and wood that could not be chipped and shredded for compost. The gusts were very strong, up to 70mph, but with lots of layers of clothes, the whole thing was so invigorating. Even chasing after the buckets and those large green canvas recycling Council bags when the gusts came along To play games with me.
Trouble is, that we no longer have an area for a bonfire, and now I have to chop up all that surplus and fit it in to my wee car to take to the amenity recycling site. That is what I did for 3 hours as well as cutting out the dead wood of a very tall climbing rose “Blush Noisette”. It goes right up 15-20 ft into a hawthorne tree. Has anyone any advice specific to these noisette roses? They just don’t seem to like cut back at all.
That rose which is situated at the foot of a 15ft high retaining wall, with the road up above and it is so lovely to get the scent wafting up to the walkers and tourists. There are several more, but Kifsgate requires a saw to achieve the pruning. Now that one ….. had a quite amazing amount of flower this last season. It carries a health warning. The thorns are the biggest hooked monsters you ever did see. The scent in the evening is all pervasive.
A lovely surprise find was that under all the fallen leaves that had accumulated at the base of aforesaid wall, I found lovely large clumps of snowdrops trying to push their way up to the light.
Oh gardening is a great way of life! Note I do not say “Pastime” which it certainly is not.
PS. I’m not sure if those 2 pictures are upside down or not! I tnink they are!!!!
Despite the frost, wind and torrential rain that we have experienced over the last week these little Iris have been flowering their socks off. They have been producing bunches of flowers every day for the last few weeks and started flowering last Oct/Nov. In October, only a few flowers, but by this time of the year they are in full production. It will lessen the number of flowers when we go into March, but for a small little plant it deserves it’s place in our gardens. In the photo there are three different varieties, Iris ‘Mary Barnard’ blue, Iris ‘ Walter Butt’, very pale blue and Iris ‘Kilbroney Marble’ which is an Irish heritage plant.
…..by the track near Blackrock Castle. Lovely to see them naturalised like that in a public place. Well done Cork Corporation! Photos didn’t come out very well, don’t do them justice I’m afraid.
I was at a talk last night by Billy Alexander from Kells Bay Gardens. After all the talks there is always a Raffle with a selection of plants on offer. My number got called out 2nd so was delighted to get this stunning hellebore with very dark flowers. Also I bought another tree fern, Billy’s tree ferns are excellent and I think a great price considering what most garden centres charge for the same size as I got which was a 30cm trunk roughly
Hi folks.
It is quite cold and miserable here and I decided to spend some time scraping moss from my drive rather than dealing with the cold earth.
But I have been doing a bit in the borders, where I realised strobilanthes had become a thug and needed serious curtailing. Two years ago I made the mistake of putting its stems on the compost and I had lots of strobilanthes in my lasagne bed last year. Thankfully it wasn’t too hard to sort. When I think of how I nursed that plant from seed and this is how the ungrateful wretch repays me!
Anyway, I’ve been sowing a few easy seeds. Some beautiful sweet pea that were gifted to me last year at an open day and some amazing blue China asters. Being true to form, I made videos about both and I’ll post the links below.
How To Sow Sweet Pea – easiest & most rewarding of all seeds – YouTube
How I Sow Half Hardy or Tender Annuals – blue China asters – YouTube
Happy gardening!
And here I am postponing going out to the garden again with a second journal for today.
I guess I’m hoping that moss will scrape itself and those perennials will cut themselves back!
Anyway, I thought the following two videos might prove useful.
The first is about what to do with hippeastrums after flowering and the second is a look around my greenhouse in winter.
Four Easy Steps To Reflowering Amaryllis/Hippeastrum – YouTube
Midwinter Greenhouse – citrus, cold orchids & lots of succulents
Happy growing!
While in Gretta’s for a couple of days last week, I noticed the colour of a Buxus sempervirens that I gave her a few years ago had turned this unusual hue. The shrub itself looks perfectly healthy. Has anyone else ever noticed this with Buxus? I wonder is it to do with being in a different type of soil?
Well, I don’t have a lot of success with potatoes but the Lord loves a tryer so I’m off again. I was very excited to find nice small packs of seed potatoes in Heatons at a real knock-down price so I treated myself to 3 little packets – two earlies and a second early. Wasn’t sure about the second early but since the offer was 3 or the price of 2 I thought I’d take a chance.
Well everyone was talking about this “chitting” business so when i got home I fetched the little mini seed tray I got from Lidl a few seasons ago and I reckoned the spuds would be happy in the pots.
I carefully laid each variety in a separate section duly labelled. Next problem was keeping them in the light but frost-free so they moved into my store room. All was well until I was grabbing something in a hurry from said store room when Disaster! I tipped the whole thing onto the floor! I tried to figure which variety was which but I’m sure there will be some surprises later!
Decided this wasn’t the best method so they got moved to the window-sill in egg-trays!
So now for the big question (or questions)
When are my Chits Chitted? When can they be put into the ground?
There appear to be many different opinions on this important matter so I would appreciate hearing how my fellow .iers manage theirs?
One day, Baby Fig, you too might be as big as this Daddy Fig. If we build a very large conservatory or move to the Canaries, that is! As it is you’ll have to make do with a nice pot in the warm….
It seemed after a few days of February, that we were facing the winter once more but the Spring has returned over the last week, no frost at night and temperatures 10 degrees and more. Yesterday was a really Spring day with 12 degees and a few more. The Snowdrops and Crocuses and even the Daffodils are looking good. Having Daffodils since La le Bride is great. These Daffs are growing in the area I call the Secret Garden. Beside same is a Yucca which I replanted from a bed near the front door. It was blown down about a year ago(I think) and I replanted it leaving it to the Grace of God. It has really taken root and leaves have come out. I had hoped that I would have flowers in a number of Yuccas on account of the mild Winter but the frost in early February didn’t help.
While I do love all the deep coloured Hellebores, this Yellow one is top of my list and always love watching it open. Seems much slower at bulking up compaired to others in the garden, but it is improving each year.
I bought 2 week’s ago 3 lilium ‘white tiger’ from Mr middletons and they arrived today which I hope to plant out over the weekend. They look very nice so looking forward to them in flower. As I recieved these in the post I was also sent a load of free stuff with them. 4 packs of bulbs anemone, ixia, iris, sparaxis and 3 packs of seeds coleus, nasturtiums and nicotiana. It was 14.95 for the lillies including postage so incredible value when you add in the free stuff. I find every now and them Mr middletons can get in lovely new stuff.
My Tetrapanax was planted out into the hot border a couple of years ago and is coming on in leaps and bounds since then. But Mary had warned me not to disturb the soil around the trunk as loads of Tetras would sprout up all over the place. So I did heed her warning, as that bed is way too small to accommodate any babies.
But over the winter months I’ve noticed this greenery shooting up. Earlier in the season I had thought that maybe my Crocosmia was spreading. But Crocosmia shoots come up more rigidly than this plant in the photo. I don’t really know what scutch grass looks like, but I had thought that ……mmmmmm…..maybe. One thing that I am certain of is that thankfully it’s NOT wild garlic. Enough of that out in the front!
Can someone put me out of my misery please. Because I’m itching to weed this bed and don’t want to pull up something that I’ve treasured in previous years. T.I.A.
