Month: May 2017

Thought of you Dick, this morning when I noticed the sweet perfume in the conservatory, and hey presto, were the two most perfect flowers, which in my “busy ness” over the past few days, I had not noticed being so close to flowering.  I suppose that by the morning, they be wilting.  But isn’t that a spectacular flower?

A few weeks ago, myself and my little grandson were walking back from the local shops when David spotted a discarded pack of butter beans on the ground. They were already opened and I was concerned that he was going to start eating them. But when I warned him he came out with ‘No, Gran. We could plant these and see what happens’. Well, that was music to my ears at such a young age.

After having a good look around yesterday I spotted the butter beans coming up through the sweet peas in a big planter by the greenhouse door. It looks like I’m going to have to stick in a taller bamboo cane for support. Can’t wait for David to see them at the weekend.

This was looking fantastic a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, this is yet another request for a plant id. No idea what it is, possibly an Arum of some type? It’s planted in compost with a lot of grit added. So I must have been given that advice at the time. But I really don’t remember ever seeing it before. And if YOU gave it to me, please speak up as I’m loving it already.

A couple of pretty roses open in the front garden. But now the back garden is catching up. Two climbing roses, one which I call ‘Mrs. J. Finnegan’ after my lovely neigbour who moved house years ago, and R. ‘Paul’s Scarlet’. The first rose is actually a much deeper red than it appears in the photo.

And from the dining room, I can also see the first bloom of climbing Rose ‘Iceberg’.

Very foggy morning here, and the birds are eerily quiet. When that lifts, it’s going to be a scorcher so get plenty of factor on, and have a lovely day.

From now on it will be roses appearing every day. The blue  one not really blue is Rhapsody in Blue. According to Dermot O’Neill. it is the nearest to blue. Not sure what the pink one is.

I’ve been busy with other matters since our visit to Charleville Gardens in Enniskerry, so this is just to say thank you to everyone who came.

Mary (Gracedieu Lass) has already posted an album and journal here and Paddy, Rachel and Clare have fabulous photos up on Facebook for anyone who wants to soak up the atmosphere of these lovely gardens.  

It was great to see Fran, who joined us for lunch, Rachel & Ori, Myrtle, Paddy & Mary, Clare, and the first timers on one of our outings: Brid (Creggrose), Joan H(Edulis) and her grandson Joe, and Clare Gill.  We hope you enjoyed the visit and will meet up again soon.

We’re hoping to arrange another visit to Charleville when they open for Heritage Week (19th-27th August).  By then, the hot borders which they were planting in during visit should be zinging! 

I won this prize from Johnstowns Facebook page last year. I really did think it would be a ‘one-hit-wonder’. But it’s beginning to flower again. A very small Verbascum (only about 12 inches high), but very pretty. I’ll have to go back on my notes, but I think it’s called V. ‘Clementine’.

Most of our garden plants are at least a month ahead of themselves this year on account of the great Spring.

But my waterlilies are a good two months ahead of schedule, they’re beginning to open now and lots more fat buds on their way too.

I visited my friend Brid’s garden today. Some of you may have met her at the last two get togethers in Johnstown. It is a big garden by the sea and as well as enjoying the wonderful effect of the gulf stream, it is also very sheltered so an ideal habitat for many plants, including many tenders.

Two specimens stood out today and I couldn’t resist taking pictures of them and sharing them with you. One is Melanoselinum decipiens, seeds of which originally came from Rachel – thank you Rachel. I grew quite a few of them and gave some away but this is the first plant of the group that I have seen or heard of flowering. (Mine don’t appear to be going to flower even though they are three years old!) It is spectacular!!

The second is Echium pininana. It must be at least 10 feet tall and buzzing with bees – a wonderful sight!!

When I visited your lovely garden in Westport a few years ago you gave me a slip of your cotoneaster that originated I think in your mother’s garden in England because I was complaining that the one I had was refusing to grow!

Well, I put both of them in my Jardiniere hoping they would help to cover the side of my shed.

Well, the result is plain to see – my original one is only about  a foot high  but Sally’s one is twice that height!

Thank you Sally! I’ll take some slips of the “tall” variety and see if I can get the side of the shed covered!

The bud watch series featuring R. bureavii comes to a conclusion this evening and I would like to thank those of you who commented and stuck with it, much appreciated. I must say the flower truss is lovely and was worth waiting for.

The second photo shows the second of my tree Paeonias to flower, this is from a cutting from my Mams garden which I planted a few years ago and it has really taken off this year.  The flowers are beautiful, with a lovely scent as well.

Another hybrid which I adore for its flowers is R. point defiance, the flowers are quite simply awesome.

The 1st May heralds the first day of Summer for me and well, yesterday says it all. After the dull wet day on Sunday, which was needed, but not enough rain fell to quench the thirst my garden has at the moment. Very dry still!! But wasn’t that a real stunner of a day. Wall to wall sunshine from morning til evening. And long may it last. Sun out again here so can’t wait to get out there again today. 

I got a little bit done yesterday before the in-laws arrived. I put out all my Dahlia for a while plus the hanging baskets. Watered the plants in the greenhouse, which incidentally hit over 40C at one point! Tidied up some plants that got a battering the day before and then we all sat in the garden relaxing. 

Such a great start to, hopefully a good Summer. The dogs certainly enjoyed the heat and had a fairly ‘easy’ day lol 

Its amazing how well everywhere looks with the bit of sunshine. 

Hope you all get good weather today and enjoy it while you can. 

So off we went to Ennis to hear Mary Reynolds give a talk and see her film about the Chelsea garden she did back in the day. And of course we bought her new book. Well, talk about a can of worms… more like a whole compost bin! I don’t think we are quite as extreme as Mary in our views about gardeners and their gardens, but we have always seen our garden as a collaboratin between us and all the life in it, from the soil organisms upward, asnd we don’t mind nature creeping in and taking over bits. 

But there we were sitting having coffee on the front bench Saturday morning trying, as we have for the last six years, not to see that Godawful expanse of useless tarmac (we always use the other entrance and of all the visitors we’ve had, nobody has ever parked their car on this side). It’s just a wind trap, ugly as sin and an offence to Nature. So I got a bit of squared paper and started doodling with ideas for a forest garden. As you do over a cup of coffee…. 

And Himself gets that new-project gleam in his eye that makes me say, ‘I want my staging finished first! And my guttering and waterbutts up on the new shed! And you’re a pensioner and too old for digging that much tarmac!’  ‘Hmmm….’ saith he thoughtfully, ‘it’s a thin enough layer. I could do it in bits. And you’d leave the bits where the paths will go…’

Now, on the first night we were in the house four hares came and sat in the garden and we said, ‘Ah, the cailleachs have come to bless us!’ So on Saturday night a big hare came and sat right in the middle of the drive. We looked at each other. ‘Well, that’s that. The hares say we should do it.’ And yesterday a pheasant came and walked right across the garden. I guess the wild neighbours think it’s a good idea. We’ll remember that when Himself is in traction!

Now, I don’t like to moan but the old potting shed just didn’t cut the mustard. It was grand at first, but its only window faced north, so you had to work with the door open for light, and if a west wind was blowing it blew stuff about and was chilly to boot. Then we had to have a water filtration system and that took up a big chunk of space. Then we got a shredder and leaf-blower and they had to be kept in Alan’s studio because there wasn’t room. Then I got really into growing plants from seeds and cuttings and the polytunnel staging started to burst at the seams. Then the filtration system sprung a leak and it all had to be dismantled and suddenly there was no space for me at all at all. 

Our friend Padraig said he had some old double-glazed windows. And we had some greenhouse panes sitting outside for years. So one basic shed later and I have an absolutely gorgeous propagation area, with great light, lots of staging and workspace, and the cold frames can go on the front once the guttering is finished and the waterbutts connected. 

I am one happy, happy bunny. 

Looking at Paddy’s photos the green stripes isn’t standing out as well as in your one, but looking at it in the flesh, the green strip is very noticeable. 

The garden’s got the bit between the teeth and is careering into summer. Grass has sprung up and veg beds still undug! But Scrubber is just going to enjoy whats there rather than bemoaning what’s not!

The Azaeleas are out in glorious purple, the candelabra primula in the bog have all come out-lovely purples against the rush of new green, theres a lovely Blue Peter Rhododendron still going strong, ferns are unfurling everywhere and Hostas are unsheathing themselves. The green of the Beech is one of the most beautiful spring unfoldings.

So what if things are a bit ragged around the edges Scrubber has decided to enjoy it! And maybe ,just maybe he might gradually get around to things in time!

What a great day today. Second day for the strappy top,shorts and flipflops. Ok, no flipflops today as I was moving around great big planters.

A couple of years ago when I transplanted all of Dad’s daffs into my own garden, I ended up having to plant lots into planters. One such planter is in the middle of the grass, where the rotary line is. But as the receiver for the line is above soil level, the planter acts as a safeguard to stop people, mainly me, tripping over it. Still lots of greenery on the daffs, but as they were planted too close together, none of them flowered this year. So today I removed all of them and will heel them in somewhere to die down at their own pace.

Got three new plants at the weekend and one of them needed a BIG planter. So the daff one, after it was emptied, got shifted over to the patio and Cephalaria gigantica got put in. I believe it should get to about 2 metres in height or more. 

Had to shift around other planters, mainly my acid-loving ones. Most of them are underneath the kitchen windowsill. But with constant tomato feed being applied to the Violas in the windowbox, it drips down on top of the Acids. Time to relocate. 

Cut back most of the daff foliage today, and watered and fed all my Agapanthus, Dahlias, Callas and Begonias. Happy with my lot today.

……what you can get done in 2 hours at times. Tonight I headed out to the garden from 7.30 to 9.30 and I managed to get the following done –

Sowed some Virginian Stock seeds in the trough with the sweetpeas

Sowed some pots of White Lady runner beans 

Watered some plants in the greenhouse

Put fleece over some pots of Dahlias

Watered some shrubs which have been moved recently

Sowed Autumn King carrot seeds and planted parsley and marigolds nearby

Pruned a large Hydrangea aspera Villosa and a Hydrangea macrophylla

Planted a Veroncastrum

Took a few photos at dusk

I am a genius at pottering and have often not got that much done in a whole day. It must be the good weather and the glorious sunset!

A few weeks back I won a prize from Johnstown Garden centre on Facebook.

It’s an Aquilegia and it arrived today. 

I don’t generally enter competitions, so this is a real shock to actually win it. But I’m delighted with it. I love the navy and white flowers. Just need to find a home for it now 😉 

….be with you! Isn’t the May weather glorious? Apart from all the watering – and thank God our well taps into a strong spring. The garden is really starting to bloom despite the dry soil. 

We have a love-hate relationship with this Spanish gorse. It’s very well-behaved, doesn’t self-seed and apart from one brief spasm in May is as boring as mud. We’ve gradually taken it out everywhere else and just these two bushes are left. Their days are numbered because the earth wall of the forest garden house will be there, so we’re enjoying the flowers now. 

The silene was a slip from Nuala Shanahan at a Johnstown some years ago, its own slips are all over the garden and it’s gorgeous. 

Open Arms is just a lovely neat climber. It’s buds are the most wonderful deep rose, and the flowers are a honey-pink fading to white. Scented too! It’s a bit susceptible to bug attack, but you can’t win èm all. 

Lovin’ this gorgeous season!

Carex ‘pendula’ is planted into the pond as a marginal. And as it’s part of my North-facing Border it’s only in the last two weeks getting a bit of sun. I get the best look from it when the light of the evening sun catches it.

Yes, it does seed about, but nothing that I can’t handle. The young plants are easily identified and disposed of if required. I, for one, wouldn’t be without it.

got a few hours this evening so managed to get the timber home and cut to size . I left just enough space to get at the shelving . Now all I need is about twenty bags of compost . A friend said that Aldi Compost is cheap but cheap is not always best ? The Aldi bags are small too I think . 

I have the tomatoes ready and cucumber sprouting so these two will be first . I wonder what else would like a new bed . Any ideas friends ? 

I posted about this plant a couple of weeks ago and some people suggested it was a Hollyhock. But I still disagree. The leaves are much smaller than any Hollyhock I have seen. But it looks like the mystery is soon to be solved. The last photo shows what, to me, looks like maybe a flower bud about to open, or maybe it’s just how the leaves emerge. Any more guesses (or informed decisions) before it’s too late?

Better photos as promised.

Jackie made a suggestion of it being Ribes. The first photo is Ribes foliage on the left, Mystery Plant on the right.