Month: August 2017

Dietes bicolour is a native of South Africia and a member of the Iris family. It is also know by it’s common name of Fortnight Lily or Africian Iris. It is a perennial with long sword- like pale green leaves, growing from multiple fans at the base of the clump. The flowers are yellow with three dark spots and an orange outline. Paddy grew this plant from seed many years ago when he had an interest in Africian bulbs. Despite summer coming to an end, the garden still has some nice and interesting plants flowering. I have just noticed the nerines are stretching by the day and it won’t be long before their sugar pink flowers are blooming.

Well, it all started about 4 years ago when after a flurry of gardening visits and events I found among the treasures I had collected something with no label and no clue as to its identity. Just a few leaves on a stalk …. so i asked on the site and someone suggested it was probably a ginger and that not all gingers were hardy. 

So I cossetted it for a couple of years – into the greenhouse every autumn, out again every spring. It grew lots more stems and leaves – it divided itself into several plants but that was all it did.

Last year I gave it a good talking to. No more cossetting. Sink or swim you can stay outside in the Tropical Area. 

And guess what? It took me seriously! A couple of weeks ago I noticed one of the stems looked a bit different …. yes, definitely a bud. It seemed to take forever to develop but it finally opened today! And I am so thrilled because Elizabeth7 just put up a photo of the same ginger – so maybe I will get a name for it at last!

The really exciting bit is that four out of the six stems also have buds!

That’s what I call a result!

I thought I planted Salvia ‘Wendy’s Wish but I have doubts Can anyone identify this plant? Tks A weed possibly?

Took these last week, after a fairly gloomy day it turned i9nto a wonderful evening so we got the camera and took some photos then we spent it in the studio doorway reading our books, watching the sun go down over the Burren. One of those evenings that you do all that gardening for!

We have been at the garden sales locally, having a big bed extension to plant up, and the side of the house is starting to look like Arnotts at opening time on the first day of the sales. Some of the plants are looking very pot-bound and sad, but they’ll perk up with TLC and a good home where they can stretch their roots. Delighted to have acquired some bearded irises very cheap! I will be splitting those in due course a la Monty. 

I like this combination of artemesia eupatorium and diascia personata three very easy plants. 

I always love this time of year when we get to enjoy the fruits of our labour, we are enjoying bumper crops this year, 

I think this is the best of the sedums I have ever grown. It has raspberry red flower and red stems with a blue/ grey leaves. I have also noticed that it doesn’t revert when cuttings are taken, very stable sedum. A beautiful plant.

These are looking good in the garden at the moment. Sadly the rose has a lot of black spot but you don’t see that when in a vase.

I’ve mentioned here, more than once, how my next-door neighbour is NOT a gardener. Each time, in recent times, when I look out my front window I despair. He has an awful looking tree that I think he said had self-seeded a couple of years ago. And with the prevailing winds, most of it is leaning over into my garden. It’s not even a NICE looking tree, I think it may be a Birch of some sort but not sure. I don’t think he actually notices how awful it looks. But as the cooler weather is approaching, the leaves are starting to go a yucky brown and falling into my garden. It’s grown huge this year, so much that I can see it from my bedroom upstairs.

So yesterday, I started to chop away a lot of the bare lower branches that were hanging over into my garden. It still looks awful. But I can’t reach any further up. To do it successfully, I’d have to chop the main trunk. Then I’d be left to dispose of what I cut.  

I wouldn’t be so bold as to actually knock on his door to talk about it. But as I spend most of my free time in the back of the house, I rarely get to see him. It’s really annoying me. I think I’m going to have to sprout some courage and go to him. Awkward, to say the least.

A few more to tempt you, Hazel and others; photos taken in the Botanic Gardens earlier this week.

Good thing I wasn’t in a garden centre; I could be tempted myself!

Sorry, photos taken with my phone; I did have it on portrait lock but they’e still sideways. 

I have had mixed luck with Salvias in the past. My first purchase was Salvia nemerosa ‘New dimension Blue’ in 2012 (according to my database) which struggled for a couple of years and then gave up the ghost! That year when I had my first Open Day for Garden.ier’s A member “Damo” brought me a completely different type of Salvia – the giant and very vigorous salvia forsskaolii which has made a bid for total domination of Gortnalee so has to be ruthlessly controlled!

The next one was from the Fota Plant Fair and I was told it had been raised in Fota so it has good associations – Salvia ‘Red Ensign’ has come through several winters out of doors and is now a sizeable shrub. I’m now sure when I should prune it – any advice would be welcome!

A couple of years ago  JoanG arranged a group visit to a number of her local gardens and I bought Salvia “Penny Lane” from the lovely garden of Shirley Beatty and it is also going from strength to strength.

When the Johnstown Plant Lists went up in January I couldn’t resist asking for Salvias – Myrtle and Margot (Fleurette) both came up trumps. So I now have Salvia Amistad and Salvia Microphylla ‘Heatwave Glimmer’ as well as Salvia ‘Purple Haze’ and finally a little salvia with two-toned leaves that is hanging on by a thread!

Since this years Salvias all came with a warning that they aren’t hardy I popped three of them into a single planter and was really happy with their great flowering but the other day I realised that they really were totally over-crowded so I liberated them into separate pots so I can now see their real beauty. 

Any hints on how best to take cuttings would be welcome – I’ll bring them into the unheated greenhouse but should I let them dry out? Is this the right time to take cuttings?

Help please!

This is a very pretty little plant. 

I bought it in Lidl a few weeks ago now and it’s still in the original pot, a habit I have when out and about. I pick up something I like and then try to find a spot for it, so it’s left for a while!!! 

When it was first purchased it was in flower. They went over and to be honest I thought the plant was dead. Then last week I moved it to my windowsill, as I was sweeping around, and it has come on again. 

Fabulous  cerise pink flowers are all over it now. I also love the actual foliage on it too.

im not sure should it be left out over Winter or should I bring it in? Any help would be most appreciated.  

I had tried to get photos of them before, but they kept flying away. However they were more cooperative today!

I went along to Ligas Grand Opening of her Potted Jewels yesterday. 

When I say it rained………well the heavens just opened and it did not stop raining for the whole time we were there. Very disappointing for Liga, but you know it didn’t dampen our spirits and we carried on. I met with other .iers, Hazel, Linda, Joann, Rachel, Deborah, Joan, ClaireE, Brian, Margie and also some friends too Joan, Maria, Julie who came to see these beauties  

Ligas collection of Pelargoniums is just amazing. She has so many and she can tell you everything you want to know about each and everyone of them. I visited Liga two years ago and it’s incredible how much work she has put into setting up Potted Jewels. She has a fabulous new polytunnel with a huge amount of space. This will house all her propagation pieces. I can see this filling up rapidly too.  

Outside her garden has become so established now and so many varieties of plants. We made sure to go around and look at all these amazing plants even if it did mean we were soaked!! 

Then it was back to the huge tunnel for tea, sandwiches and cake. What a lovely spread that greeted us. She had a huge cake which everyone enjoyed and I even got to bring some home for my Nicola. She LOVED it Liga, so thank you. 

It was a lovely afternoon and thank you so much to Liga, Liam, Nikki for their hospitality. Potted Jewels is going to grow and grow and if you get the chance to go along and visit you should. Really worth it. 

He knew I was getting a little dispirited as the garden seemed to be running away from me and I was tiring, There was a very tough area where the old hedge had gone and weeds and brambles and lots of rotten old wood were all over the place, I couldn’t cut the grass before the hedge as it was too long. This morning I went out and first transplanted two ferns that were cluttering up the others in fern corner, Then I changed another and so heartened a bit I got out the strimmer and bamboozled the grass area. It was tough going and then I sliced down with the spade at th eback of the long border in preparation for a long and weedy battle!

Cherub Lute as I said, knew I was a touch dispirited and he whispered ‘Give yourself a little treat and go back down and spend the day in Fern corner, Shift that rock with the pot on it and take out the excess ferns and briars and weeds and expose the rocks a bit as the clay and moss have made them lose definition..Go on you know you want to, the border will wait.

So Scrubber trotted down, shifted the rock-easily. Put the Pot back and spent the day carving out a steeper drop down from path above and by the time he was finished the place looked transformed. There’s a lovely passage from Monty Don that I will copy  down as it explains exactly what Cherub Lute was up to today. Ill try to upload pictures.

Was on a message in Thomastown yesterday and called in to the Watergarden. Its now run by a charity for people with special needs. I got three Ligularia for 3 Euro each and a find-a lovely bright hartstongue cristata fern for 6.50. It fitted in beautifully with the cleaned fern corner.

Today I was there again and got two more and despite the rain I got them in and they do make a difference.

Monty Don The Ivington Diaries p74

“This business of making places obsesses me. It is certainly at the core of everything I find interesting about gardening. You set out to ‘make’ a diminutive coppice in a garden but pace garden makeover programmes it doesn’t just happen. Time is an essential part of the mix.  Even the time spent not being the place is an important part of becoming the place. It wouldn’t work if you could somehow magic it overnight. Faith and a little skill-mainly exercised in knowing what to leave alone-allow you to persevere with the notion of what this space is allotted for. Then one day, quite by surprise, it is there. It is like sunshine sunshine breaking through the mist. I know that this is going to happen but because I don’t know when, it remains a desperately exciting and compulsively attractive mystery.”

Isn’t that just splendid. I had broadened the path and put in the rhodos and sown the grass and exposed and straightened two big rocks and then yesterday as I cleaned up the fern corner it all fell in together, the ‘mystery’ Monty talks about. Magic or maybe Cherub Lute!

While we were on holidays in England last May we came upon Hanham Court, a garden which was open under the National Garden Scheme. The garden is suitated east of Bath in the County of Gloustershire. The gardens were created by Isabel and Julian Bannerman after they acquired the property in 1993. They are collectors of grand architectural pieces and use these through out the garden to create mock ruins and oak temples. The couple are very creative designers  and have worked for the Prince of Wales at Highgrove where they designed the Stumprey with it’s Temple Grove. They have also worked for Lord Rothschild at Waddeston Manor and many other very wealthy people over the years. 

The garden is a delight to visit with quirky features and a restrained, but colourful planting. You find a Gotic enclosures beside a pool, an oak obelisk surrounded by lilacs and a garden that leads you out into a beautiful hillside meadow.

In the last year they have written a book ‘Landscape of Dreams’ about some of the gardens they have been involved in designing. However, they have recently left Hanham Court and moved south to Devon, where I am sure they will create another masterpiece.

I was given this plant as a cutting this time last year and thought it was an Abutilon, however Mary O’ Connell visited the garden last February and recogonised it as Phymosia umbellata which she had seen in Helen Dillion’s garden. It survived the winter with me and in May I put it into a display of tender plants outside the back door. The weather this summer has suited it and it has grown into a beautiful shrub. It is a native of Mexico and relative of Hibiscus and known as the Bush Mallow. It has soft furry leaves and large cerise flowers. It can grow up to four meters in Mexico, but I don’t think it will reach anythink like that in the sunny south east. 

Photos are courtesy of Paddy as my camera is not that good at taking close-ups of flowers.

Hi All, it’s been some time since i posted on here so i thought i’d give a quick update.

It’s great to see the garden mature. I’ve added a few new yucca’s, scheflerras and agave’s since spring. They all seem to be doing really well. There’s so much more i’d love to get and i’ve a number of projects in mind but these will have to wait for a bit.

I’m looking forward to the next plant fair and a few more buys hopefully.

Myself and Gretta headed to Liga’s Pellie Palace today. I know Liga is having an Open Day on Sunday. But as I’ll be away for the weekend, Liga quickly agreed to us visiting beforehand. So we had a sneak preview of what will be on offer for anyone going, but I won’t post an album. 

So envious of Liga’s new polytunnel, and the amount of plants that it houses. I think probably about 95% of her Pelargoniums are in flower, and all looking extremely healthy.

It’s about 6 or 7 years since my first visit to Liga’s place. I think she was only beginning to plant up her borders way back then. Everything has really filled out, and lots more added since. And it being such an exposed and windy site, I was surprised how well everything was thriving. Maybe a lot of her plants have acclimatised to their homes.

Lovely, lovely day, and it was a pleasure to chat with Liam too. Thank you both very much.

……..despite the ground being so dry of late. Plants have been hanging with the want of some water.  I was out Watering them on Sunday evening!! 

Then on Monday night we had the mother of all rain!!! My goodness it rained here from 2.55pm” ( I know this as I just got in the door in time!) and it never stopped all night. I’ve never seen rain like it before. So heavy that I thought our Velux Windows would come down on us. 

But then yesterday the sun came out! And everywhere looked so refreshed and bright. So a blessing really. 

Schizostylis, Kaffir lily starting to Flower now.

Also signs of Autumn are appearing when you see Aster ‘Little Carlow’ appearing. 

Another beauty is Ligularia ‘Osiris Cafe Noir’ which I got from Mary Keegan ( Keego). Beautiful dark foliage, which the slugs enjoyed, but also these gorgeous piercing orange flowers

So much colour still in the garden which is great. Deadheading is my favourite pastime at the minute. So this is definitely prolonging the flowering season. Let’s hope we still lots more sunshine yet as it’s still very dull here this morning !! Have a good one whatever you do 😉 

Clematis Polish Spirit is doing very well this year.It’s in a trough and I can see it through the kitchen window when I am at the sink! I took the good advice of another contributer to this site… prune in March ,feed well and control slugs.

And I’m glad I didnt! I knew today was to be a good one so had decided on getting out early and doing a lot. And then I just felt I would instead go into the Fair of Borris-I have got some lovely plants there in the past but when I got in there were NO plantsales at all! So I came home empty handed. Then thought Id go out and work and again just wasn’t up to it so had quite a lazy day. Tonight I’m not regretting it. Tomorrow is to be wet but if I get some grass seed Ill scatter it on bare patches and that will do me.

One bare patch is around a very large boulder which the fairies moved one night. Now they had only to move it about two feet but as they did so they unearthed another nice rock which they left beside it andit now makes a very nice natural feature. When in spring its surrounded with daffs and before that ,snowdrops both the boulder and rock are going to look very well.

The one disadvantage of improving an area like this is that therest suffers a bit from neglect and there is a LOT of suffering going on at present. I cleaned out around the path down to the Gates and the little bordering box hedge is coming on a treat and I found some hellebore seedlings and have put them in the cleared area.

And while all this goes on the veg beds go under, silently screaming as couch and thistle and dock take over. But maybe next week Ill get back to that-and theres thelong border to be weeded and cleaned up and and and……

But I dont regret my break today!!!

This is my favourite clematis with it’s beautiful double dusky pink flowers. It flowers from June until late September and it is covered in flowers from start to finish. I have it growing on an arch which is the enterance to The Lane and it is growing with Rosa Zepherin Drouhin, a thornless rose with a fantastic scent and beautiful pink flowers.

Evening all, I haven’t been on the site much lately, as unlike other members gardens my garden isn’t too colourful in these months.

Having said that, there is always something to be admired and Hibiscus ‘angel heart’ is at its brilliant best at the moment. God only knows how good it would be if we got some decent heat.

I adore scented lillies and have a nice few of them around the garden. The one shown in the second photo is almost six feet tall and is most impressive, and the scent is divine.

A seldom seen shrub is Clethra and what a shame, as it is a wonderful addition to any garden. The flowers are also scented and I am very fond of it.