Month: February 2018

I know the Kris Kringle is suppose to be a secret but a little bird told me I had Fleurette to thank for the extraordinary trowel and weeder that came my way at Johnstown! The weeder is impressive getting much closer to the end of the roots of long-established dandelions and thistles.

Today i had great use for the really looooong trowel! I had a visit from a friend who is always happy to get “bits” from the garden. As we strolled around we encountered a few ground-cover plants that would suit her garden, so I went and got the new tools. Some well-rooted plants of an Arrowpoint Ivy, some Ajuga Repans as well as that pretty Lamium Beacon Silver as well as the less civilised Lamium Galeobdolon were all easily uprooted for her. It was really childs play with the new trowel!

So a HUGE thank you to Fleurette for the best tools I’ve had in years!

And thank you to Olive, my lovely visitor who did a great job cutting back the Tropical Border for me!!!!

Recently I was watching Rachel‘s video about hyacinths she had growing in her kitchen. Inspired by this I bought a bowl of bulbs in Tesco the next day. They are in full bloom now and filling my kitchen with scent. Thanks for the tip Rachel!

We had a visit back in January from Lynn O’Keeeffe who writes the wildlife gardening page for Wings, the Birdwatch Ireland journal. I see her at work as she gets stuff for the garden she manages at Portumna from the garden centre where I work, so when we were chatting one day I invited her to come and have a look, and here we are in Wings this month!

Is it very vain of me to wish I’d known in advance she’d want a picture of me so that I could have put a bit of makeup on and smarter trousers? Though I don’t imagine the wildlife cares if they see me barefaced and mucky LOL

Hi all, 

I’m awaiting confirmation from Adam at Blarney regarding June 10th, so have just sent him a message asking him to speak to the owners and confirm that as definite. 

Re the late summer/autumn gathering, owing to visiting grandchildren and our own holidays in early September, I am looking at 1st or 2nd September, or later in September, either the weekend of the 23rd or 30th September for Ratoath. 

Would everyone prefer to go for the early date while the gardens are still good, or the later one when our own gardens are winding down and there’s less to do? 

Today was not a day for brass monkeys or even pretty determined gardeners in sunny Laois!

I ventured outside for a few minutes but didn’t get inspired! Went shoppping instead but sadly not Garden shopping – and when I got home I was surprised to see that the little smattering of snow still hadn’t melted!

and tomorrow doesn’t get much better – “feels like” isn’t getting above 2 degrees and actual not above 4 or 5 – and just to add to the misery rain/sleet too!

So where is our lovely Bridget hiding our Spring? Even my Daffodils are very reluctant to open!

The owner of the garden centre in new Ross. I brought in the spade and he has promised me a replacement within a week or two. I bought some lovely hellebores niger very healthy and very reasonable and when I came home I learned a dear friend’s  had died. The hellebores made a lovely sympathy gift and nicer than a wreath as my friend is also a gardener. She has planted a tree for her mother and the hellebores are to go under it. I can aways get some more.

I have one or two unusual snowdrops -mostly from Paddy and Mary and Lady Gardener. But one I got from Robert Miller as a present was Drummond’s Giant. As you probably know this is a carlow snowdrop. Statia O Neill of Ballon noticed six in a box in Drummonds Seeds in Carlow and realised they were special. She and corona North propogated them. They are quite large and the leaves are more like tulip leaves. I got the one bulb about twenty years  and I now have about ten! I will try to put up a picture of them.

Otherwise not a lot done. I am scuffling around in the flower beds and retrieving the odd lost soul ie a Salvia hot lips that had all but disappeared and other such like. Has anyone a foolproof method of removing three cornered leek. The Scrub is infected. Its a pretty flower but all encroachin and Im strimming it in the hope of weakening it???

Isn’t this such a lovely little iris? Given to me by Joan at Johnstown Get Together 2 yrs ago. Iris Katharine Hodgkin. So far this year 3 flowers.

So, when I go out I can wave to you, Joan, but I can also salute you from inside the conservatory.

This is the RESULT OF FRIENDSHIPS MADE ON THIS SITE.

The current issue of The Irish Garden features the things to take into account when buying a greenhouse; a garden design by the seaside and a visit to a garden facing the Atlantic Ocean in Donegal and a profile of mimulus.

I have shown a few of my winter flowering shrubs in the last couple of weeks and today i am showing the flowers of a shrub i am in awe of. It is Edgeworthia chrysantha, which is commonly known as the paper bush. The scent is divine, but i just adore its glorious flowers on its pliable, bare stems. It is a special shrub, worthy of the extra care and attention it warrants. I have mine on a south facing wall and wouldn’t be without it.

The second photo is of a fine batch of Hellebores, which i have at the base of my R.loderi ‘King George’. Very attractive.

I have some very desirable species Azaleas in the garden. As with a lot of species in the Rhododendron family, they can take quite a lot of time to start flowering, but to me that doesn’t matter as there is so much more to admire in these plants. The Azalea in photo no 3 is A. quinquefolium, a rarely scene species and at this time of year its glory is its delightful red buds.

I picked up a few Hyacinth bulbs at Mr. Middleton’s sale in the autumn. I mustn’t have looked at the display photo, or maybe there was none there. However, they are called H. ‘Gypsy Queen’, and I usually think something with the name gypsy would turn out to be orange/red/yellow. That’s not the case, but either way they are filling the house with their heavenly fragrance. When the weather gets a bit milder they’ll be planted out with ones I’ve bought in other years, mostly down in the Spring Border.

Two men looked out from prison bars

One saw mud, the other stars.

I was reminded of this little rhyme that my mother often quoted when I read the great comments people made to Peter’s Hellebore posting.

What lovely people we are, so supportive when someone is a bit down, perhaps a bit disillusioned.

But some other wise person told me that to be ‘disillusioned’ was a wonderful place to be as it meant that I wasn’t codding myself with illusions any more.

I actually think Garden.ie is a great site, despite all the negative comments. Yes I can’t put up albums in the easy way we used to be able to do, but we can still put up three pictures at a time – we could work around by adding pictures with comments, as some people have done. and we can even do an album following Hazel’s directions a while back !

And yes, sometimes the pictures aren’t the right way up – but is there a possibility that this problem might originate with a person holding the phone camera upside down? I used to do that myself – and another thing I used to do with the camera, not phone, was to turn it sideways to give a portrait view – that’s another way the original pictures didn’t look right.

But for me, while I really do love the pictures, what I enjoy most is the personal comments that people make – where else is there such a combination of friendliness, information, advice, and good-natured banter? Please, please, please reconsider if you are thinking of leaving the site – the technicalities are a minute part of what happens here – lets look up at the stars

PS and do make a posting, even a short one 

Two hellebores in flower at the moment. The first Hellebore Dark as Night which I moved last year as i didn’t flower and had no foliage is much happier now this year and already has a few flowers open and a couple more to go. Second hellebore is one I got off Margaret (Hosta) a few years aback and never fails to flower. the great ones in my opinion.

On another note, I don’t know how many more journals I am going to put up, the site is nearly a ghost town and nothing done or heard from Gerry and his Team. The interaction is nearly gone here and that’s one thing I loved. I think they owe us an answer regardless of what’s going to happen. It’s such a pity but I check in a lot on the site and sometimes know1 has had a journal up for 2 days…2 days would be like forever a few years ago. I remember having to read a fortune of journals everyday when I got home from work even in winter we always made a journal to keep all our interests going even if it was remembering our gardens in spring or summer. It’s easy to say we will not give up on the site but at some point we will have no choice as less and less is happening on here.  Gerry or craig if ye see this please reply……..

We think we are great observers of what’s happeing in the garden – but we surely miss a lot.

Cut and paste this link, and enjoy.

https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase/watch-a-garden-come-to-life-in-this-absolutely-breathtaking-time-lapse

Happy Spring-time everyone

Like Dick I always think of Feile Bride as the beginning of Spring so despite flurries of snow and really cold days there has been a bit of bright weather here in Laois the past couple of days.

I’m definitely in line for “Fashionista of the Garden” this year – my usual gardening jacket has a busted zip so I rooted out an old jacket of Brendans and I don’t know myself! Since he was nearly 6 ft and I am 5ft 2in it is good and long – it also has a quilted lining and a hood but I must look like Little Orphan Annie in the huge jacket – but boy oh boy I am cosy!

I headed out yesterday to plant a pretty little Campanula in full flower that found its way into my groceries recently. I decided the deeo blue would contrast nicely with the little daffodils in the Rock Garden – but you know how it is, sometimes we can get distracted!

So first of all Chamaecyparis nookatensis ‘Pendula’ which lives in a half-barrel along with some bulbs needed weeding … and the crocosmia in pots around it needed a home. So the Chamaecyparis is looking much better and the bulbs seem to have multiplied so they will look great in a few weeks. The Crocosmias are now edging the Shelter Belt so should bring a bit of colour to that area.

And needless to say, when I eventually got to plant the Campanula I had to carry on and weed and tidy the Rock Garden. It was almost dark when I finished so I had to wait till this morning to get the photo.

So I hope we are all welcoming Feile Bride and getting out and enjoying our gardens again!

The postman brought me a parcle today – really the perfect day to get a parcel as it was sleeting and snowing all day!

I asked about root-training pots a couple of weeks ago and got good advice so they got ordered online and were delivered today!

Now I have to go get my Sweetpea seeds! 

The weather was so horrible today that I couldn’t even go out and fill the pots with compost – but hopefully tomorrow will be a bit better!