Month: May 2018

I had forgotten the phrase from my youth! But I am! Three glorious days and apart from the fact thaat the strimmer broke down on Sat i still got a lot done and now have five veg beds ready to be filled. Hard work as the grass had grown on them with a vengeance. The rhododendrons are out and rhodo winsome is exactlly the same as a differently named one i bought in lidle for half the price. I bought five and they seem the same. Two others are coming aand they are a plummier colour but its very exciting to have so many.
But today again it was veg beds.i got some broccoli and spinach and lettuce plants and they will gi in after the rain comes. Ill try for a picturecwith thhis but dont yet know how to work it.

Visited a Beautiful garden in waterford recently. Every bit of it pristine.packed with unique plants all showing the care and expertise of the two gardeners.Came home to my chaotic jungle. You can imagine…but at least theres a start on.

With glorious weather for the bank holiday weekend, I headed off yesterday to visit Patthana Garden in Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, for the first of their 2018 open days.  It’s been on my list for a while, as it is a small garden and so many of the lovely open gardens we visit are quite large and, while beautiful, hard to relate to my own suburban space.  This is the garden of an old granite stone house and it’s on two levels which adds great interest (three plus really, as the cobbled and paved courtyard area is in several sections with single steps up).  Then there are two flights of stone steps up to the top garden, with a circle of borders around a lawn and island beds, with mature trees providing a shelter bed around the whole garden.  The owner is an artist, which certainly shows in the planting.  There was a talk on using annual plants in containers for summer display, with plants for sale, which will be repeated on the first Sunday in June.  All in all, a lovely visit.  I will probably go again later in the season and next time take in another garden too, as there are several within reasonable distance to make a full day out.  Patthana Garden is open on the first Sunday of every month from now until October.

I haven’t posted a journal in over a week. But it actually seems longer. Tough week dealing with a very good friend’s sudden death last Monday,

and she was only 52. It puts everything into perspective really.

Today I made full use of the great weather we’ve had during the weekend. The Greenhouse Pond needed clearing out very badly. Hasn’t been done properly in over two years. When I had all the debris cleared off the grass, Steve gave it its second cut of the year. It’s looking so much better today. Rain forecast for the next few days so hopefully it’ll be a lovely lush green finally.

I had a visitor in the kitchen today. He flew in, and flew around very calmly. Flew out again when he was ready. It was lovely to see.

Evening all

I hope you all had a good weekend and wasn’t the weather just lovely.

More Rhododendrons for you today and the first is a hybrid, R.goldbuckett. This is looking very well at minute. The second photo shows the magnificent hybrid, R.horizon monarch. This is a fantastic bloomer with spectacular trusses

The last photo shows the strap like petals of Azalea Kkoromo shikibu, i am pleased to have this in the garden as it is a bit different and after all variety is the spice of life.

A few pictures taken yesterday of the same bed as my last journal. The scene is changing so very fast this year, don’t you think?  We had such a long dreary winter but now the sun is out and I am feeling great!

I will add captions to pictures later.  At least I have managed to do the main part of finding and selecting etc etc. Those tulips have ll been there for years.  Middle picture is of a different bed.

There’s a shower coming!  Must run.

I hope!

Maybe!

I was away for a week and can’t believe how everything has grown.

……..only this time I didn’t buy it myself.

This is my prize from Johnstown Garden Centre for the weekly competition ‘What’s in my garden’ on Fb

Its a beautiful Corydalis Blue Line. Long stems of beautiful foliage  with gorgeous little blue flowers. Just need to find it a home!!

Does anyone know what this white stuff on the roots and in the compost is? I was potting up a small Aeonium and when I tipped the plant out of its terracotta pot the soil and roots were covered in it. The plant seemed ok though, so perhaps it’s not harmful?  I had quite a job washing it out of the roots before replanting. Any info/advice would be appreciated.

This cactus opened to day 4th May. I had been looking out for it for about a month. Usually it is open in April but of course temperatures and sunlight have been below normal so far. I have a number of same for years . I also got an Epyphyllum from Margot but while hers is open a long time and she much farther north, the cactus she gave me is not open yet.

Rhodo flowering time is getting into full swing and here are three more for you this afternoon.

The first shown are the flowers of R.Elizabeth ‘red foliage’. The second is a shot of R.winsome in all its considerable glory and the third are the flowers of the species R.charitopes. I really adore the delicate flowers of R.charitopes, which is a seldom scene Rhododendron. I love having special plants in the garden.

Monday was my first chance to get back gardening and I’m afraid I over-did it a bit – ended up aching from head to foot the next day and had to take the day off! I tackled the Fernery which was looking a bit wild and bedraggled as the daffodils were gone over and the Helebores were also looking a bit sad!

It was great to find that most of my ferns seem to have survived the snow and are starting to do their wonderful unfurling!

I make no apologies for my lack of names for the ferns, they are all just ferns to me! But I have a couple of little treasures in this area – I have a flourishing clump of Omphalodes Cappadocica ‘Starry Eyes’ although I relentlessly remove the seedlings as it doesn’t come true from seed! In my enthusiastic weeding I may have inadvertantly done a division so I’ll keep an eye to see if both halves survive!

There are three plants in this area that I have great difficulty in naming – Trillium (Sessell), Epimedium and Erythronium Pagoda. Its not that I don’t know the names, its just that I can’t pin the right name on each of these little treasures! I’ve re-labelled them in the hopes I may manage to sort them out in my head!!!

The main task for the day was to remove all the wandering Anemone japonica ‘Honorine Jobert’- They self-seeded here and are a great addition but as you all know when it comes to these enthusiastic self-seeders “too much of a good thing is a bad thing” so the seedling plants had to be ruthlessly weeded out! Has anyone else noticed the phenomenal amount of moss on the surface of the borders?

Anyway it was worth all the aches and pains to see the area looking so neat again!

Summer Gathering
Sunday June 10th Blarney Castle Gardens

Lunch is available at Blarney Castle Hotel at 12.30pm. Soup, sandwiches, tea and coffee cost €12.50.

Entrance to the Castle gardens costs €14 and we have a tour booked after lunch, so if you are coming straight there we aim to begin at 2pm.

The Castle car park has been revamped, and as the Hotel has a small car park I suggest we meet at the back of the car park left hand corner, in front of the bus parking area, from 11.30 if we want to swap plants, then walk across to the hotel for lunch, it’s a very short distance.

I have put up posts on the Facebook page and my garden.ie page so please let me know by the end of May if you will be having lunch at the Castle Hotel.

Thanks!

Terri

I have been out of action for a few days now as I have had eye surgery but getting back to some kind of normality now!!

I spent the last couple of days just pottering around the garden and planting up a few of the plants in waiting that have been around for what seems like ages.

Jimmy built me a raised bed earlier in the year which is housing all my Spring plants, like Hellebores, Snowdrops, Muscari etc and soon my Dahlia and its looking great. Only thing is that its a big high for me to be clambering into whenever I want to attend to the back of the border. So last weekend he put in a couple of steps so I can get up there a bit more safely!! I am delighted with them and over time the plants around them will grow taller. We left a little bit a the back where I planted up a little bit of Sedum etc just to break the concrete. I think it will look great once weathered in.

I hope this weather improves now over the weekend as promised and we will see lots more growth. The garden certainly has taken off in the last week or two and I am really enjoying watching plants emerge that I had totally forgotten about. Thats the beauty of gardening isn’t it.

Hope you all have a lovely bank holiday weekend whatever you do ☺

… it can get pretty radical.  Some of you may remember that last summer I started cutting an arch into my big pyracantha where it crosses the end of the main garden path, the idea being to create space for a small seat or other feature.  Other things intervened and I parked it.

When I looked at it again recently, after making some adjustments to the stepping stone path that runs in front of it, I soon realised that it was mainly a tangle of crisscrossing dead wood, over two feet deep, with only a thin covering of green leaves.  If it grew out any more, it was going to scratch anyone using the path.  I reluctantly toyed with the idea of removing it altogether and starting again with new plants, then noticed some new shoots growing from where it had been cut last year.  So, deep breath, and over the last few days I got out the loppers and pruning saw.

We now have a sort of contorted “hedge on stilts”.  Where possible I left the growth at the top to retain our privacy and a small area of shelter for the birds.  I tied in the new shoots, plus some youngish shoots that had rooted near the front that I was able to partially uproot and layer back.  When these grow strong and tall enough, the older wood can gradually be taken out.  I stuck some of the cuttings in the ground further to the left along the wall, where sadly our much younger second pyracantha is dying from unknown cause.

My tulips finally putting on a show here and enjoying some rare sun the other day. I believe weather is to pick up this week as I’m itching to get out in the garden. Also sowed my 1st seeds the other day. Can’ remember the name but they are maroon coloured sunflowers.