Archives: journal

Just wondering if anyone knows what this Lily is called.  My mother-in-law gave me 3 bulbs early in the year, all she said was that they were "some sort of pink lily".. which I have found out!  They were quite large bulbs, but have grown long and stalky to about 3-4 foot each.  I had no idea they would be so big and also are starting to fall over quite a bit… not sure where they would be best suited in the garden.  The pots I sowed them in were quite small too – should I have gone for bigger pots and I would have bad smaller plants – does this work?  Anyway, I think the flowers will be beautiful but such a strange and long plant.  Any info would be welcome… thanks.

I finally got round to cutting back all that horrible ivy behind the greenhouse. It’s not really taking from the light or even hindering the greenhouse in any way. I just can’t stand it. It looks untidy. But I think I must have put on weight since I last cut it back. I struggled to get in behind the greenhouse. The only access I had is from the door end. There is a rabbit hutch at the other end, so access is denied there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t reach all the way up to the top of the ivy. Steve will have to finish it tomorrow. I have done all I can for now.

While I was doing that, Steve was making a protective covering for the new pond. The heron is on the prowl again. He used the bamboo canes we saved from the bamboo we dug up. He formed them into a circle which is slightly larger than the pond and covered it with netting. It’s raised up on 3 stakes. This looks rather unsightly, but it is only a temporary measure, until we can come up with something better.  Pic on ‘july 09’ album. Maybe we are worrying needlessly. Maybe this pond is close enough to the house to be a deterrent in itself. However, we’ll just have to keep an eye on things for the moment. We bought 20 fish last weekend.

When I was away the other week, I took the opportunity to take a little tour of the village allotments. For a beginning veg grower, it was inspiring. Enthusiasm abounding, I came home and set to, netting the kale and broccoli. I had seen huge rows of bird eaten cabbages on said allotments, and compared them firsthand to their neighbouring cabbages which were thriving under netting. Mine now are growing well, though I didn’t get to the swiss chard in time and they are sadly stripped. Maybe there is still time to sow a fresh batch.

It has become increasingly obvious that the lavender in the West Garden needs replacing.

The bush split this year, showing its woody legs and leaving an unfixable gap in its middle.

I had bought a lovely nepeta at the Springmount Garden Festival exactly for that purpose. But then I thought I would leave the lavender until after it finished flowering. I ended up putting the nepeta somewhere else. I’m always doing that – buying a plant for a specific purpose but then getting seduced into planting it elsewhere. Does anyone else have that problem?

Anyway, I have started a ‘July 09’ album and also uploaded pictures of my carnivorous plants to the ‘greenhouse’ album.

I have gone back to using the long handled lawn edger as I find it gives a neater finish than the battery one from Aldi. The Aldi edger refused to cut tough grass. One of my favourite flowers has bloomed and its so ‘airy fairy’ it looks like raindrops.

There was lovely evening sunshine on the Arums.

Just thought you might like to look at the sea of poppies flowering at the moment. I sowed the seeds in the ground in April. I should have thinned them out to get bigger, stronger plants, but how do you know if you are pulling out the ‘special’ ones, as they are such a mixture? Now they are in full flower, the leaves start to go tatty, first a few spots, these then merge and before you know it the leaves are well and truly banjaxed. Black leaves are no foil for these beautiful flowers, so I spend ages grooming the plants, removing each and every leaf. Sounds radical, but I end up with quirky looking plants that are strangely pleasing to the eye!

Well, it’s finally almost complete after only 14 months passing since I started!  As you can see from the pictures I got loads done this week (all on Monday in fact) and I am CHUFFED.  There is about four more boards to be put down and then I have to cut the edges into the quarter circle shape that it will be when it’s finished…

I had a friend ovet to help me which was great and we milled through it quite fast.  We started by laying down the weed barrier and then we threw in some old slabs, tiles and red bricks that had been cluttering up the garden for over a year so they could be buried underneath and I won’t have to be looking at them any more.  Yes, yes I know I could have recycled them to someone but I am just too impatient sometimes and when I saw a way to get rid of them instantly, in they went!  So apologies if anyone was looking for some free red bricks :o(

We started into the boards then which was a pretty straight forward task.  We had to cut a space for the drain pipe on the first one but the rest were just straight lay downs.  It’s certainly a laborious task screwing them all in but I guess it has to be done!  We got it all done except for about four more boards than need to go on.  I had hoped to do them today but I have wrecked my shoulder being stupid at work and I can barely lift my arm let alone lay decking boards.  Of that, I am not impressed!

You can see than I have roughly cut some of the excess from the boards, roughly resembling the planned shape at the end (except that it wont be a two level curve as it looks like in the picture), so we would have some room to work.  There is about 2mm between each of the boards as I like smaller gaps to make the whole deck look more fitted.  To space them I used small metal 90 degree brackets that you might use to hold up a shelf, you can just about see them in some of the photographs.

I will drill ventilation holes all along the front of the base after I have the main part finished.  To finish the front I will be using a 15ft length of board that I waill get shaved down to about 1.5cmso it will bend around the length of the deck at the front.  The floor boards will overhang it slightly when finished.

I must say I am SO happy it’s nearly finished after so long.  And it really is true that the base is key, takes the longest and is the biggest pain in the ass to do, but it’s worth it, sorta like the foundations to your house, it’s gotta be strong or expect trouble!

I bought the wood as planned in Brooks in Balbriggan, for a very reasonable price I might add considering it was hardwood.  I bought ten 9ft lengths, eight 10ft lengths, a litre of end seal and a box of decking screws for €270.  Pretty good if you ask me!  It’s called Garapa hardwood and its lurrrrrvely!

Enjoy.

 

Ronan

We’re going away to Brittany tomorrow for 2 weeks.  As we’re bringing our dog with us, we’re going to get a boat from Cork to Roscoff.

Our Lithuanian friend, who now lives in a rented house, has kindly offered to water the plants regularly while we’re away.  So we offered her to take any vegetables she wants from our garden.  This is the problem with the home grown vegetables.  They get ready around at the same time all together!!

I hope my only remained zinnia will survive while I’m away….

Was very busy in work today. Did a big job on the roses. Took all morning, deadheading, spraying and topdressing. Spaced them all out more too, to help with ventilation. Just when I had finished and the place was looking all spruced up, in walks the judge for the Garden Centre Awards. Was I very glad I hadn’t let him see the roses before I had done a make-over on them. It was great to hear his positive comments about the garden centre. I went home a ‘happy camper’.

When I got home, I planted 2 gorgeous dahlias which I got in work. A lovely red one, very similar to Bishop of York, and a yellow one. I also bought coreopsis. These are for my red and yellow border. Stood back and inspected my work, but I was disappointed with the impact I thought I had created. I better get more tomorrow. Ha ha.

Also, I bought a lovely rose which I reduced from €10.99 to €5.00. It had fallen off the delivery trolley and the pot split. So I couldnt sell it at full price. And I COULDN’T let anybody else have it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s amber in colour. Very rich.

I also bought a new pot for my Corylus contorta ‘Red Majestic’. This is forever being put into different pots, purely because I don’t have a designated area in the garden for it. Maybe it would actually be better STAYING in a pot. We’ll see.

That’s it for now. Going to watch Gardeners World and then RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2009.

Today I had to trim the entrances to the woods. There are 5 paths into the woods and they were very overgrown, mostly with rhododendrons and laurel. I put before and after photos in an album.

rita this is princess Hazel with her 1st prize win in the raffle.

First to be done was a quick grass trim.The tunnell was given a clean up.Large tubs in the garden were also given a wash down.Done some more successional planting in the veg bed.Weeded some in the veg area.Checking to see whats next for the garden tomorrow.[Rain allowing]

Yesterday was spent pulling weeds out of my daughters cottage yard . This will be a challenge as the half acre of wilderness needs to be tamed.Working in Cork she only comes up now and again. In are own garden the Begonia pots are enormous this year I have had to stake some of them.

This week we sampled some of the garden produce. We have being eating regularly from the garden, onions, endive, oakleaf and beetroot. However this week we had a dinner from the garden. We sampled some of the spuds (Kerr pinks ) and the cabbage (greyhound). Another gardener gave me some carrots from his garden. All I can say it was worth waiting for but the spuds could do with a couple more weeks in the ground, because they have not reached full size yet.

I took several photos one morning of various plants in the garden.  I was delighted with them.  I put this one up as my desktop photo and admired it on and off during the day.  It was up for several hours before I noticed the aphids on it.  Those things really are the bane of my life. 

Normally, I would put the hose on to high power and give the plant a good lash but there is a big difference between a rose covered in aphids and a penstemon covered in them.  Apparently some people squash them between their fingers but I’m a bit too squeamish for that.  So I thought about spraying.  I saw on one person’s journal about how her cabbage could not be eaten due to having put down slug pellets.  (Apologies for not knowing your name – it’s just that I have read so many journals that I can’t remember who put that up and I can’t find it now either).  I have to say I often wondered about the chemical composition of those and if they are as harmless as we are lead to believe.  In fairness, on the container, there is a warning about them being poisonous.

I have strawberries, garden peas, carrots, chives, parsley, rosemary and sage growing in the garden so now I am a bit reluctant to spray.  I logged on to Mr. Middleton’s website and he sells 25 ladybirds for €29.95 plus post and packaging.  The reason why I was thinking about buying them is because I have only once seen a ladybird in my garden and that was about two years ago.  Around about the same time, one Saturday, when in Kilkenny, we were moving cattle from one field to another.  On the way back, I counted 11 ladybirds.  I was stunned.  When I mentioned this to my sisters, I seriously believe they thought I had a screw loose.  But up here, you just don’t see them.  I don’t know if it is because the farmers around here are into cereals and vegetables (whereas the farmers around my father are mainly cattle and sheep men) or whether it is because I live in a housing estate and, I assume, my neighbours use chemicals to control their aphids so by default, the ladybirds don’t stick around.  This got me thinking.  According to the website, ladybirds eat 10,000 aphids in their life – roughly 5,000 per annum.  With 25 in the pack, I would need 125,000 aphids to keep them fed for this year alone.  I know I have aphids in the garden but I hope to God I don’t have that amount of them!  Another thing, if I were to buy these, there would be no guarantee that they would stay with me.  It’s not that I could keep some type of tabs on them.  I wonder did the ladybird I saw in my garden two years ago escape from one of my neighbours’ gardens.  I think I’ll stick to the jet of water, for the time being anyway.   

I was rootling around trying to find the name of the honeysuckle for Claire E, and came across the names of a few of the roses that I had posted in the Roses albums. So I have updated the names…sorry if I mislead anyone!

Now its raining and metcasts say all this day is lost for any outdoor activities. So I check what’s new on the balcony.

I’ve got first double petunia of this summer – it’s white and,  perhaps, scented (it’s too wet now, and almost all flowers lost their smell).

Also in bloom: phlox drummondi,  pink geraniums, blue pansies, violet petunias, and unknown plant with little white fragrant flowers (looks like mignonette, and if so – it must be from mixed seeds I brought from Dublin last year).