Archives: journal

I see lovely pics of ladybirds and sparrows in all your gardens, all my garden has attracted so far is slugs, snails, greenfly and caterpillars, hundreds of them.  my cabbages look like green lacy things, and my nasturtiums are being savaged.  arrived back from a weekend in london a few hours ago, and my two sunflowers are lying flat on the ground, am afraid to inspect the rest of the garden just yet.  still havent had the time and good weather at the same time to actually sit and enjoy the garden, do i have to wait until i retire?

My mail order succulents arrived today. It’s so exciting to get stuff my post. My husband is always getting stuff by post so it’s such a surprise when something arrives for me. Having said that, I haven’t done too badly recently. I got my birthday  pressie last Thursday and now the succulents today.

Some of you may remember how impressed I was with Helen Dillon’s Agave Parryi when I visited her Dublin garden recently. Well, today I received my very own 5 Agave Parryis. They are tiny but they’re all mine…  I could really get into succulents. I was recently happy to learn that Cooper shares my interest and, in fact, she gave me the most lovely present of 3 little echeveria. I was really delighted as the big one I got in France died last autumn and I was unsuccessful with leaf cutting.

The large sarracenia in the greenhouse ate another bee yesterday! We’ll have nothing left to do any pollinating for us at this rate – very politically incorect with the bee population having been decimated last winter. It’ll be after the ladybirds next. If you had a ladybird in your garden… Harking back to Mairin’s latest journal entry – I have seen only two ladybirds in my garden this year! And it’s not the sarracenia’s fault!

Agave Parryi

Agave Parryi

My youngest music mad son has just returned from Oxygen, and that’s what some of his clothes look as though they could do with the amount of mud on them. Oh to be that age again, anyway the washing machines on and it’s steadily raining so between everything I’ve had to do today there’s no gardening today. Took more photos last night and today of the garden and the wildlife should be up later

hi everyone didnt get anything done today either, it rained buckets and promised more of it tomorrow rest of wk. might get something done 2 moro in the tunnel. all my window boxes are distroyed so i am not going to bother putting them up again. well thats it for now. happy gardening

Well almost!!! BuzyBee the lovely garden centre in Ferns is changing hands…and I should have checked out their sale a few weeks ago…anyhow visited today and got a few plants at knockdown prices…. so that makes up for all that restrain nonsense that went on yesterday!!!

Got out in the garden for a little while this afternoon, everything is soaking of course…but have almost finished picking the peas now….I did sow some seeds of radish, lettuce and more dwarf runner beans…theres a few bare spaces now in the veg beds…

I’m wondering should I pull up all the red onions, reading in the garden books they say wait till August…does anyone have any advice? should I leave them a while yet or would it do any harm to pull them and dry them out….cant believe I just said that…how on earth could anything be ‘dried out’ with this weather!

Trying to keep the ‘chin up’…but its disheartening trying to get into the garden with all the downpours…..Anyhow lets hope for a good day at Belvedere..so looking forward to it. Bye for now đŸ™‚

the potatoes are doing well esp the red skinned ones. the sharpes express seem to be quite small in comparison but the taste is lovely.

now that i’ve tried these i might go for different types next year

red duke of york. desiree and sharpes express

red duke of york. desiree and sharpes express

What a wash out this week end. I had a second pond create itself in the second level of the garden much to my grand daughter’s distress. "Will the fishies all fly out Granny" she wanted to know. Well they didn’t as far as I can see but they could nearly survive in the lawn as it is so wet. Some weeding today as the sun came out in the afternoon. One of the glasses of my wine bottle sculpture crashed down in the rain and the wind of the week end – thats life here on a windy island.

Still fed up with this arm. Wish I could do more. By the way do you like my idea on growing lettuce. Paddy put up a shelf in the garden and we put a growbag up with the lettuce. Keeps me going in fresh lettuce. I also have tomatoes on the pation in a pot, here’s hoping.

Last week while staying with my parents in Dublin I had the pleasure of going to see Helen Dillon’s garden while kids were happily at cinema and Dollymount Strand!  (Thanks mum & dad!)  I have put some photos in an album.  I was amazed at all the colour and I believe it had even changed since Rachel was there two weeks previous.  I love this poppy here, well at least I think it is a poppy and I loved the geranium in photo No. 9 & the varigated grass in No. 11 to the right of the photo.  I went around the garden 3 times seeing different plants each time!  Well worth a visit, you would not know you were in the heart of Dubin.
White Poppy

White Poppy

Today I set out to find a hanging basket for my nepenthes. I needed a small plastic, hanging basket, preferably with a saucer attached underneath for collecting drips. Could I find such a thing? Not a chance.

I ended up in a Garden Centre with my youngest, Sammy, where I bought a basket of hanging strawberries (just for the hanging basket) and then detached the hanging bit and attached it onto a pond basket. I now have my nepenthes in a hanging pond basket (apparently the pond basket it best because of the drainage). Luckily it hangs over the sink so that drips end up in the sink – well, nearly!

Anyway, while in the Garden Centre, we went into the pet section and ended up buying two koi for my little pond. The woman in the shop said that they would grow (or not) to fit the size of the pond. Well, I took a chance. So my sons named the koi, Louis (the white one) and Zoe (the one with the orange splodge).

Louis & Zoe

Louis & Zoe

Hi all, not sure on whose journal that i found out about secret seeds web site, decided to pay it a visit on Sunday night and was very impressed!!! they have a summer sale on at the moment with a huge range of seed on offer, we bought 15 packs of seed and including postage cost was €12.75!! great value, would recommend anyone to take a look, and thank you to who ever posted the name in the first place……………………….
Flower seeds

Flower seeds

I’ve visited my experimental garden space and found out that ants take up their residence on my northern bed.
I’m lost in conjectures how to deal with them because next step is to plant the conifer and add some stones. But I cannot do it if angry ants attack me! Scratch my head….
Now in bloom in the garden –  sweet-william, white peonies, Leucanthemum, also my herbs do well, especially melissa, and all that was planted up, looks good, except one astilbe. I’ve bought it after blooming, and now it all withered. But I hope it will recover.
 
 
White peony

White peony