Archives: journal

alone it stands

Azalea

Forgot to mention, my friend Tina for whom I made up the Herb garden was just blown away and thrilled to bits with it.  Is working on plans to make a herb garden next month when she has some time off. Another convert !!!! Will have her on Garden.ie before I am done!!

Put up a few photo’s taken in the wind and rain this evening

Am trying to retrieve the south bed from the weeds that are trying to wrestle it from me! Having pruned my Lavetera to extinction I am now looking for something low and spreading in pink to fill the very bare spot.

Can anyone help me with the choice. It is a partial shade spot, limy soil and must withstand winds. I tried the plant finder but alas there was no joy…

My Viburnum Tinus and my Spirea have given lots of small plants which I will bring along to our Community Garden Group and try to trade for something else. 

The weather looks dull and miserable so may not get out today.

Mrs Great Tit is  sitting on her nest keeping her (at least two) eggs warm.

Iris pumila ‘Cherry Garden’

enough is enough! sore foot or not something had to be done with the border at greenhouse. all shrubs are gone leggy and about 12 feet high by 12 wide at the crown.so hubby and i set to  and started to cut back and clear out.we are taking out about a third of the branches and will remove another third later in the year.

 i have come in to rest my foot as its hard work keeping most of the weight on my goodfoot . there  is an awful gale blowing the wheelbarrow keeps blowing over!!

it will take days to clear the border , then hey, think of the fun i will have buying new plants to go in it

Common Comfrey [Symphytum officinale] sown 10/3/09

Weeping Copper Beech

I watched Richard Corrigan’s City Farm again last night.  Has anyone else been watching it?

While I admire that he is promoting the "Grow your own" culture I have to laugh because you get the impression that he woke up one day with the idea himself.  And you’d think that no one was growing their own vegetables at all in this country the way he goes on.

I found his argument against battery hens as a viable and clean method of producing fresh clean food – namely "You can take that argument and flush it down the toilet with me" – was very cringe provoking. But its good to see some sort of "gardening" on the telly.

I have just been out in the greenhouse. Omigod, I have 24 sunflowers to plant in my garden. I think I’ll have to set up a stall outside my house.

My corn is peeping through, also. No sign of tumbler tomatoes. Spinach beet is coming up too.

I’m off tomorrow so if the weather is as bad as recent days, I guess I’ll spend the day sowing more seeds. ie. cornflower, Leucanthemum, Gazanias, Bergamot, sunflower ‘sunspot’, more chives, lambs lettuce, endives, lettuce, and another packet of sunflower seeds that I got free in a magazine about 5 yrs ago. Don’t know which one it is. Gotta wait in anticipation. 

My tree paeony is flowering. Lovely deep red. I’ll post a pic on my photos.

Three Trees 🙂

hi everyone. hope all are well. didnt get anything done the last couple of days because of the horrible weather we are having. the poor planrts are getting a terrible start outside, hopefully things will improve. bought some grasses today. not a major fan of the grasses got lovely bronze ones though so see how they go.my patio is turning into a real oasis. lidl are going to have japanese maples tomorrow so when i have them added i will take a photo and put it on the site. i want to light it up a bit, was thinking candles rather than plastic solar panel lights. if anyone has any susgestions i would love to hear from you. well thats it for now hope the weather improves because the days are very long when its horrible. i tend to go to garden centres and do damage, not good news for my laser card or my pocket.before i go, went into the tunnel today and found all my lettuce and spring onion are up. and my tomatoe plants are in flower was thrilled to bits, my peppers are not even showing yet. happy gardening everyone

i know its a busy time in the garden but cant seem to get motivated to go out and do anything other than mow the garden and throw a quick glance around the place with the eternally grey skies blanketing the entire midlands.i seem to be more busy wishing the grey skies blue than doing anything worthwhile….

the trays of plants i bought are still in on the path outside. i have a 1st communion this saturday so i think they’ll be in trays for another while yet.

My lovely, big ornamental bed that I have so lovingly worked on over the past year (well, preparing it for planting anyway), has just had another setback.  My husband is planning to re-do the paths around our old 60s bungalow as they are pocky, unsightly and possibly even dangerous in places.  Plus, our downspouts go nowhere.  This is where the problem starts:  we are going to have to put in soakaways for the down spouts.  I have a water butt on one corner but probably won’t put one on the front of the house (my 3year old would not be impressed as he rounds the corner on his tractor going 100 miles an hour to run smack into a water butt).  So we need a soak away that will be running into… you guessed it… my new ornamental bed.  Good thing I didn’t start planting it up yet, huh?  Men with diggers = disaster.

Pest or pet

a warning to all my garden friends. dont ever buy or accept as a gift EUPHORBIA WULFENNI. its a thug. we have dug and dug out mountains of it i cannot believe how much is still there. so be warned

Turfs up…

Acer in a tub

what did i start ,!!!! freddie scissorshand had nothing on me ihave cut   and cut  pruned and pulled and we are not nearly finished.

 all the plants we found yesterday are now beaten  down to the ground. i dont think mellianthus  or paeony roses  will ever survive.

gale force winds all day  isthis summer?

granite blocks

Ah killbarrack is only 5 mins from here, small world. I was in India in 1996 and I met a friend of my sister there she’s from Clontarf! Mad.

All that work was 14 years ago! The real heavy work took place in 2004 the front garden was all grass with a railings and hedge all round it, but I had just bought my first car so it needed a driveway and I was fed up with everyone else parking in front of my garden anytime my friends or family called they would have to park around the corner! So I hired a digger and my son dug out the front garden, we shifted it to the back garden bit mad but I hated the idea of dumping good soil! Then I was faced with leveling it and spreading tons of agri and stones around the driveway! the other side has paving stones which a friend did for me, Then the fence went in which is about to fall down now, the crawlers I have on it are weighing it down its probably whats going to cause it to fall! I still havent got the front gates! An absolute must because my daughter is a chip of the old block loves the outdoors and is only one.

Then the work that went into the back garden, wuuu I get exhausted just thinking of it! The mountain of soil from the front garden had to be disperesed on top of the boarder along the wooden fence then I’d to level the soil for a lawn I had bought on the roll it was winter and very dreary and my crazy idea was to brighten up the garden with green grass as everything was soil and bare trees! Next I lay the grass, no easy task! Then plant all the trees and shrub, and my treatment room had to be finished.

Of course not having enough work on my plate I paid up the builders and finished that myself also! ie laying wooden floors painting inside and out so on and so forth! Oh yes and in the middle of all that because I had not put a side gate back up someone decided to walk into my garden and take whatever they wanted! So myself and my 18yr old son made a side gate and put it up!

Your probably getting the picture why I find this garden exhausting I burnt myself out back then so Im very cautious as to how much I will do in one day! 

Verbascum

i started a blog recently to show the progression of an overgrown irish garden, that will be transformed into a modern oriental style garden.

 the blog wil also review plant species that can be grown in ireland, where i have had success and where i have had failures.

come and subscribe at ‘the irish oriental garden’

google search ‘irish oriental garden’ 

or  https://irish-oriental.blogspot.com/

Blue clematis

Ben bought a trampoline a week ago. Now the natives are getting restless as it is still in the box.  Wont stop raining long enough to put it up. Tom says it will be found half a mile away if we put it up in those winds.

When I can go out to the garden without rain gear and waders, I will let you know how things are. I do know the grass really, really needs to be cut and saw more dandelions whilst running to and from the car. 

How do you tell when its Summer in Ireland??

The rain feels slightly warmer !!!