Archives: journal

The Lemon drop chili’s have almost reached their full height and have set plenty of flowers, i am looking forward to a good crop with them, when they finish cropping in oct/nov i don’t intend to compost the spent plants instead will give them a good feed and let them go into a dormant state over the winter, i will keep them on the kitchen window and all going well next march they should kick into action providing us with an even earlier crop of chili’s, lemon drops are ideal for the kitchen as they only reach 2 1/2 ft tall………….. 

Just thought since it is raining that I would maybe bring a smile to your face if you saw a picture of My SON – Yes Son and His Best Buddy Sean going to school this morning!! A.K.A. Benita and Shauna!!! They are having a fun run today and are now in school dressed like this for the day and it is raining. Ah well – should give everyone a laugh anyway.

Yesterday morning I was delighted to pay a visit to Head Gardener’s domain. Bill had kindly invited myself and Cooper for the grand tour.

We had a lovely morning, strolling leisurely around the garden and hearing about all the plants and trees. Bill’s knowledge of Latin plant names is quite astounding and, despite Linda’s several attempts to trip him up, Bill did not fail to disappointing, magicking up the required Latin name to our joint amazement.

The backbone of Bill’s garden is his trees – sturdy, healthy looking specimens. The vegetable area, complete with Monty Don style fruit cage, is already producing strawberries and his kids’ triple raised beds are in immaculate condition. In the greenhouse, I was disgruntled to note how Bill’s Agapanthus-from-seed was far more advanced than mine. Tomatoes were looking fine and bushy too. 

We had a good mooch around Bill’s shade garden, marvelling over his tree ferns and discovering various unknown perennials. But the highlight for me was the large planted area around Head Gardener’s Deck. Although not yet mature, the advantage of looking up at these plants, gives the illusion of maturity. And the sun, hitting the back drop of Stipa Gigantica must be lovely when enjoying the seating area.

So, after two short hours had lapsed, it was time to head home and back to work. 

But as the majority of the gardening day was already gone, I just did some planting, notable planting up the Liquidambar tree, in the picture, which is to remember my mother.

Spent all afternoon yesterday weeding, cutting back and just looking at everything. Come yesterday evening I had a "Eureka Moment". I was obviously a "Lady of the Manor" in a past life who spent her time pottering, pruning and walking in her gardens but had some poor servant following her around clearing and tidying up after her.

I will tackle any job – but I hate clearing up afterwards!! Just not cut out for that type of thing.  thought maybe, with half my kids on holidays and bored that they might do the clean up – but I guess they take after me.

Took loads of photos which I will put up – Was wondering if maybe the technical guys could look at putting a slide show option on the site for looking at peoples photos. Its a pain having to go through them one by one – What do you think??

 Oh nearly forgot – we had cauliflower and broccoli from the garden with dinner. Very tasty!!!

 Am going to "A taste of Dublin" tonight so will more that likely be unable for anything more that sitting in the garden tomorrow!!

I adore Roses but I have to admit I know very little about all the different species and forms – I don’t know my Hybrid Teas from my Floribundas, or Ramblers from Climbers so I was delighted when I picked up this book in Belfast for £2!  It is a bit heavy but as I am finding out there is a lot more to Roses than meets the eye, or nose! 

I did a spot of weeding today.

My lavender and sambucus are almost flowering. It’s such a thrill to anticipate.

The sambucus is in the foreground of the photo – Black Lace, I think. The lavender is all around the tree – Munstead, I believe.

I could not wait to get home this evening. The sun was pouring into the garden so out came the deckchair and I just sat there enjoying the rambler rose that has grown up through a multi stemmed cordyline and burst into bloom. I could not but relax as I  listened to the bees buzzing and looked at our cheeky resident robin popping in and out of the flower beds. The same little chap follows me about as I potter about, urging me to dig more so that he can feed from the freshly turned soil. I see a pair of magpies have taken up residence in the "skyrocket". They are noisey and tend to frighten away the small birds. I’m not too happy about that.

pity the sun isnt shining on them in this photo because these peonies are gloriously beautiful. the scent is not as good as what i was led to believe but they look stunning..my mam has one which if you smelt it you could die happy. they put on enormous growth in such a condensed period of time, they die back quickly enough too but they are stunning.

 

i strongly recommend them as an early summer flower

One of the best benefits of the site has been able to see other peoples gardens and occasionally visit someone elses. This week I hosted a return visit to my own garden by Rachel and Linda (Cooper) and luckily I think we had the best day of the week. I really enjoyed showing them around and having a generally good natter with fellow gardening enthusiasts, and of course there kind compliments were much appreciated.

The collection of plant gift was also very welcome there is nothing more exciting than free plants especially if you dont already have them, in total I got 15 plants which was overgererous so thanks Rachel and Linda. I dont have a lot of small plants as many of my plants are only 1/2 years old and are not ready to divide or have not provided seed yet. Its a small world as I was googling one of the plants Rachel gave me Verbascum Saffron towers what should pop up but Shelsers Garden journal on garden.ie!

Someone must have been listening to my rant about uploading photos as it took a lot less time to do this morning (but maybe everyone was having a lie in after all the hard garden work during the week?) I have put up a few new photos in a June folder.

I’m hoping to blitz my annual planting today weather permitting. I’m already marking my chiltern seeds catalogue for next year! I am also trying to pick out about 10 plants for the plant swap in Mullingar, but all but a few are still fairly small. Linda, Rachel and I discussed how many and what we were bringing our main fear is we we’ll bring too little/too much, but also we’ll run out of plants and then spot a plant we want and can’t swop (disasterous), should I have a few backup plants stashed in the boot just in case (he he)

I don’t like cut flowers.  Flowers growing I love but I never cut some and bring them into the kitchen.  If a flower is damaged by the weather, then it comes in but for the most part, the flowers remain outside.  I didn’t have flowers on the alter on the day of my wedding – instead I had containers filled with plants.  My late mother was horrified at the thoughts of no flowers in the church for the wedding – what would the neighbours think? 

One such plant was this hosta which has been moved from the original container into the ground where it was happy for several years, then moved out of the ground back into a container during the back garden renovations last spring and replanted in its current home.  Last year, it wasn’t great but this year, it is giving its all.  Even "pig" is impressed!

Old garden springs its surprises upon me. This time I discovered starling-house among branches. Even Dima didn’t know it was there.

I don’t know if any birds live there, but it doesn’t look hopeless, I think :)))

What a beautiful day. I have been out for hours! Lots of weeding (dare I say it, but bindweed is more under control), planted out tomato plants and sowed some courgettes. Certainly looks like I have made significant progress today.

Have tried planting two of the tomatoes under a frame a bit like a goalpost shape. There is plastic as the ‘net’, and toms are planted at the back of the net, and supported by string angled up and tied to the crossbar. Looks very technical. We’ll see how it works. Will compare it with a few planted more conventionally. Was a Bob Flowerdew idea I came across. Photo attached, but not sure how clear it is.

Snapped some more roses today…see ‘Roses’ folder.

Got on very well today in the garden.Even though the day started wet,some early jobs got done in the tunnell and greenhouse.Done some feeding and watering along with a quick clean up.The weather picked up into a perfect sunny day from app 10.30 am.Headed into the veg garden and done some weeding and earthing up.Swept the bottom garden pass.Just before dinner the cement arrived for 1 the final section in behind the greenhouse,and 2 for the new shed step.When all was finished then it was a big clean up of shovels barrows etc and that finished the day.The rain came down after 6 o clock but no harm done as the cement was almost dry on top with the glorious sun.A good day today over all.

 

Today I did two garden visits at Tinode near Blessington, Co. Wicklow. They are part of the Wicklow Garden Festival. The first was Huntingbrook, it is in a beautiful woodland setting with a stream running through a riveen on one side of the property. It is a garden that is continually changing with the unusual to be found in the herbaceous borders. July is probably the best time to visit. The large collection of grasses are usually at their best at this time and really a site for the eyes. Check out the WGF brochure for details of open days

The second garden I visited was that of June Blake. This is a very special garden created by a brilliant plantswoman over the last six years in what was an old farmyard. The array of herbaceous plants is just stunning. One goes from a riot of hot colours through all the colours of the spectrum right to the tranquil contemplative woodland corner with a wonderful fern collection. Two plants took my interest here today, a vivid red oriental poppy and the beautiful blue himalayan poppy. This garden, also part of the WGF is open most days during the summer season, and there is a very nice nursery attached.

I have 3 lemon trees (or rather bushes) I grew from seeds in the glass house.  They’re indeed getting bigger, but very very thin.

I wonder if they’ll become proper trees, or if I’m supposed to do something special.

They’re thin, but very leafy so my husband trimmed some leaves.  I’m going to use them for cooking, as the scent is just heavenly!

No complaints about the weather today.Just 1 spill app 4.15 pm but nothing effected.Done some usual checking for water inside,in the afternoon and later in the day i went for a long stroll with the dog.Had a look at other gardens and spoke to some of my neighbours about flowers and veg.No visit to a garden centre today.When i arrived home later in the day the veg area had a brief look over it.Outside the garden shed i gave the ground a light hose wash over that area.Nothing strenuous done over all with today being Sunday,the Lords day.Plan to finish the day, by reading through some garden books on veg and see whats ahead for the week.