Archives: journal
My garden is small I have fruit growing in it. There is gooseberries blackcurrants strawberries and rheubarb in it. I also put onion sets and leeks in, beetroot and white turnips. I have made a wheel with a tractor tube, and in it is scallions and lettuce . I also have a glasshouse and in it is grapes tomatoes strawberries.
I have much to learn still but I will enjoy the experience’
Well June seems to be flying by. We have had some lovely weather to enjoy in the garden. It’s great to be able to entertain in the garden. It’s a new garden so the borders that we have done so far have given us great pleasure so far. Lots of weeding to be kepted on top of.
Took this pic a few days ago, we rescued this big furry monster a couple of years ago when he was a cute purring little angel. He hates me to go out in the car without him so the other day when I distracted him and leapt into the car, I thought it would be a simple get-a-way! Not a chance, he launched himself on to the bonnet and then spread himself over the windscreen – (a considerable spread as you can see) I started the engine – he tried the big shrek eyes and the the roll onto his back. I reversed a bit – he licked the windscreen!!! What can you do ? this guy rides around the fields with local farmers and sits on top of the trailers with the workers. He knows no fear (apart from when we brought him to the vet to curtail his oats farming if you know what I mean). I let him in, he sat on the front passenger seat and purred away to the radio. Buster aka Garfield.
Don’t leave me
Today I noticed a lot of flower behind the kitchen door, where plants sit, waiting to be planted.
There are three bare root roses, which I potted up in February and some Anemone bulbs from the same period.
I felt guilty looking at them in full flower today and still no home for them.
rose & anemone
I have a little dilemma.
We hired a compressor today and compressed the area for the stone circle. It was already level, thanks to the efforts of my teenage son.
My daughter (Miss Leaving Cert) then worked out how much sand I need and the hubbie phoned various sand suppliers. Now that’s how to get things done!
The problem is that my books say I need sharp sand. Apparently there are two types in Ireland – plastering or mortar sand. Explanation as to what the sand was to be used for, received no help.
Can anyone advise as to whether we should use mortar or plastering sand for under a stone, paved circle?
Type of Sand??
I am going to take Monica’s advice, and take time to just ‘chill out’ in my garden. After all, it is a labour of ‘love’. Whats the point in killing myself getting it looking good, it I can’t sit back and enjoy it.
Got in at 6.00. had 2 cups of coffee, then got dinner. Then watered and fed everything. Now I’m sitting outside with bacardi and coke with steve. His irrigation system is working a treat. Put a few more photos on latest album.
Nothing more to report.
relax
jumped out of bed this morning , showered and decided to weed today. a lovely morning!! well the heavens opened and it lashed rain thunder and lightening until after lunch!!! the road was like a torr ent of water, it was the worst rain .
went to town later to find that the rain was just over MY GARDEN !! people at checkout in supermarket thought i was joking…… far from it
so no weeding done and lots of flowers beaten into the ground.
oh the joys of gardening and irish summers
The list of things to do is so long that I thought my time would be better spent here, writing a journal entry… go figure.
Trendsetter?? Who called me that — Rachel, must’ve been you. How I laughed when I read that. If you could see my garden with all the scutch grass and slug-eaten plants. Though I believe I did see a bit of scutch grass at Bloom. Did anyone see that? It wasn’t the garden with the mound but another one — I think it had a stone wall. I have one of those… it’s where my biggest snails live. By the way, anyone who has read my earlier entries knows of my battle against the slug. Here’s the funny thing… I can’t kill a big snail. Ahhh, there aren’t that many of them and they’re almost as big as a mammal… even tho’ one did get on a six-pack of rudbeckia seedlings and mow them down in a matter of minutes.
New trends?? Did I mention before how I have this sneaking suspicion that cottage pastel colours are going to come back into the borders? I’d love to hear what other people think about this shocking prediction I have made. I’ve thought this for about 6 months now, but just go look at the June cover of Gardens Illustrated (this is by far my fave mag for garden photographs, while the RHS’ The Garden wins my vote for best content). How long have we been enamoured with the deep reds, dark oranges, purply black foliage plants (can you say Cimicifuga 3 times quickly??)… Imagine yourself pulling these out for pale blues, pinks, creamy yellows. Or if you don’t, imagine a younger gardener walking past your houses and whispering to his or her companion, "Look, it’s so Noughties, all those deep colours and foliage… and look, bless, a ‘Bishop of Llandaff’, haven’t seen one of those for ages." Ha, you laugh, but think about the times you have done the same about conifer borders or rockeries…
I’ll admit, I have some pink stuff in the garden, and some pale blue. I have a bed that I call a nursery bed — it’s to bulk up perennials so that I can divide and share (or possibly divide and sell if I ever get my ducks in a row). I have a huge pink Lupin, just one I grew from seed — medium pink but on the light side of medium. Just your average, run o’ the mill Lupin. And it’s beside Johnson’s Blue (geranium). My god but the pairing is hideous. I know it is just a nursery bed but I nearly can’t take it. Pastels?? Could I be converted? Could you?
Someone offered me an Astrantia (or a bit of one)… yes, yes, yes. I’ll go back and see who posted that note and make a direct plea to you.
If anyone wants to go for a spin Saturday after next (that’s 27 June), a friend of mine is having a plant sale. She and I would like to sell some of our offspring 🙂 and thought this would be the best way to start. We are in Galway, her house being between Athenry and Tuam — the sale will held 10 to 2. If you are interested just send me a message for directions or go to our little website called Galway Grows (www.galwaygrows.ning.com). We’ll be putting up information about the sale in the next few days. Some of the stuff we have is really small, but we figured that people with a bit of experience won’t mind buying small plants cheaply then coaxing them along; we wouldn’t mind doing this ourselves instead of paying so much for a full-grown plant. Perennials, veg, herbs, a few annuals. Plus, we’d love to meet any kindred spirits.
Speaking of meeting — my friend got the email about getting tickets to the garden.ie event in July, but I never got that email. Do you think they might be trying to tell me something??? My journal entries are probably too long… on that note…
I think they are Tent Caterpillars and they are eating my golden Alder! I confess to decimating them (by hand, my garden is a spray free zone). They started it by dropping into my hair.. I am an organic gardener and even allow Nettles..! But these I will not allow..
Seiryu & sulking Loosestrife
Pastel shade of pink Astrantia
My zinnias are disappearing at an alarming speed, so I had to use slug pellets. I hope this will help…
Why do all these creatures only eat my favourite flowers? Blue poppies, or sunflowers (which completely disappeared while I was in Japan for 10 days last month!).
Zinnia 2
The big thing I did today was to clip the grass on the ditch. We have a 2ft ditch running down one side of the garden.
Yesterday I took what-I-thought-was a lovely photo of my Crambe maritima and some peonies in flower. Only when I uploaded the photo did I notice all the buttercups and long grass on the ditch behind the bed. It’s funny how stuff becomes like wallpaper and you don’t notice it after a while.
Anyway, today I started to clip the ditch. I hadn’t done very much when I decided to fetch the strimmer. It was broken. So hubbie kindly finished the job. You can see the before and after photos in my June 09 album, although the photos only show a small segment of the ditch.
We bought the mortar sand for the stone circle area this morning. Thanks once again to all the very helpful advice I got on this. I could have gotten double the amount of unbagged sand for the same price but decided I really didn’t need a large pile of unusued sand decorating the garden so went for the more expensive bagged sand. That’s the only progress there today.
After the ditch was clipped
Today when we got home, there was a lot of excitement as we found we had a visitor in the garden… A young cat paid us a visit and was very keen to play, and was generally quite mischievious. My youngest daughter LOVES animals, but we don’t have any pets (so far!) so she was delighted to have the cat around and spent quite a bit of time following him around, calling him, stroking him, etc. It all looked very cute until I discovered that the cat made a complete mess of a tray with seedlings that was sitting at the side of the house!!! It was too late for me to do anything about it this evening, but I’ll try and pot all of these tomorrow, and hope that they will survive!
Apart from Saturday, I did not do much in the garden in the last couple of days…
I’m planning to extend a flower bed that runs along the fence on the west side of the garden. It’s a problem area where the lawn goes right to the fence and I never manage to cut it neatly along there so it generally looks messy. It is quite a shady area too. I’ve decided to extend the flower bed that already exists further down and fill it with shade loving plants. This should link with the corner where the cordyline is, and I hope that having plants along the fence rather than messy looking grass will improve things… If I have time in the next few days, I will start digging, but will ask for help to dig the bed properly, next week I hope!
BTW, problems uploading photos again tonight…
Cats!
at last..i got a chance to go out to the garden and weed…well, the divils must have seen me coming because they rooted themselves into the ground with every ounce of energy they could muster…i was out all day yesterday and today on my hands and knees in shorts and teeshirt and of course the wellies-i’d say the men in white coats weren’t far away!!i finished at 10:10 last night and 9:15 tonight and i’m feeling every muscle in my body complain but at least i feel satisfied that i’ve done something very overdue and very necessary..tomorrow i’m planning on doing the whole nemaslug thing….
Did loads of work in the garden today, unfortunately it was all ironing. 31/2 hours of it!! Well the sun was shining, it was very warm – why waste it. If you have to do an ironing mountain, may as well have something nice to look at.
While I was doing it I noticed that my Digitalis Husker Red is not looking very happy. I bought it last year at Bloom and it did wonderfully but is looking a bit sad at the moment. Will investigate tomorrow. Maybe put up a photo and see if anyone has any ideas.
Clean stone
Mexican Sunflower
Found a site for Orange Dream but of course another major dig out had to happen first. This time it was the very tall white ‘Michaelmas Daisy’ , a late flowerer that you often see in florist bouquets. There is still a load of it next to the Sumach. Its a terrible spreader. There is a ‘Rhus’, Pampas, and Rhododendron all around the site. It required morning sun or shade so it is facing into the east and peaty soil. Close up photos in new album. . . . . . . Hope its happy!
Japanese Maple ‘Orange Dream’
Couldn’t find any common name for this!
Chiastophyllum
Apricot Primula
Love in a Mist are one of my favourite summer flowers. I sowed some seeds back in march (Persian Jewels mix) , only about five of the seeds actually germinated. they are quite big now and have been transplanted to the garden.
can anyone tell me if it’s to late to sow more, to flower this year, or can i buy established plants anywhere.
Love in a Mist
I have said it many times that I’m not the most observant person about, and that there no use asking me if your new hairdo is lovely for to be honest about the matter, you could have left your head at home on the mantlepiece and I would not notice. However I have noticed something in the last week or two. The amount of bird seed being eaten is unreal, quite scary and beyond belief. If it was to continue I would want to be ordering it by the ton bag. I am constantly filling the feeders, and I mean twice daily. I fill them in the morning before I go to work, and I refill them in the evening before I return to work. I have 4 feeders, 2 for seed and 2 for nuts. They are always empty.
I am now on the look out for obese garden birds. I have even tuned in to Derek Mooneys show listening to see if there is large amount of garden birds trying to join weight watchers. No help there, and it is not squirrels before I hear you saying it. The last two mornings I have found the feeders gone from their hanging perch and dumped empty on the ground a few yards from their hanging position. I have now put in security lights and have trained the dogs to gaurd the feeders. Both options useless. However just as my sanity was leaving me I discovered the cause of the missing bird seed. A fecking great big crow was hanging on to the feeders trying to eat from them, and when he could-nt, he was picking them off their hanging hooks and dropping the on the ground. He and his mates were then eating the lot. Mystery solved. I have to come up with a soluction for feeding the birds I want and not the ones who gate crash.
If anybody has a minute to spare would they give Dermot o neil a hand to clip his blasted hedge. No matter what pictures you go to look at, half of it is obsured behind the hedge. Just when you despair that you wont see the full picture out jumps Dermot and his strimmer. The hero, but instead of cutting the hedge out of the way, he starts the job and then gives up. Either Dermot or the strimmers is broken so if anybody is having a quite week in the garden will they give him a hand to remove the hedge. If not can we have a collection to buy him a new strimmer or hire a gardener to do it for him.
