June is the half way point of the Summer with the longest day of the year on the 21st and probably the best time of the year in the garden with everything coming into it’s best with huge growth . That growth of course also includes the weeds and a neighbour asked me this week how to deal with a patch of weeds underneath a line of trees … if you are careful not to hit anything in leaf then a glyphosate like round up was my reply … can’t he says the wife is against it … does your wife weed … no he says … mine neither so […]
I am always amazed with the sheer lushness of Irish gardens in May and no place else in the world can beat us for that and yes there is a price to pay with some rain every day and I was particularly struck a few days ago walking into the garden here after a few weeks in Croatia with the stony terrain and heat there … the greenness jumped at me and we are lucky to have this climate … ask me though in January ?! Wildness or I should say “ controlled wildness ” is our mantra in the garden here at Old Spa Road but it can be […]
April is a great month in the garden with long evenings and everything coming into leaf however this winter here has been one of the worst I can remember for rain and such was the water logging I wasen’t able to get in to cut the grass until the end of April . A few years ago I saw a beautiful white flowered plant at the foot of a tree close to our laneway , photographed it and discovered I had seen my first wood anemone . Garden centres don’t stock the wood anemone as it is a genuine wild flower across Ireland and Europe especially in woodlands where it […]
I love March although a very busy time in the garden as it marks the end of the winter and you are in a race to get all bare rooted plants and trees into the ground before growth starts in earnest . Snezana’s sister Lydija with her daughter Sara , visited in March 2024 . My new hosta population has grown to eleven pots from five at the start of the month and I blame Lynda at Clonmel Garden Centre who has adopted a system that any of last year’s stock of perennials that has overwintered is sold off at a 50% sale price … nothing wrong with the plants […]
Early February is snow drop time and for about two weeks we get to enjoy them and I love the flowers as they are the first signs of Spring and each October I buy and plant about a hundred bulbs and while I used to buy the usual supermarket packets, these are tiny bulbs that struggle to survive and for the last few years I buy proper big bulbs in the garden centres that cost a bit more but flower the next year and get bigger every year . Of course the real snow drop fanatics , galantophiles they are called after the latin name for the flower , will […]
Yes January can be a tough month to get through with gloomy daylight , post Christmas blues , shite weather … need I go on ?! When I titled this Thank God etc. it reminded me of a time Snezana and I were in New York and really hungry this particular evening we passed a fast food chain called TGIF which neither of us had heard of before … we don’t get out much … in we go and order almost everything on the menu , chips, burgers , onion rings , you name it we loved it … our waitress , a small black lady had to work hard […]
December of course is so busy for most people with family , visitors , food preparation enough for three sieges , effing and blinding because the Christmas Tree lights won’t work and the generally bad weather that hardly any work gets done in the garden and of course it is a good month to take off out there as basically everything is dormant and even gardens need a rest ! I often tell visitors to the garden that our garden would have a different design if we didn’t have deer traipsing through it every day and taking a bite out of anything that takes their fancy be it trees , […]
An in between month November , not quite hard winter and still some hardy perennials poking their heads up but counting down the time before the first frosts blackens everything and none more so then my favourite plant , the gunnera . Not everone’s favourite , the gunnera and not suitable for all gardens as it is huge after a few years in the ground , a monster really which needs space and to be close to water and I have seen garden visitors shudder at the sight of a fully grown gunerra ! I have always loved the plant since I first saw it in the 1970’s in the […]
October was a total wash out in gardening terms in Ireland , heavy rain and the ground at Old Spa Road is saturated , so wet that I won’t be able to get a final cut on the grass … not a major catastrophe but I do like to have the grass neater throughout the winter months . And speaking about keeping things neat the leaf blower will be in full operation for the next three months … now a few copper beech leaves look very good in photos in nice autumn sunshine but our paths and driveway are covered to a depth of several inches with willow leaves , […]
Back in 1985 I first read Robin Lane Fox’s famous gardening book , Better Gardening , where he advised planting a quince tree and he specifically recommended a variety from Yugoslavia called vranja but it wasen’t until twenty five years later here at Old Spa Road that I actually bought and planted one … gorgeous it was when in May it unfurled it’s young leaves , a real knock out of a small tree however by July the leaves had gone all mottled and sick looking and so it continued for the next ten years that I gave up and cut it down . The quince was sacred to Aphrodite […]
