Late March colour in the Garden For the past few weeks the newspapers and magazines have been full of advice for gardeners , that is either for the beginner gardener or the majority of non jihadist type gardener who never sets foot in the garden from November to March and it really is a growth industry for journalists and writers who generally dust off their files and trot out the same old rubbish each year at this time . I have great faith in the UK Telegraph writers who are excellent and don’t talk down to the reader unlike the 20 something wannabe garden writers and don’t bang on about […]
February is the month of the snowdrop especially early in the month when it is the first flower in the garden . A tough little plant , its spears will push up even through frozen ground to flower , galanthus is the latin name and there are twenty species but hundreds of varieties but best sown “ in the green ” which is a clump dug up just after flowering and transplanted . The snowdrop does not like wet soil so we have only a few pockets where it grows well and these are close to the house in the front garden and although I like the plant I am […]
Late December and early January has been kind weatherwise and I was able to get ahead of myself with the usual tidying up , repositioning of underperforming shrubs and trees , cutting back of the various perennial miscanthus grass’s and tackling some areas that haven’t been touched for years . One of these was the hedge of native trees along the eastern side of the garden which is the site of a land ditch probably five hundred years old and which because like all irish ancient hedges it was built up with stones cleared from the land and is dry , originally it would have been planted with native oak […]
New Year’s Eve 2016 colour in the water garden The last of the 2016 garden projects took place in late November and saw the digger back in the garden with the sides of the bridge across to the Lower Garden taken down ( again !) to allow it across the stream where finally we got to grips with the area around the new patio as it had been too wet earlier in the year . Peter levelled the area and flattened all the bumps and hollows and finally reseeded it with grass so that from next year the patio will be surrounded by lawns as up until now I was […]
Earlier in November I was able to mark off a bucket list garden that I have wanted to visit all my gardening life , the Alhambra in Granada , the most famous garden in the world which showcases the best of Islamic garden design especially in it’s use of water . A lot of places that you have heard and read about extensively before visiting for the first time can be a bit of an anti climax in real life but not the Alhambra as it was just a mind boggling experience and one which even if not a gardener would still thrill . You can see immediately that the […]
The end of October and the best time for leaf colour in the garden as everything makes one last effort before winter steps in from next week but not all doom and gloom because then it is the time when trees and shrubs with good bark come into their own with the white bark of the silver birch and the red cornus taking us through to next March . If you plan your garden correctly you can have interest there for the entire twelve months and always something to look forward to … which is why over the coming weeks I will be buying and planting dwarf spring bulbs for […]
I was in London recently and my sister Ger , arranged a guided tour of Buckingham Palace … the rumbling sound you hear now is my Father’s spirit at the thought that anybody related to him would go anywhere near the Royal residence unless carrying an explosive device … the tour took four hours and was interesting just to see how they live but more interesting for me was the fact that at the end we got to walk a half a mile through the garden . Not the Royal Family’s private gardens mind you just basically a walk inside the royal grounds along the lake to the gates , […]
The planting area in the new patio in the Lower Garden is thickening up nicely since I started it last February and although the soil is not great I am picking plants that don’t need pampering and don’t mind stony soil . Mostly the plants are self seeders transplanted from other parts of the garden , bergenias , alchemis molis , ground cover geraniums and lots of vinca dug out in Spring , both the green and the variegated type and of course the main work was in hands and knees work ,weeding the area from the beginning by hand to allow the new plants a good start and now […]
Just this winter a nice peach tree died having got too much ground water due to the severe flooding and left the problem of what to do with the large hole in the shrubbery … I cut the now dead branches to a compact shape and planted a climbing rose to use the skeleton tree as a support … still looked pretty bleak so out came the trusty pot of Majorelle blue paint and I think it looks great and provokes a smile when you see it ! When a mature tree just ups and dies it invokes discussion on how this could happen and there can be a variety […]
June has to be the nicest month in the garden especially in our climate with everything at it’s best , every shrub and tree in full leaf , fresh with it’s best coat on bursting with growth and although I hate to admit it , it is downhill from now to November and although it still looks good it starts looking tired and never as vibrant as it is now and of course at mid summer there is light until 11 pm … magical ! In June trees and shrubs reach their peak growing condition which is why it is also the favourite month for visits to gardens , after […]
