February so far has been cold and overcast here at Old Spa Road but one morning the sun shone … briefly … in the Conifer Wood . A question most gardeners ask themselves , especially at this time of year in cold , dark,wet February days , is why do I garden ?? Clinically mad is one answer , joking of course but you get the point . Thomas Rainer , a US landscape architect based in Washington , describes himself in his CV as “ architect by profession , gardener by obsession ” which about sums it up and he has written which is for me the best definition […]

After the usual Christmas over indulgence in eating and  inactivity ( OK if you insist on the truth … slumped by the fire watching back to back editions of Strictly come Dancing ! ) it was good to get back to the normal day to day routine of a working gardener again and first up was a cutting back of decidous trees at the front and side of the house . It was a job I had been postponing for a few years and one I remembered  each summer under the heading should have cut those during the winter ! A few common sycamores and some variegated ones were fairly […]

Still some colour in the garden mid December  Inspiration in the garden can come from many sources but I find most of mine in gardening books and articles while the occaisional feature on Monty Don’s Gardener’s World BBC programme also contributes …. and of course you learn from other gardens and gardeners . These days gardening books are  being published less and less as the knowledge available on the internet is now the main place to go for information on plants however this week I saw a collection of twenty year old garden books for sale in a local charity shop window … sad really as it was obviously a […]

People when they hear that I have worked and lived for two years in the Seychelles Islands are always asking what it was like  from a gardening perspective to live somewhere so exotic …. well it was a tropical paradise , a real Garden of Eden experience where the main view was just greenery everywhere on an all year round basis and something I wouldn’t have missed for the world . My house was set high up in the middle of a rain forest built on a rocky clearance looking out over the Indian Ocean  and in the garden there were no seasons and the plants flowered every six weeks […]

The garden in early November In my last article I dealt with over zealous pruning which has got me thinking on pruning in general , why you prune and is it necessary to prune at all because in the wild where there is no one to prune so how does nature cope ?  Of course in the natural forests pruning happens well … naturally .. in that trees , shrubs are kept in check by predators who eat and who depend on trees and shrubs for food , animals as diverse as elephants , giraffes , deer , bears , rabbits etc. all eat huge quantities of branches and leaves […]

October light can provide great photo opportunities in the garden Toby….  Mon Amour ! October is a good month to plant new trees and shrubs or to divide perennial plants as there will still be warmth in the ground to get the roots off to a good start before winter and the cold weather sets in although I now hesitate to plant shrubs at this time that keep their leaf throughout the year as some garden centres do not harden off the plants properly , keeping them under glass and these can perish when planted out at this time … better to let the garden centre take the loss and […]

Visitors to the Garden this week , Diarm O’Riordan and Pearl Lye Yee Suen . Sometimes in gardening as in life , when you are least expecting it you may stumble onto something magical and so it was today during a visit to Glenconnor Garden Centre when I first clapped eyes on a miniature cornus or dogwood called cornus Canadensis . This cornus is a dwarf  ground cover plant  , six / seven inches high plant that spreads by underground roots and wait for it ……. LOVES shade , LOVES wet areas and is so hardy it is a native of Canada ( hence the name Canadensis ) that it […]

The first week in September , back to school time when you had to give up the good life and go back early to prison and through the class room windows the sun always seemed to shine brighter at this time of the year to us 14 year olds sitting in 2nd year at the High School , Clonmel  ! This year it actually is shining brighter and gardens all around Clonmel are looking fairly dead from the days without rain and the only thing in bloom are roses and dahlias … that is if the black spot and slugs haven’t got at them first … gardeners like farmers always […]

The say you should never meet your heroes as you will be disappointed so with this in mind I headed off today ( July 29th ) with Snezana to hear Robin Lane Fox talk about gardening , as part of the Carlow Garden Trail at Hardimount Garden in Tullow . Robin Lane Fox is an Oxford Professor of Ancient History and a world authority on Alexander the Great and his books , Alexander the Great in 1973 and The Search for Alexander in 1979 are among the best , he has also written The Greek Classical World , Pagans and Christians ….. and as if this was not enough he […]

  At this time of year in wild gardens two plants are at their peak flowering period ,Lythrum salicaria , commonly called purple loose strife and  Filipendula ulmaria which has been known as meadow sweet since the 16th century when it was laid down on floors of medieval castles to add fragrance and keep down infection and apparently was a particular favourite of Queen Elizabeth for her bedroom floor in Tudor times . Both plants love damp wet land and in the US loose strife is considered “ an aggressive invader ” but in ancient times it was widely used by herbalists for depression etc. and the clue is in it’s […]