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 […]
Even at the height of summer with all the lush exhuberant growth in the garden there is always room for pots or containers particularly if sited in shade … not total shade but dappled . Never use plastic containers as apart from looking awful tatty they heat up too much in hot weather and dry out the plants . Nowadays all pots being sold are generally frost free , that is they take into account European weather conditions where winter frosts can freeze a pot solid for weeks and the days of cheap imported pots from the Far East , Vietnam etc. cracking into pieces are gone and you can […]
My neighbours on the laneway , Michelle and Sebastian , admired the combination of both green pots and planting of hostas and lamium featured in my last blog so off we went to Glenconnor Garden Centre where I knew they still had some of the fabulous egg shaped green pots left and we bought the last three which I planted up with hosta sieboldiana Francis Williams but as the lamiums had sold out as soon as they came into flower a few weeks ago I used white flowering allysum as the underlayer of plants and left an order with Susan , Head Gardener in Glenconnor for some lamium if they […]
Visitors to the Garden this week ! I am often asked by garden visitors about colour combinations in shrubs and flowers and the more technical even mention colour wheels which are the bible for the serious gardeners who think it is heresy to even think of slipping in a different colour amongst all those planting blocks of blues , whites , pinks etc. in case it clashes . My attitude to colour in the garden has always been a bit like that of Joan Collins who at 80 last year married a guy thirty years her junior … but Joan what about the age difference asked the media….. her answer […]
Now that Summer is here or at least Winter has passed gardeners are feeling optimistic and their thoughts are turning to having one last attempt at growing that tender perennial / tree / shrub that logic ( and past experience ! ) should tell them is just not possible in our climate ….. but gardeners always hope and like the iconic “ Next Year in Jerusalem ” for the Jewish People , with gardeners it is Next Year a Tree Fern ! Tree Ferns are fabulous …. in other people’s gardens ….. where they will feed it , water it ( tree ferns are difficult and fussy about almost everything […]
