May is my favourite month in the garden , everything is fresh , green , the growth is spectacular, the hedges are full of whitethorn in full bloom and the whole summer is ahead ! The Euphorbia wulfeni along with hostas are the stars of the May Garden and as striking architectural plants are hard to beat in UK and Irish gardens as our damp changeable climate suits them . Unlike hostas that are plagued by snails the euphorbia has no pets or animals that eat it probably because if you cut or bite a euphorbia it exudes an acid that stings … the gardener that breeds a hosta that […]
It’s Hosta month this April at Clonmel Garden Centre as they have their largest collection of hostas ever in stock , all the old reliables , June, Gold Standard , Big Daddy and all presented in great condition with small leaf growth and nothing forced under glass as can often be the case in April with hostas . If we didn’t have deer coming into the garden I would have a huge collection of hostas , my favourite plant but unfortunately we have a lot of deer who over the years visiting the garden have developed a sweet tooth for hostas . I try and find nooks and crannies that […]
I love March as we are definitely heading towards late Spring and early Summer , the clocks have gone forward and there is an extra hour in the evenings while everything is on the move in the garden and it is the last chance to get any bare rooted trees into the ground . Snails also love March as this is the month hostas start to peep above the ground and of course hostas are like caviar to snails and they are already lining up with their knives and forks ready to tuck in to those luscious early shoots … allow this to happen and you will end up with […]
Here in Ireland and the UK we regard February 1st as the first official day of Spring and I brought that thinking with me when I started to work in the Balkans which amused my local colleagues in Macedonia and Bosnia no end as generally there would still be two feet of snow outside the office window especially in Sarajevo where the snow and ice could continue until at least the middle of March . The 1st of February in Ireland was and is marked as Saint Brigid’s Day , a shadowy figure in Ireland’s early Christian history that in my schoolboy days nothing much was known about but back […]
I am often asked at Gardening Q &A’s do you give your honest opinion when asked about a garden … and my answer is I do , sometimes brutally and often I give my opinion even when I haven’t been asked ! Of course if you think the person is a beginner or somehow unsure about their gardening skills or wouldn’t be able to take criticism on board then I certainly would not be directly honest but I always try to be constructive . I have one gardening friend who always offers her view on a visit to our garden here and I value that opinion as it has a […]
December has been a brutal month on the garden with frost and freezing temperatures down to minus 5 deg each day for three weeks , going down the garden was not pleasant seeing the plants frozen solid . But plants know how to respond , not the tender ones as they just die , but the perennial plants droop their leaves and play dead but when the weather changes it is amazing to see how they bounce back and I was particularly impressed with the bergenia and the euphorbia . Euphorbia wulfeni is my favourite perennial which is a plant but one that looks like a small shrub , they […]
To start on a pessimistic note , death and decay everywhere in the November garden as plants die back or are cut down by the frost but it is the natural cycle of things in nature but it does leave gaps in the borders and a lot of cutting back to take the untidy look away and certainly every garden needs a rest… and good news the new season’s growth is only two months away ! Gunnera would be my favourite architectural plant and it makes a huge statement in the garden but it needs space and water and when I say water I mean that it needs water close […]
Gardeners seldom have patience in growing plants and we all want instant growth or at least I do and it is a great feeling when the garden gets established , the borders have thickened out and you can add things and not be hovering around waiting for them to grow …such is now the case at Old Spa Road and I am getting to that same stage with the new garden in Croatia after six years where in the top terrace gravel garden where the plants have at last adapted to survive the baking hot summers and I now have plants peeping out from under plants in no particular order […]
Late September is for me a lovely time in the garden as there is none of the rushing around getting things done while weeding , pruning and grass cutting has all slowed down and the garden is resting getting ready for the gentle snooze over October before the winter sets in and I have time now to stop and smell the roses as the saying goes ! I always make a point of saying that I don’t select any trees or shrubs for their flowers only as this period only lasts a few weeks and then you are stuck with an ordinary looking thing with no beauty for the rest […]
When typing the title August it suddenly dawned on me that the year is almost gone in the garden and soon we will be looking at winter … and if it is winter then it is Christmas again , always keep looking ahead ! Why are you buying that was Snezana’s query at the Clonmel Garden Centre recently as she saw I had added three stachy’s byzantium to our trolley … stachys comes from Armenia and Iran and is commonly known as Lamb’s Ears and is a loved old favourite cottage garden perennial which given the right conditions will spread out as a terrific ground cover plant which keeps it’s […]
