May is the green month , that time before colour kicks in through the perennial borders in July and August but for me May is best as I love the green leaf colour you get in May and May is also the month when the hostas and gunnera are really at their best . A lot of gardeners regard May as a waiting period , a limbo in the garden’s growth before that huge burst of colour in June and July … not for me as flowers are not a priority , my gardening philosophy is more towards leaf and structure but don’t think I am against perennial flowers , […]

The last days of April sees the garden in full flow and is one of my favourite times in the garden , all vibrantly green and a complete contrast to the last few months of winter but of course the weeds are also vibrant and in full flow ! However just in case we get carried away with ourselves the weather in March over a few days was … well , March weather and there was snow , not Balkan but enough to cover the back garden chairs for a photo ! Fussy gardeners , there are a lot of them about , consider as a weed anything they haven’t […]

March is the first real sign of Spring in the garden , the extra hour in the evening is a great bonus , lawn mowers are dragged from hibernation  and cursed at for not starting after the five month lay off but eventually we begin to organise and look forward to the new growing season and my favourite time in the garden . Spring has arrived in the Lower Wood garden . There is one tree in the front garden here , a large golden willow , that bursts into leaf almost overnight in mid March  and when it does it really represents the end of winter . The poor […]

Spring is definitely in the air as I write , our first snow drops have arrived and looking at these gorgeous little flowers I have the same thought every year that I MUST plant more snow drops next September ! A walk around the garden each morning shows more and more happening with daffodils popping up everywhere and today, a year after the new Water Garden was started, the final accolade that it had fitted in came when Snezana spotted the first frog spawn and I immediately went down to take a photo . Frogs just don’t lay their eggs in any old place as for example in all the […]

From the beginning of the month you could see the evenings getting that bit brighter , bulbs were pushing up and always you felt Spring was just around the corner … gardeners are big on optimism ! The resident gardeners at Petrovska Garden And myself January 27th 2022 There is an excitement about the end of January always for me because for Irish people the 1st of February , St. Brigid’s Day , is the first day of Spring , the end of Winter and the light still there until 6 o’clock gives the feeling that the gardening year is beginning now ! January is the month when garden writers […]

December in the garden is generally a write off due to the holidays and the weather but then Storm Barra hit Ireland in early December and we lost two trees including a large fifteen year old eucalyptus tree and while getting it chopped up we used the opportunity to cut out nine  conifers that had died over the summer and all this kept us busy right up to Christmas . These tree losses are what gardeners live with throughout the life of a garden , nothing is guaranteed to last forever . The eucalyptus I had planted in wettish ground fifteen years ago and while their roots love damp ground […]

Flowers in the November garden are rare here at Old Spa Road but I admire people who persevere with trying to keep the colour palette going in what is generally a blowsy rainy cold time and if you want to try this I would suggest planting as close to the front  and back doors as possible because generally that is as far as most people venture out in the garden at this time ! Of course it is nice at this time of year to come across a clump of flowers such as nerines or alstroemeria as I did the other day in a friend’s garden in Clonmel but for […]

I spent October planting and preparing for next year in the garden both in Old Spa Road and in Croatia , picked olives along the way and was reminded that gardening is an artificial intervention with nature where we try as gardeners  to “improve ” nature  … a bit presumptious don’t you think ?! An October walk in the Biokovo mountains , Gornja Podgora , Croatia My very first gardening blog was written and published eight years ago in October 2013 and here is an extract with all the hopes and aspirations for garden schemes and beds and fast forward eight years and nothing has changed , still aspiring and […]

Covid had meant the cancellation of the Chelsea Flower Show since the last one was held in May 2019 but this September over a week the organisers managed to stage it . Organised by the Royal Horticultural Show in London every May since 1912  and known formally as the Great Spring Show it was the first time since it’s beginning in 1912 apart from the two World Wars that it wasn’t held in May . It was a different Chelsea experience of course with a totally different palette of plants from what is normally available in May and only a small number of show gardens , half of the normal […]

What a lushness the garden has in August and while I know that the winter months are drawing close we always have the memories of the summer garden to carry us through ! The largest grass in captivity … arundo donax hits it’s peak in August and dies completely back in December I wrote last month about roses and why I don’t grow them …well in Washington even roses are political ! The most famous Rose Garden in the world is the one installed at the White House by Jackie Kennedy in 1962 when she took a tradition going back a hundred years whereby the US President’s wife planted a […]