I was given a present recently of a fairly mature Acer Griseum , the paper bark maple , which had been potted up each year in a commercial nursery so it had a nice big trunk which was peeling well  already and I planted it today … all maples need a damp soil or at least not dry to grow and more importantly they need shelter so it is a waste of time to stick it in the middle of an open field and expect it to be anything other than a straggly mess struggling to survive  .  That is the problem with a fussy tree like the maple , […]

March has been an awful month here for rain and today certainly does not feel like Easter which I always regard as the time for daffodils and the hope of Summer around the corner … normal weather will it ever come back ?!! This has been the Mother of all winters and rarely has there been a day without heavy rain ,with two major storms , Emma and the Beast from the East in February which dumped what seemed like a ton of snow and Ophelia , our first hurricane ever in Ireland at the end of last October , the garden is saturated and has taken quite a battering […]

Ireland went into lock down for two days ahead of the arrival of Storm Emma and the Beast from the East and the entire country went hysterical and emptied the supermarket shelves everywhere with enough food to last a siege of two weeks instead of two days … an event like this hits us every twenty years or so and we are totally unprepared mentally for it , vanishing indoors for the entire duration and binging on box sets and maltesers ! My friends in the Balkans , where I worked for fourteen years , are left wondering what a group of pussies we are as out there it snows […]

At times such as mid January with rain and icy conditions in the garden it can be difficult to find something to kick off the blog with , a sort of gardening block so to speak and I discussed this once with Jane Powers , best selling author of The Irish Garden and the Sunday Times weekly garden columnist , as to how she coped with the grind of a weekly column to be delivered to a deadline and where does the inspiration come from . Jane was down to earth about it … “ bloody hard ” was how she described it and went on to say that in […]

December is not really a month for the garden considering  how many other diversions there are in the run up to Christmas and truth be told not a lot to look at in the garden these dog days of winter either although the gardening writers who have to fill a column would tell you otherwise … well they would say that wouldn’t they with a deadline to meet  ! I am not a great believer in standing around freezing my ass off admiring this or that plant that happens to flower at this time of year and I don’t have many such plants growing either as I believe flowering shrubs […]

With all the talk about destruction in the garden in late October when Hurricane Ophelia hit Ireland I have an unusual story of survival to report here … a few years ago inspired by Monty Don’s showing of a banana plant in his garden in a Gardeners World programme I bought and planted a banana plant in a pot in the gravel garden , fussed over it from Spring to November , made sure it got the best of watering and feeding and dutifully took it indoors in November , cut it back and covered it in fleece to over winter as Monty instructed … it popped its clogs by […]

Hurricane Ophelia and it’s aftermath has dominated  the Irish garden scene since we got smacked with it on October 16th when the eye of the storm came through the south and on up through the west over a period of twelve hours leaving a trail of destruction behind . I think the worst was waiting for the first hurricane ever to arrive in Ireland to actually  hit land and there was an eerie calm before the storm and an unusual light for 24 hours before  which I read afterwards was from a combination of smoke from the recent forest fires in Portugal mixed with sand from the Sahara whipped up […]

No I am not regressing in my old age to potty training just it seemed an apt title to describe a fascination for pots which has stayed with me in almost forty years of gardening and which still leaves me a sucker for an unusual pot whenever I come across such in a garden centre usually in my local Glenconnor Garden Centre where Chris and Sharon in recent years have developed a love affair with beautiful ranges of pots . Growing plants in pots is not the best generally for the plant but if you look after them with regular watering in dry periods and an annual feed in Spring […]

The Garden Open Day in July has come and gone and a bit of normality has returned after a day with over 300 visitors ! Our visitors  included photographers who posted videos and photos on their personal take on the garden and I always find it interesting how others view what we have built here and flattering too that people take the time to do this and we appreciate it very much . An Open Day is where you get tremendous feedback on your progress in the garden and for sure some visitor will be able to put a name on a particular shrub or perennial plant that you can’t […]

This year we decided to hold the annual fund raising event for the Lion’s Club on one day instead of over two days as in previous years , we were lucky with the weather and the people of Clonmel came out in droves with over 300 people visiting the garden and 2000 euros was collected for the very worthy local Clonmel charity , Riding for the Disabled . Snezana and I prepared the garden but the real work was done by the two fabulous committees who set up a marquee , organised face painting and Fairy doors , baked cakes ,scones and buns , made tea and coffee on a […]