Late December and early January has been kind weatherwise and I was able to get ahead of myself with the usual tidying up , repositioning of underperforming shrubs and trees , cutting back of the various perennial miscanthus grass’s and tackling some areas that haven’t been touched for years . One of these was the hedge of native trees along the eastern side of the garden which is the site of a land ditch probably five hundred years old and which because like all irish ancient hedges it was built up with stones cleared from the land and is dry , originally it would have been planted with native oak […]
My Gardening Week December 31st 2016 … Happy New Year … Sretna Nova Godina .. and a safe 2017 !
New Year’s Eve 2016 colour in the water garden The last of the 2016 garden projects took place in late November and saw the digger back in the garden with the sides of the bridge across to the Lower Garden taken down ( again !) to allow it across the stream where finally we got to grips with the area around the new patio as it had been too wet earlier in the year . Peter levelled the area and flattened all the bumps and hollows and finally reseeded it with grass so that from next year the patio will be surrounded by lawns as up until now I was […]
My Gardening Week November 30th 2016 … Don’t cry like a woman for what you couldn’t hold as a man !
Earlier in November I was able to mark off a bucket list garden that I have wanted to visit all my gardening life , the Alhambra in Granada , the most famous garden in the world which showcases the best of Islamic garden design especially in it’s use of water . A lot of places that you have heard and read about extensively before visiting for the first time can be a bit of an anti climax in real life but not the Alhambra as it was just a mind boggling experience and one which even if not a gardener would still thrill . You can see immediately that the […]
My Gardening Week 30th October 2016 …. I say old Chap !
The end of October and the best time for leaf colour in the garden as everything makes one last effort before winter steps in from next week but not all doom and gloom because then it is the time when trees and shrubs with good bark come into their own with the white bark of the silver birch and the red cornus taking us through to next March . If you plan your garden correctly you can have interest there for the entire twelve months and always something to look forward to … which is why over the coming weeks I will be buying and planting dwarf spring bulbs for […]
My Gardening Week September 30th 2016 …. We had seasons in the Sun !
I was in London recently and my sister Ger , arranged a guided tour of Buckingham Palace … the rumbling sound you hear now is my Father’s spirit at the thought that anybody related to him would go anywhere near the Royal residence unless carrying an explosive device … the tour took four hours and was interesting just to see how they live but more interesting for me was the fact that at the end we got to walk a half a mile through the garden . Not the Royal Family’s private gardens mind you just basically a walk inside the royal grounds along the lake to the gates , […]
My Gardening Week August 30th 2016 …. Ahoy there !
The planting area in the new patio in the Lower Garden is thickening up nicely since I started it last February and although the soil is not great I am picking plants that don’t need pampering and don’t mind stony soil . Mostly the plants are self seeders transplanted from other parts of the garden , bergenias , alchemis molis , ground cover geraniums and lots of vinca dug out in Spring , both the green and the variegated type and of course the main work was in hands and knees work ,weeding the area from the beginning by hand to allow the new plants a good start and now […]
My Gardening Week July 24th 2016 … Breaking rocks Part 2 !
Just this winter a nice peach tree died having got too much ground water due to the severe flooding and left the problem of what to do with the large hole in the shrubbery … I cut the now dead branches to a compact shape and planted a climbing rose to use the skeleton tree as a support … still looked pretty bleak so out came the trusty pot of Majorelle blue paint and I think it looks great and provokes a smile when you see it ! When a mature tree just ups and dies it invokes discussion on how this could happen and there can be a variety […]
My Gardening Week June 30th … Winter is coming !
June has to be the nicest month in the garden especially in our climate with everything at it’s best , every shrub and tree in full leaf , fresh with it’s best coat on bursting with growth and although I hate to admit it , it is downhill from now to November and although it still looks good it starts looking tired and never as vibrant as it is now and of course at mid summer there is light until 11 pm … magical ! In June trees and shrubs reach their peak growing condition which is why it is also the favourite month for visits to gardens , after […]
My Gardening Week June 17th 2016 ….. Breaking rocks in the hot sun !
I spent a few weeks in May this year tweaking a design for an extension to a garden on the Adriatic Coast in Croatia which I had set out last September 2015 for the builders . The garden is owned by a friend and I built it from scratch twelve years ago and have planted and monitored it on a twice yearly basis since . All the plants , trees and shrubs are Mediterranean so are selected to cope with the extremely hot dry summers , it started out as a small garden which I planted with a mimosa tree for height and the plants are jammed in to both […]
My Gardening Week May 4th 2016 … the Darling Buds of May !
Late April and early May are magical times in a garden , everything is fresh and about to come into full growth while the late flowering spring bulbs are still in bloom . Christopher Llyod , the best garden writer of the 20th century , used to call certain plants , garden thugs , for their talent for spreading seed everywhere and their sheer ability to survive against all our best efforts as gardeners to contain them . I love garden thugs and how they self seed into every corner and I always take it as a compliment that the plant likes the conditions we have provided so much that […]