Strawberry Plant Babies

It can really get on my goat when the grow your own and save yourself money marketing brigade continue to thrust their [not so] ideal[s] upon the ordinary Joe punter gardener. Let me put this in context, when a bag of compost costs €6 and the strawberry plants cost €3 and you or I may [...]

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The [Un]usual Planter

Here, you have that. You might be able to do something with it…. That’s quite a regular statement I hear actually. Surprised ? I wasn’t. It’s not the most unusual object I’ve ever been handed. I like the odd challenge and this one was a doddle. Yesterday I filled the container with some pebble. More [...]

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Garden Gallery

There are many gardens I have created and designed over the last, almost 10 years now. These are just some of the images that may help in giving you and idea of just what kind of possibilities exist with your great outdoors. NB: As a by the way…. if you wish to enlarge the images [...]

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The Great Outdoors Weekend Podcast

As always you can rss the podcasts via iTunes or direct via audioboo or you can subscribe to the blog and listen to them right here. Missed last weeks garden podcast ? Got a note from bernie over the weekend: That’s our boy @donegangardens easily cresting above yer man Ray Foley. Seems the podcast hit number 2 in the [...]

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Basil – Ocimum basilicum

The Ocimum [labiatae/ lamiaceae] are a genus of about 365 species of aromatic annuals and evergreen herbs. But – this is not lavender we are discussing. This is the herb we know as basil. With that in mind I am only interested in one type. There are other varieties, but I have chose what I [...]

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Grow Your Own Course

course title: grow your own kitchen garden where: ballyboughal [just outside Swords, north Dublin] when: saturday 22nd May 2010 time: 10am – 2pm cost: €60 numbers limit: 8/9 people max Details: After my talk with the GIY group and then after the last course was covered recently in the Irish Independent by Susan Daly….I don’t [...]

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Fireblight

Two of the photographs above are of a collection of Sorbus trees that I had in my garden. They are now nothing but a pile of ashes. The sorbus you see are members of the rosaceae or rose family – the most of which are susceptible to a disease known as fireblight. The first thing [...]

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How To Stake And Strap A Tree

Following the pictures above….. tree stake at the ready… place the stake [generally] 3 fingers width from the base of the tree and 2 fingers width from the top. Once you have your position correct… push it in slightly. A tree stake pounder [the yellow object in the photographs] is preferable although you can use [...]

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Leucospermum cordifolium x glabrum

I was blown away when I saw this plant displayed at The Cape Garden Centre. I have seen these guys before… but they are very much a rarity, in Ireland anyway and moreso in such abundance. The Leucospernum, commonly known as the pincushion, Protaeaceae, is a genus of about 47 species of evergreen shrubs. What is [...]

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Cape Garden Centre, Cape Town, South Africa

Whilst building the garden in the Wallacedene Township in South Africa, I would first like to note that I was a part of a team. A very large team. And I simply played a part. To that there where so many really good people I met out there. One in particular was a really good [...]

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Ever Wondered What It Takes To Grow A Plant…?

October Bank Holiday Weekend, I went to Kilkenny. I had so much to do…. On my agenda was to meet my good friend & plant inventor Pat Fitzgerald. I had interviewed Pat for the blog before. I had also worked with Pat on so many of my projects and gardens… but I’d never seen his nursery. The [...]

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Helianthus

In a garden recently and I spotted this little beauty growing in a widow box…. It brought me way back to my childhood days. Dad used to have these old cavity concrete blocks running along side the oil tank. Every summer we’d go down to the library to get our free seeds and plant them direct into [...]

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Int. Plant Propagators Society World Conference

Depending on your level of interest in horticulture you may have been lead to believe, via the title, that post is of zero interest to you….. But what if I told you that for the first time in the organisations history…. Ireland is hosting the International Plant Propagators World conference AND that this conference will [...]

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join a garden group….?

any of the these describe you…. ? are you interested in the greeny garden outdoors kinda thing but don’t want to fall asleep within the first 7 minutes seconds ….? what if we became the hippest bunch of jimmedy crickets ever to cross the green line ? A bit like the Dublin Twook Club crossed [...]

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paeonia [peony rose]

I love the peony roses. They were one of my Grandmothers favourites. But they came with so many ‘how and what not’ fables attached it’s infallable…. When my Nan passed away my Mam brought one of these from her garden and planted it in ours. It ‘died off’ shortly after she planted it… but came [...]

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