Fionnuala Fallon

There are certain nuggets of good garden advice, so counterintuitive that they seem to make absolutely no sense at all. Why on earth, for example, should we pinch out the growing tip of a perfectly healthy seedling or plant stem as a way of encouraging it to fatten up? “Leggy”, after all, is usually a term of admiration rather than opprobrium. Likewise, why would pruning back perfectly healthy shrubs — essentially cutting away their lovely strong shoots and branches- possibly make them bushier and more floriferous when surely it should result in the exact opposite? In the same vein, why is it a good idea to shear back lavender plants that are only just beginning to fluff up again after a long, dark and dismal winter? And what, oh what, is the Chelsea chop, which sounds to the uninitiated like some form of plant abuse?

Q: I am trying to grow a herb garden in a raised corner bed of my garden, where rhubarb is already going well every year. However, my neighbour’s cat has decided this is his litter tray and try as I might I can’t deter him and his friends from dropping in. I have used catsaway gel pellets and plastic water bottles to no avail. It is killing all my herbs and I really don’t want to grow edibles in this space currently. Any advice would be much appreciated. FD, Dublin

This week’s Q&A has prompted me to sing the praises of wall shrubs, that group of plants that usefully straddle the common ground between true climbers (plants with lax stems that twist and weave their way upwards, using walls or the branches of other plants as a scaffold) and traditional woody ornamental shrubs.

Q: We got raised flower beds built last year to surround our patio, but have yet to have much success with planting them. I’m wondering what could you advise what to plant to a) offer some height to the area; and b) to be relatively fast growing, to fill out the gaps in the beds, and maybe offer a nice smell? Part of the area gets full sun, and part is shaded. FR, Dublin

Q: My garden is suffering very badly from snail and slug damage this spring after all the wet weather. Are there any plants that they don’t like to eat that you could recommend?

It’s tulip time, those fleeting weeks of the year when Irish gardens are filled with the graceful, brilliantly colourful flowers of what must be one of the world’s best-loved spring flowering bulbs.

A pattern has emerged that I do not understand. On planting a new plum tree, it takes a couple of years to establish and then flowers and bears fruit for several years, whereupon it stops flowering altogether and just puts on growth. The same thing has happened with damsons and greengages, but apples and medlar in the same area are trouble free. My orchard sits on light, sandy, well-drained soil; the ground is manured at planting and a 1m grass-free circle is around each tree for its first five years. Have you any suggestions to get the trees reflowering? NH

As a Bafta-award-winning actor, Dominic West is known for the diversity of roles he’s played over his long and successful career, from the tragic Jean Valjean in the BBC adaptation of Les Misérables, to the former Prince Charles in the Netflix series The Crown, the troubled writer Noah Solloway in the Sky Atlantic series The Affair and the anti-hero Jimmy McNulty in HBO’s The Wire.

It’s often said that making a garden teaches all kinds of valuable life lessons, from the importance of patience and the virtue of persistence, to a recognition of the fleeting nature of time and the bittersweet beauty and resilience of the natural world.

I put down a lavender border last summer on my driveway. Unfortunately, it looks like the winter frost damaged some of the plants. They are quite brown and sad looking compared with the others. Will they come back or should I cut my losses? GL, Co Kildare

It’s April, that most magical of months, when nature’s life force quickens day by day and every tiny seed sown is a powerful spell racing to transform itself. With that in mind, below are 10 fast-growing, ultra-productive annuals that I wouldn’t be without, all of which can be raised from seed sown in the next couple of weeks.

From the lone Irish yew tree, first discovered growing in Co Fermanagh in the 18th century, whose countless offspring now flourish in gardens all over the world, to the great Irish gardeners, garden makers, planthunters and plantspeople who have made valuable contributions to the world of horticulture, we have many reasons to be proud of our unique gardening tradition. Here are some suitably horticultural ways to celebrate Ireland’s “40 shades of green”.

We bought an old house and have been working extra hard on a self-build extension and house renovation for the last seven months. We have installed a big fixed window pane with the idea of looking out on to a lovely green back garden, but at the moment it is just a mound of earth, derived from the dig to get foundations done. What can I place here that will green quickly and also be bee and bird friendly and give us some nice colours and view for this summer? Would a wild flower meadow be the way to go until we figure out what to do with space or what can you recommend that is eco and purse friendly? RH, Co Dublin

Since last autumn, I’ve regularly discovered fresh holes in the lawn as well as scratch marks on a favourite tree. I suspect my garden is being visited by a badger. Is this damage likely to continue – and what should I do? Anna, Co Wicklow

For gardeners who love to raise their plants from seed, the beginning of March is not unlike the build-up to Christmas. There’s lots of hustle and bustle, with flurries of intriguing parcels from favourite suppliers arriving in the post, accompanied by the making of wish lists and enthusiastic sorting of essential tools and equipment.

They say that you can tell a surprising amount about a gardener by the kind of potatoes they grow. Some of us, for example, are traditionalists who’ll plump for the floury, fluffy ‘British Queen’ (colloquially known as ‘Queens’) every time. Others are passionate foodies who prefer the firm, waxy, flavoursome, yellow flesh of a salad potato such as ‘Charlotte’, or the heirloom ‘La Ratte’. Individualists, meanwhile, often like to seek out unusual kinds, such as the dark magenta-fleshed ‘Vitanoire’, or the knobbly ‘Pink Fir Apple’, the heritage variety famed for its more-ishness.

I planted bare-root raspberries “Autumn Bliss” a few years ago. The first year all but one plant died. Thinking I had neglected them, I bought more bare-root plants and planted them in the same bed and these all lived. In their first year, they only produced a few raspberries, but last year they fruited well.

Q: Is this a good time of the year to plant lilac? And if so, could you please recommend some varieties that don’t grow too large? JK, Dublin

When it comes to botanical longevity, it’s fair to say that annual and biennial species of plants are the “here today, gone tomorrow” ephemerals of our gardens and allotments. No sooner have they made our acquaintance, then they up and disappear like thistledown. Perennials, by comparison give far more bang for their buck, but even they can’t compare to ornamental trees and shrubs, many of which are easily capable of outliving their owners by decades, sometimes centuries.

My flowering cactus was magnificent for Christmas, but now I have to wait for it to flower again. Is it possible to slip it? Or make it bloom again?

If we could step back in time to flick through the pages of popular garden magazines from bygone eras, it’s safe to say that we’d find few if any features on rewilding, sustainability, environmentally conscious garden design or the rich biodiversity of brownfield sites. Instead, those popular publications typically dispensed traditional gardening advice on how to cultivate a range of choice plants and protect them from common pests and diseases. Some of it, unsurprisingly, hasn’t aged all that well.

Q: Any advice on the best way to tackle creeping buttercup without using weed killer? It’s starting to take over some of my flower beds, where it’s smothering perennials and smaller shrubs. MJ, Co Kilkenny

You can sense it in the slowly stretching evenings, the higher skies, the shifting quality of light, and the noisy chatter of birds. And you can see it in the flowering hellebores, witch-hazel and sweetly perfumed daphne, as well as the snowdrops, daffodils, cyclamen, aconites, crocuses and dwarf irises that have pushed their snouts through cold, wet soil to burst into determined, brilliant bloom.

Q: Could you please recommend a good peat-free seed compost? I’ve tried a few over the last few years but haven’t had great results. I’d really like to do the right thing environmentally but am now at the point where I’m sorely tempted to go back to using a conventional peat-based compost. CF County Kerry

Anyone who knew Angela Jupe, the late landscape architect and garden maker, will remember her particular love of snowdrops, or Galanthus, as this genus of dainty bulbous perennials is properly known.

Q: I have a winter flowering jasmine, growing profusely on a 3m-high north-facing wall. For most of its six years, it has produced an abundance of flowers, from early November until March. During the recent summer, I took a lot of its stems, which had bunched at about 2m, and gently stretched them out along a series of horizontal wires. This November I can only see a handful of flowers (less than 10). Did my gentle summer manipulation cause this drop in flowers and if so, how? CD, Co Dublin

In a world being reshaped by climate change, gardeners are increasingly asking themselves what can be done to counter the destructive effects of extreme weather events. The answer, as we’re discovering, is to take a nature-friendly approach that supports and nurtures resilience.

Q: I want to transplant a “dwarf” buddleia – which is much bigger than I expected – from a built-up flower bed to the ground. Is it too late/cold to do this? Should I cut back all the stems before I move it? It only finished flowering mid-November. Grainne Ward, Co Kildare

Some people get their kicks from designer labels, others from rummaging through flea shops, or collecting obscure Japanese comics, vintage tractors, handbags, dolls, beer-mats, Star Wars merchandise or whatever else. Me, I get mine from ordering seeds.

I planted some climbing roses into pots at either side of our garden gazebo and have trained them to grow up over it. I’ve been careful to feed and water them, and they did brilliantly for a couple of years, but last summer they looked miserable. Any suggestions as to what I’m doing wrong? TJ, Co Kilkenny

Living deep in the Irish countryside as I do, surrounded by a centuries-old patchwork of farm fields, hedgerows and leafy pockets of ancient native woodland, a clear winter night sky is a thing of profound beauty. It is filled with the otherworldly shimmer of a host of constellations, familiar to me from my childhood.

It is not a silly question at all, and I applaud your desire to do so. There are several ways that you can put your old Christmas tree to good use in your garden, one of which is to finely chop or shred up the smaller branches to add as a layer to your compost bin.

There are lots of words that Irish gardeners could use to sum up the year that was 2023. “Wet” is certainly high on the list, given the record levels of rainfall experienced in most parts of the country from late summer onwards as well as the badly waterlogged state of many soils.

Q: I’m going away for Christmas, but I’m a bit concerned about all my houseplants in my absence. Do you think it would be a good idea to get a friend to pop by (we’ll be gone for nearly a fortnight) to water them while I’m gone? SK, Dublin

As an experienced and respected professional florist, Róisín Godfrey has spent the last eight years working alongside some of the biggest names in the industry in the UK and Ireland, a career that has taken her to some of the most beautiful private houses, hotels and art galleries in the world.

From when I was a child, I’ve always loved gussying up the table for Christmas. Lots of candles are a must, in order to give that necessary festive twinkle, ideally placed at different heights (nightlights, low candlesticks, tall candelabras), to really make it sparkle. Nice table linen and glassware are important too. But the table arrangements really wave the magic Christmas wand, providing that all-important bit of theatre to memorably mark this special day of the year.