As this is my final gardening column of the year, I had plans of signing off with a neat garden ready for a winter of hibernation.
But that, dear reader, would require a measure of foresight, that has so far eluded me in my 32 years on this planet.
It’s not that I haven’t been busy since my last piece at the end of the summer; I was involved in a local play which was a lot of fun, but the poor garden bore the brunt of my neglect.
It’s a mess, the weeds have taken over the flower beds, choking the flowers which were hanging on, thanks to the milder weather we had through October.
[ Growing vegetables is a dying art in Ireland. This man has a solution ]
I am, however, up for the challenge of pulling up the weeds and clearing the flower beds of debris before laying a layer of seaweed fertiliser on the soil – a tip I got from a wonderful woman on a train from Dublin in September. You can use shop-bought fertiliser, which I already had, or do as the woman suggested and get some from your local beach. Be warned though; it can be smelly so make sure you can seal the bags or cover the buckets in your car.
In the meantime, I have been doing a bit of work in preparation for next year.
I have repotted my basil plant, because I read that when you buy herb plants, they are close to getting too big for the pots they are sold in.
It hasn’t grown as well as I hoped, but has given me plenty of leaves for adding to dinners over the past few months.
The first parsley plant died, much to the surprise of absolutely no one, so I bought another. Like the basil plant, I moved it to a bigger pot in the hopes that it fares better this time around.
I have sown the rosemary and thyme seeds in an old egg box with some compost, and they will sit
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This exclusive new tour, in the company of David Hurrion, takes you to a selection of wonderful Yorkshire gardens of various styles and sizes, some accompanied by spectacular buildings such as Castle Howard, Littlethorpe Manor and the magnificent ruins of Fountains Abbey.
There's something magical about discovering the perfect thrift store find. It's partially luck, partially strategy, and partially dedication to the hunt. As we roll into 2024, we wondered: what are the thrifting trends for the new year? What secondhand home decor items should thrifting enthusiasts be nabbing before everyone else does? To get the inside scoop, we turned to two professional treasure hunters: interior designers Jason Saft and Alex Bass. Read on for their suggestions on what to thrift in 2024.
Few plants generate more revulsion in the garden than junipers. The mere suggestion of planting one often musters a similar reaction to that of saying a dirty word. Maybe we’ve grown weary of their use as evergreen blobs in foundation plantings. Perhaps the thought of meticulously shearing them into the perfect shape sounds daunting (see pruning tips). It could be an early memory of an itchy rash from an up-close encounter with a juniper’s prickly branches. Or it could be boredom with the sea of creeping blue rug junipers (Juniperus horizontalis ‘Wiltonii’, Zones 3–9) planted in every big-box-store parking lot. Although junipers are a midcentury-modern garden staple, generations of gardeners have since decided they have had enough of these controversial conifers. While it’s easy to dismiss them for their deeply ingrained negative traits, junipers have many merits that make them worth reconsideration.
You know that old saying that “friends don’t let friends grow annuals”? I now ignore that sentiment. Some of the best plants in my garden are annuals, and they are more than worth the effort of growing them every year. Annuals add bold color to my containers and beds, fill in spaces beautifully, and bloom for longer than any coneflower (Echinacea spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9) or phlox (Phlox spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9), so they bridge the flowering gaps between my perennials’ bloom times. But over the last few years as I’ve strolled the ever-more-homogenized aisles of the garden centers in my area, I’ve found myself bored silly, and in sticker shock. I always buy a few standard sweet potato vines (Ipomoeabatatas cvs., annual), calibrachoas (Calibrachoa cvs., annual), and coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides cvs., Zones 10–11), of course, but if I want something a little different, I grow it from seed.
A is for annual membership of one of Ireland’s world class great gardens open to the public. Examples include Blarney Castle in Co Cork (12-month adult pass, €100, blarneycastle.ie); Mount Usher in Co Wicklow (€40, mountushergardens.ie); Killruddery in Co Wicklow; (killruddery.com from €60-€100); and Mount Congreve in Co Waterford (from €70, mountcongreve.com).
Countertops aren't something to overlook. A vital part of your kitchen's functionality and design, finding the right material, color, and design for the counterrs is so important. And while durability is a key factor, you also don't want your kitchen to look outdated.
Mushrooms in the garden can be an unsettling sight, indicating changes in the soil and in growing conditions generally. While growing mushrooms is becoming more popular as a home interest, fungi can be unpleasant in gardens when they arrive out of nowhere. These unplanned garden guests can also be toxic, so you’ll want to remove them if you have curious children or pets.
Most ornamental grasses will stay intact through the latter part of the year, providing useful colour and structure in the autumn, when herbaceous plants are dying back. Some are particularly vibrant, picking up on the colours of the trees to echo their shades of russet and yellow, but with lower, softer silhouettes and lots of movement. Using them is easy. Weave them into a herbaceous border, or create more impact in larger gardens by repeat planting, as Piet Oudolf did at Scampston Hall in North Yorkshire, with his sinuous banks of Molinia caerulea subsp. caerulea 'Poul Petersen'. Some grasses are deciduous while others are evergreen. It is the deciduous grasses that can dramatically change colour during the autumn.