Recycled Eco Buildings and Wildlife Friendly Food Forest Garden. Mosaics and Glass Bottle Walls.
When I moved from Sweden to Ireland in 2004 I was most struck by the lack of winter. Coming from a place of snow, ice and soil sometimes frozen solid for months on end, I was amazed when the last leaves falling off the trees and the last flowers of the year were met by hellebores, snowdrops and daffodils without so much as a snowflake to separate them. Read more
Looking back at October we realize that we have spent another month mostly away from the garden. The building work inside is progressing slowly but we have also spent quite a lot of time working in and for the Ballaghaderreen Community Garden. It is a precious project, lots of fun but equally time consuming now in its early stages. 50 Kg of Daffodils have been planted by the committee and volunteers, well over 1000 bulbs and we are looking forward to the display this coming spring and for many years to come.
After spending two lovely weeks in half of our family’s native country Sweden, we returned home to a garden full of life. There has been lots of rain while we where away so everything has put on massive amounts of growth, the flowers, vegetables and grass is all looking verdant and lush. It is nice to come back after half a month away and realize that the garden has not suffered at all in our absence. It is one of the positives we can experience from living in a climate with few droughts and no extreme changes in temperature. We think it can also be put down to the fact that we mulch all our plants well with cardboard, straw and just about any organic matter we can get our hands on. This makes for a sustainable eco system in the garden where less intervention is needed to keep the balance right.
We are almost a week into August and it is time to sum up a very fruitful month in the garden. July brought quite a lot of rain but also some sunshine and our berries thrived. Ripening this past month were blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, worcesterberries and a cross called jostaberries.
Last year we were given some lovely Pelargonium cuttings from a friend to add to our pelargonium collection. They all spent the summer outside, but when it got too cold they had to move indoors. They have been stored all winter in some plastic crates and were looking a bit worse for wear due to poor light and cramped conditions.
We are almost a week into March and it is time to sum up the highlights of gardening in February. We like this time of year a lot and it is probably because there is so much promise in nature now. Thousands of buds are ready to burst open, the pond is full of frogspawn and the daffodils look very cheerful and bright.
People often think of November as a dull, grey, wet and cold month. That November is something that has to be endured rather than enjoyed. We beg to differ. As the garden and nature in general slows down and moves towards a more restful time there is beauty everywhere. From the fireworks display of leaves and flowers to the stark forms of the remaining artichokes, if you look you will find it.
Spring is often seen as a joyful, bright and uplifting time but is it really so different from autumn? We believe all parts of the wheel of time should be celebrated, enjoyed and looked upon in awe. Without the plants dying back, withering and resting there would be no spring spectacle to behold. No new leaves unfurling or apple blossom to marvel at.When the sun comes out and shines its low rays across all the colours in our garden in November, it feels like a miracle not very different from looking at the first butterfly or bumblebee of spring.
It has been very wet and windy over the last month in the West of Ireland and we have been busy indoors, finishing work on our extension, so the garden is in a state of some neglect. There is much planting, weeding and some moving of plants to be done. We always plant things as soon as we can and if something turns out not to thrive in its allocated position we move it later. A year of growth in the ground is almost always better than a year waiting around in a pot to be planted out. Our planting of ornamental grasses that we created in the spring is coming on nicely and is starting to fill the space.
Spring
Autumn
Our paths are in need of attention. We put down a lot of mulched Leylandii and thatch from an old cottage when we established the garden but after two and a half years the paths are getting worn down, starting to break up and have some weeds creeping in. It is now time to move all this old, rotted down material and use it as mulch around plants all around the garden. We will dig out the main paths quite deep, put in some drainage pipes and replace the path with maintenance (quarry dust). This should last a lot longer than the thatch and mulch. On higher ground, where water logging is not a problem, we are planning to just have cut grass.
The rain over the last month has led to our stream being very full of water.
Every month we show pictures of the garden taken from our main circle in the four cardinal directions. You can see how the garden changes and evolves over the year in the category elemental circle. The artichokes have mostly died back now and will be cut down shortly, shredded and used at mulch back on the bed again. We are looking forward to what next month brings.
East
South
West
North
Roses in December?
