September Settled

Well a better month at last.... a lovely spell of settled weather on the whole and the garden seems to be enjoying it.

The crocosmia are enjoying the sunshine and the hydrangeas, rudbeckias, phlox and eupatoriums are all flowering later than usual. 

As is often the case in a mild autumn, the roses are putting on a second flush and many of the primula are showing a hint of what lies ahead for us, from late winter to spring.

The garden closes for winter next week and whilst I've enjoyed the varied visitors, including folk from all corners of the world, I'm looking forward to the work of cutting the meadows, planting more bulbs and wildflower plugs that we have grown from seed (yarrow, ox eye daisies, meadow cranesbill). I also want to start dividing some of the earlier flowering perennials such as the nepetas and geums. I will leave the plants that are still flowering (crocosmia, phlox and heleniums) until spring. 

Two other major tasks we hope to complete before Christmas are the new pond beside the sapling meadow and the "making" of a border along the rose / butterfly walk thin front of the laid hedge. This will of course be done by the "no dig" method (earlier blog post with our method can be found here ) and I think the roses will love it. But it also means that we will need lots of low growing perennials to plant at the feet of the roses.......my favourite "chore" - finding new plants! 

I hope you enjoy your garden this autumn wherever you are! 

The purple and gold bed in the cottage garden with geranium wlassovianum, inula hookeri and solidago.

Astilbe Mighty Pip

The prairie border with crocosmia Severn Sunrise, Carmin Brilliant & Solfatare and achillea Cloth of Gold.

The old autumn bed today with the pinks and purples still going strong - phlox and monarda among others.

Summer?

All I can say is that it was a good summer for the trees and shrubs - incessant rain, I mean non stop rain....more rain than we had in winter.

The poor old roses, they tried their best but I've spent many a day deadheading brown mush from our lovely albas and noisettes. On the plus side, it lets you see which roses are rainproof - American Pillar and Cerise Bouquet both stood up pretty well, as did Bonica.

Oh well, onwards and upwards....I'm already making a wish list of roses to add to the garden for next year. (Soupert et Notting, Henri Martin, banksiae lutea, Appleblossom.the list goes on!).

The trees, hedges and shrubs are growing like billyoh which is great but the poor bees and butterflies have been very thin on the ground. The forecast for the next fortnight suggests a dry spell, but with cold northerly winds....the hydrangeas, crocosmia, rudbeckias and eupatoriums are only beginning to flower so I'm wishing for a settled month ahead (the kids are back at school - or, in my case, school and university....I can't quite believe where the time has gone). The weather's always lovely when the kids go back to school!

Newly planted veronica spicata Red Fox

A mixed bunch from late summer (despite the rain)

The autumn bed at dusk, after the rain.

The cottage garden

The lovely Ispahan, trying her best in the rain.

LD Braithwaite flowering through Rambling Rosie.

Summer Catch Up

Where have the weeks gone...really, I cannot believe that we are in the middle of July - I have been so truly madly deeply busy.....excuses, excuses as always.

June was chocabloc with group tours which was lovely - we had a drought which was a pain but great for the visitors - not an umbrella in sight. Of course, it started to rain about two weeks ago and it hasn't stopped since, with wind galore. Strong gales forecast for Friday... :(

On the flowery front, we have the roses doing their thing, albeit later than usual but this may work in our favour for next week's open weekend (if they survive the gales!) Virginiana is just about to start flowering...happy days.

We have sowed our biennials since my last post, they always seem to grow so slowly compared to annuals but I suppose they have almost a year to grow to flowering size.

The annuals are painfully slow in the garden after the cold spring and dry weather but are finally starting to grow. 

A few highlights...........

Dianthus carthusianorum  - a pop of pink on wiry gale proof stems.

Perk of the job....a bucketful of leftovers.

Another garden favourite - hordeum jubatum, foxtail grass.

A cottage garden medley.

The cottage garden in late June heading towards the height of exuberance.

A Perfect Day

Yes the gales certainly did come at the start of the week - the garden was blown to smithereens and I was truly fed up. We tidied and restaked and tidied some more so you can imagine how peeved I was to find that a gale warning was in place from Friday evening right through into Saturday afternoon, right in time for our open weekend.

And the gales they came with torrential showers - you start to think, "Am I wise in the head?"
More staking and tidying.........then the crowds came in droves. Today the sun shone and it was fabulous.....the feedback from the visitors was amazing and of course I'm on cloud nine, exhausted but happy.

Enthused and invigorated, I'm ready for lots more lovely visitors, about 18 groups of visitors coming this month and I can't wait.

Tasks between visitors this week:

Plant out remaining hardened off annuals - statice, amaranthe, scabious, snapdragons and perennials - agastache Globetrotter, nepeta grandiflora Border Ballet and penstemon.

Plant out rest of veg - peas & beans (and sow more lettuce etc).

Sow biennials - hesperis (Sweet Jane), digitalis (Foxgloves), dianthus (Sweet William) lunaria (Honesty) erysimum (wallflowers).

And best of all, enjoy the garden! Roll on summer!

May Summer Begin Now

It seems, when I look back at my blog, that I'm obsessed with the weather but then, what gardener isn't?

I'll keep it brief....average temperature of 8'C, a frost the like of which we haven't seen on our peninsula in living memory, frequent hail stones and now severe gales forecast for the next two days. 

We are opening our garden for the National Trust UGS next weekend so you may understand my frustration. June is our busiest month for visitors and after all of our planning and prep, I just want the garden to look its best.

OK so enough moaning, on the positive side, the trees are growing well, the yellow rattle has germinated well in the new meadow area and last year's newly planted areas are starting to take shape.

And I'm happy cos that's what we gardeners are - apparently we are the happiest profession in the UK. (Bankers are the most miserable...nuff said.)

Here's hoping for a wonderful June!

The front garden filling out.

Persicaria Superba, a thuggish but useful plant at this time of year.

Chelsea Week

Isn't it so exciting? It's Chelsea time and I'm dying to see all of this year's trends / designs. A sneek peek this evening hinted towards the natural look staying very much on trend, which I love of course.

Back at Kilcoan Gardens, things are still slow. We had a lovely workshop on Saturday with 11 amazing girls.....and the sun shone!! It's to warm up this week so here's wishing for some surging forth of plants as we are opening this year for the National Trust Ulster Garden Scheme on 6th & 7th June and I'm so hoping for a great display.

We are still very busy potting on, hardening off and planting out but this week should complete the bulk of the work...just in time for the whole process to start over again with the biennials - I'm determined this year to do a better job of filling the current hungry gap with more honesty, wallflowers and hesperis. 

The veg garden is woefully behind as always, just not enough hours in the day and it always get put to the bottom of the "to do" list....I need a wee retired grandpa to come in and take it over....any takers anyone?! Tomorrow's priority will be the veg - planting out brassicas, direct sowing carrot, parsnip, beetroot and anything else I can think of. The peas & beans are almost hardened off so that they can go out at the end of the week.

What else, what else.....I need to make a new list! 

Polemonium looking lovely in the cottage garden.

The orchard with geum rivale, camassias & Pheasant's Eye narcissus.

Confessions Of A Plantaholic

Wind....with a side order of gales. Anyone else tired of our spring weather? Yes I know that April was lovely but it was cold....cold and dry - I don't really feel like I've enjoyed any spring weather as yet - I have yet to strip down to a t shirt. 

The plants are strangely behind in someways (late narcissus still not blooming yet camassias are all out in time). Rosa Canary Bird has usually flowered by not but not this year, and yet, the rugosas appear to be on track for blooms any day now.

What have I been up to? A sore back from a silly shovelling of topsoil Thursday week ago has slowed me down a little but I've got plenty of willing helpers for which I am very grateful. 

Last week, I potted on more of the autumn sown perennials: aquilegias, astrantia, thalictrum aquilegifolium, white catananche, pink and white physostegia, nepeta grandiflora Border ballet, purple & white veronica longifolia. The spring sown perennials are also coming on well - agastache Globetrotter, veronica longifolia Pink Shades, also some penstemons and dwarf hollyhocks. Gosh, it's only at times like this when I start to list what I've sown that I start to get quite excited.

Confessions of a plantaholic - a few more plants just fell into my path / hand / bag when I was at Garden Show Ireland last week....polemonium Purple Rain & Henriette, geranium Blue Cloud, epidmedium Warleyense, calamintha nepeta, brunnera Mr Morse, aruncus aethusifolius, mukdenia rossii, filipendula purpurea, lunaria redviva - where am I going to plant them all??!!

Still so much to do....I can feel (another) list starting...where's my pen?!