Hazel Harvest

 I mentioned already that I had started cutting back some hazels in the hazel grove. On Christmas Eve my friend Kevin came by and finished the cutting down for me, The pile of hazels ended up twice the size of the pile in the pboto - and at the start of the video - but the first stage of trimming them is now complete - and the video describes the process!

It only took a couple of sessions to get this job done - wrapped up good and warm - it is a lovely bright day here in Laois today so I was happy to be outside and delighted to get to the end of the pile of hazel!

Christmas Posie

 Yesterday while the Christmas Dinner was cooking away I took a stroll round the garden and gathered these little flowers to brighten our table. I was amazed at how many I found! I have taken the photos from three sides so all the flowers can be seen. This is definitely a most unusual year for many reasons.

Plant	Normal Flowering time
Helleborus Orientalis 'Red Hybrids'	Spring
Helleborus Foetidus	Spring
Helleborus Orientalis Double Ellen White	Spring
Rosa - Zephrine Drouhin	June to September
Rosa - Ghislaine de Feligonde	June to September
Rosa -Queen Elizabeth	June to September
Campanula Persicifolia 'Takion'	Early to late Summer
Centaurea montana	July to August
Cerinthe Major Purpurescans	May to September
Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn'	Autumn/Winter flowering

Winter Solstice 2020

 I was probably about 6 or 7 when I first went to Newgrange with my parents and family visitors from Scotland. This was in the Fifties - and you got the key from the house across the road to open the padlock on a big iron gate. You needed to remember to bring a torch and we made our way into the central chamber. My father had a really good torch so we were able to examine the wonders of this magical place at our leisure. One of the uncles lifted me up and put me in one of the large basins while my father was telling us the tale of Newgrange as it was known at the time - people weren't sure if the basins were for buriel or for sacrifice, and my father thought that sacrifice was more likely - so I wanted out of that basin as fast as possible! Ever since then I have been fascinated by Newgrange and Nowth and Dowth which we also explored.

In recent years I have made several trips to Newgrange - always making sure to put my name into the raffle for admission to the Winter Solstice event but have never been lucky. 

Today I watched a great video taken on Sunday, the eve of the Solstice when the sun obliged and filled the chamber with light. I finally got to see the actual sun in the chamber rather than the simulated light that visitors to Newgrange see. I am truly awed! Here is a link to the video.

https://youtu.be/8anbIH-XfPU

Celebrating the Solstice tonight!

I'm looking forward to celebrating the Solstice tonight - lighting a candle in my window in the traditional Christmas way, but also remembering all friends and family in this difficult year. 

Bright sunshine at this time of year is so welcome. I took advantage to take photos of everything showing colour at the moment!

I'm also looking forward to our virtual meeting tonight!

Bit of a conundrum

 I ordered a "Bumper bargain selection of bulbs" this Autumn in a moment of madness. When they arrived I realised that I didn't really need all those bulbs - but I did want some of them! So I divided them with my daughter - each bag of tulips or daffodils, and other Spring bulbs. She went home and immediately potted her share up but mine reclined in the shed for a while as I decided where they were to go - I had bought three lovely matching pots so they were quickly planted with tulips - one variety in each pot. The remainder got put back into the shed and stayed there until I spotted them the other day. They still seem good so I set about planting them too. I had two large pots that I had Tulips in last year - but those tulips were replanted in the ground as I have heard that tulips don't do as well a second year in pots. There were 4 lots of bulbs and my recollection was that they were Narcissi of various types so I decided to put two lots in each pot. I like the idea of a mass of bulbs in pots. There are 20 bulbs in each pot and I planted them as fast as I could as it was absolutely freezing and I just wanted to get back into my cosy home out of the north wind. I brought in all the bags from the bulbs and settled down after dinner to enter them in my database. I had labelled my half of all the bags when the bulbs were divided with my daughter so it was easy to record them. Unfortunately my recollection of Narcissi being the remaining bulbs was only partly correct. I had definitely put two packs in each pot - the labels read

So here is the conundrum - Do I have one pot of Narcissi and one of tulips or do I have a mixture in both!!!!

I shall have to live with this uncertainty until they appear in a couple of months!!!!

Not gifted with patience

Sister Attracta was known to remark on numerous occasions "Hazel is not gifted with patience!" and unfortunately she was correct!

I was itching to get the hazels coppiced so when the promised rain didn't arrive the other day I headed out with my new toy - a Reciprocating Saw - to see how much of the hazels I could harvest. The little saw is surprisingly effective so as each long branch was cut it was carried up to the yard for processing! I clocked up 11,267 steps just carrying them up to the yard!

It was raining so hard I couldn't go any nearer to get the photo of the harvested hazels

Hazels produce amazingly straight branches and I plan to tidy up the harvest and I hope to get a few branches strong enough to use as fence posts to support plants in various parts of the garden. My head is buzzing with ideas - I have a good crop of bamboo too so I won't be short of materials! Anything not suitable for posts will come in handy as kindling for my stove. 

My plan is to leave about half of the hazels to mature into trees but to coppice the rest. I haven't been able to get in among them the past two years so the wildlife in the garden have feasted on all the lovely hazelnuts!

Hopefully I will get the rest of the cutting back done when my friend with the chainsaw arrives!

 I'm in the throes of the Winter Clear-up and am concentrating on the front woodland areas at the moment - but of course every time I go to the compost heap I am silently rebuked by all the borders begging for tidying in the back garden too!!! Yesterday and today I have been cutting the old leaves off the Helebores as they are full of buds already. 

I am waiting for my friend with the chainsaw to come and coppice some of my Hazel Trees as they are getting so dense that you can't see the underplanting of helebores very well! I was very happy to find a Heleborus Niger in full flower a few days ago - it really is a sign of hope for me!

Planting decisions

 I have to confess that I am easily led astray when it comes to impulse buying whenever I find myself in a garden centre - I even find it hard to resist the plants outside the supermarket! 

Buying the plants is one thing - deciding where to accommodate the newcomers is a whole different matter. Sometimes I make the decision based on where there is a gap that needs to be filled. Sometimes it is the colour of the blooms, or the time of year when it blooms. If a plant is known for its perfume I will try to locate it near a path. I usually look up my plant books to see what aspect the newcomer prefers. 

Generally speaking the new plants just seem to fit in quite well although on occasions I have had to be ruthless and move them to a new location.

Mahonia Charity is one of the plants that fell victim to this rather random method of locating plants. I had seen this wonderful shrub in several other gardens and having read up on it Mahonia was definitely on my Wish List. When I spotted it for sale in Dunnes of Durrow it came to Gortnalee. It was a bit sad looking - it wasn't a great shape and it had what looked like a bad case of Blackspot. So I kept it in the pot for a while, cut off all the damaged leaves and gave it a bit of a feed. It seemed to appreciate this TLC and promptly produced several new leaves. 

Winter came and I just left it with the other "plants in waiting" on the patio. Much to my amazement this tough little cookie produced a beautiful flower almost bigger than itself! Encouraged by this minor miracle I spent a few days trying to find the perfect spot for it. 

The sad part is that I made a really bad choice! Thinking I wanted to be able to get the lovely scent I chose to plant it close to the path near the Buddha Garden.  When I planted it it was very small but it obviously liked its new home because it has shot up into a considerable shrub - on its way to being a small tree! Frequent cutting off of protruding branches is required to avoid injury to anyone walking that path. I suppose I could try and move it - its about 6 feet tall now - but I don't have armour to protect me so it will just have to stay where it is! 

Brr! Baby it's cold outside!!!

 I ventured out briefly yesterday afternoon because I hadn't finished the shredding yesterday. To say it was cold is a bit of an understatement! The fog hadn't really cleared and even the thermal gloves didn't prevent the fingers from going numb. Shredding is an activity that doesn't require much moving about but the trip from the shredder up at the sheds down to the compost heap got the blood moving again - of course the pain as the fingers came back to life wasn't very nice either! However, I managed to get all the shredding done and the yard swept and the final task was to turn off the outdoor taps and remove the hoses. One year I neglected to do this important task and ended up with connections burst open and water streaming in all directions. Now  I turn off the tap at source (inside the shed). then I remove the hoses, then I turn on all the outside taps. This has proved very effective in previous years so I hope it will work again for me this year.

I checked on the Winter Jasmine that had almost disappeared  and I suppose I should be grateful that it is producing any flowers - but really! This is truly pathetic!

This is a slip from my sister's plant which is really magnificent but I'm obviously doing something wrong! Before I discovered Helebores this plant was the only winter flower I knew about but I may have to give up on it if I can't persuade it to do a bit better!

Time to get trimming!

Today was a lovely bright sunny day but I had lots to do so that I only had a short spell of gardening. I tackled most of the shredding from my last bout of cutting back, but darkness overtook me before I got the final load completed!

 My friend Paddy mentioned in his blog that he was cutting back the Helebore leaves so that inspired me to go out and check how mine are doing! I have a double one that started flowering way back in about September I think - and it has some pretty spectacular leaf damage so that task now goes to the top of the list. 

Helleborus Orientalis Double Ellen White 

 

Heleborus Niger is also in flower now

Helleborus Orientalis 'Red Hybrids' has self-seeded and this one has come true to the original colour. The old leaves are completely flattened so the sooner they are removed the sooner the new growth will develop and I will have a lovely clump of deep pink flowers to enjoy!

Last year was the first time I tried this technique and the Helebores all round the garden repaid me by flowering their socks off for months so it is definitely worth the effort. I also plan to take the opportunity to move some of the more crowded ones to other borders where there is no Winter or Spring colour helping me to get closer to having flowers all year round in much of the garden. However I also need to be ruthless and where the Heleborus Foetida and Helleborus Argutifolius seedlings are trying for world domination to thin them back to single plants! 

Helebores are inclined to be a bit promiscuous so to avoid ending up with very nondescript flowers I find that I need to remove the less attractive seedlings when they first flower. Any time spent caring for my helebores is time well spent in my book because of the long and generous flowering season of these winter beauties!