Some more January treasures

 I always think that when we moan about the winter garden not having much interest it is partly because we don't venture out for too long into the cold and damp. I like to wrap up warm and venture out provided it isn't actually raining or snowing and I am usually rewarded with some little treasures. I take particular pleasure when little plants pop up in an unexpected spot.

This little snowdrop is yards and yards away from the rest of the snowdrops in the garden. My neighbours little girl was fascinated as we tried to figure out how it got there!

My snowdrops are really starting to bulk up. I got a bunch of them in Altamont a few years ago and planted them along the edge of the driveway at the base of the conifers that had to be removed last year. I was afraid that all the stomping about removing the trees might have damaged them so it is with great relief that I see that they are back unharmed and some have clumped enough for division in a few weeks time.

It is also a delight to see that the ones I divided last year are spreading too! No clear photo of them I'm afraid! Maybe I need a proper camera! 

On the same driveway border I spotted Helleborus Orientalis Double Ellen Red strutting her stuff! This was one of the Lidl helebores I bought a few years ago. I have noticed that these double and picot helebores don't appear to seed about much.

And of course the other star flower for January has to be Aconitum - the Winter Aconite! It is starting to seed about a bit and I am very happy about that! 

 So the next time you hear yourself saying "Winter is drab and dreary" just remember all the delicate flowers that appear just to cheer you up at this time of year!

Footprints

 I was out early on Sunday morning in the snow and I spotted lots of footprints! The photos may not be very clear but hopefully they will show up my little visitors.

The first picture is tracks of big and little birds - most probably either a magpie or a Crow and maybe a robin?

Puss must have been on the hunt too! the skid mark on the nearest print suggests he may have been about to pounce! 

These were taken in the front garden but when I went through to the bird feeders in the back it became much more exciting! I have no idea which birds were there but a good selection obviously!

But under the actual feeders it becomes like a super-highway! My birds are missing the fat balls that are unobtainable within my 5km so I am kept busy with the other stuff - including of course a dish of water!

The snow has almost disappeared now but I am happy to have traces of the creatures that live in my garden! The final photo interests me the way the snow has managed to cling to the Phormium and the Cordaline!

I am not a great fan of snow but it does make for pretty pictures - I'm just happy when it doesn't last too long! Bad enough being in lockdown but when the daily walk becomes hazardous it just makes the whole thing more annoying!

Keeping the lights on in January

 I heard a suggestion on the Ray Darcy show on Nollag na mBan that we could keep our outside Christmas lights on until the end of January to cheer us all up. I thought this was an excellent idea - and even though I am out in the country and nobody walks past in the dark, I still decided to keep the lights on. For the investment of a new set of batteries for them they are really lifting my spirits. The photos aren't great but they give the idea I hope. If I am working in the garden as it gets towards dusk the various sets of lights start to twinkle -a reminder that it is time to wrap up the work for the day. I go indoors and then go from one window to another enjoying the lights! An unexpected bonus is that each day it is a little brighter when they burst into life, reminding me that there really is a "grand stretch in the evenings".

Location location location

 We are told when we are considering where to live that the important thing to take into account is "Location". This is often interpreted to describe the desirability of a particular area and can have a considerable effect on the price of a home! However location can also be about nearest shops, schools etc or ease of commute to our place of work.

I wonder is it time for me to start applying some of this Location logic to where I place plants - particulaly plants with a potential to grow big! I suppose when I began the garden in 2009 I was in such a hurry to fill this 0.6 of an acre with plants as quickly as possible that I gratefully accepted lots and lots of plants from gardening friends - particularly plant swaps when we had our get-togethers and so my gardening friends are part of the fabric of my garden! 

In my haste to develop the borders I didn't often research the potential height and spread of some things so now I find I am moving stuff to better locations or biting the bullet and getting rid of others - always a painful process for a gardener. 

I find I can also fall out of love with some plants, while others are tolerated like spoiled children when they set out for domination of the entire garden! I have definitely fallen out of love with Cordalines for example, and I definitely am over-indulgent when it comes to Japanese Anemones.

However, sometimes, probably more by accident than good planning a plant ends up in a really good location. This Cordaline is a case in point. It was the smallest of 3 seedlings I got from Elizabeth in 2009 and it was the only survivor of Winter 2010 and it branched rather nicely too! 

So I am prepared to tolerate the proliferation of leaves that it sheds all over the lower part of the garden for months on end! It is now too tall for me to be able to easily remove these dead leaves but it makes such a great statement against the skyline particularly in winter!

On the other hand, the first cousin of this tree has been planted in a really bad place and irritates me every time I walk past it! I have been trying to remember how I came to plant it and Osmanthus Burkwoodii within a foot of each other? Or did I just plant the Osmanthus Burkwoodii and did the Cordaline self-seed? I really can't remember. 

But I do know that I had no idea that the Osmanthus would grow so tall! Of course it is also possible that the Osmanthus would not have shot up so tall if it hadn't to compete with the Cordaline! Anyway, the Cordaline is for the chop and lets see how the Osmanthus does then!

My daughter says there will be no trees left in the garden if the Covid restrictions last much longer! I'm choosing to put a more positive construction on it - being confined to the garden I have the opportunity to examine details that I may have overlooked in busier times and I have the time to remedy previous errors!

Check out www.garden.ie/club for more.

Not quite Johnstown .......

 Yesterday was a pretty historic day - it was a Virtual Get-Together for the people who became friends through the Garden.ie website club from about 2008 and onwards. It is a unique garden club because it combined and combines a mixture of online friendships and actual face-to-face meetings.

We have held an annual get-together in January over the years in the Johnstown Garden Centre who have always made us very welcome. With the current lock-down situation I was really sad that I wouldn't get to meet up with these friends who come from the four corners of Ireland to have a chat, share a lunch and most importantly share and swap plants! 

So I put up an invitation to a Virtual Get-Together and it was lovely that so many people responded. We used Google Meet for the session as it has no limits in the number or the duration of the call. Twelve people joined me on the session and an additional person managed to connect a bit later. It was a bit chaotic, with a cople of people having problems connecting well, but it was a learning experience for us all.

Jacinta regaled us with tales of her "ladies" pictured above!

I really enjoyed seeing people I hadn't seen for ages - and Lady Leticia made a brief appearance much to our delight! I should have taken a screenshot of the event but I was too interested in the chat!

We have agreed that we will do it again in a while - maybe when we have even a tiny bit of positive news!!!

In the meantime can I encourage those of you who first met through garden.ie

to reconnect to the site - the magazine people have invested a lot in meeting our request for a more user-friendly site and with Covid their business is in serious difficulties because their main revenue of adverising has collapsed. If we rejuvenate the club it may assist them in attracting advertisers once more. 

The absence of the magazine from our newsagents is just another Covid loss - and is something I personally really miss. The Irish Garden has been the only magazine where you could be guaranteed that anything advertised was readily available to people living on the island of Ireland, unlike magazines produced in the U.K. and with the impact of Brexit this situation will likely get even worse.

Almost made it to a White Christmas

The snow held off until the last of the Christmas celebrations were over this year - the last cup of tea, the last piece of Christmas cake had been consumed and the decorations were down - and then it came!

Waking up and finding a generous blanket of the white stuff prompted me to don a stout pair of shoes and a warm coat to capture the beauty of it.

Still not thawed yet - but I thought I would share the photos before it disappears!

Nollaig na mBan

 Nollaig na mBan - also known as Little Christmas or the Feast of the Three Kings or the Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on 6th January - the Twelfth Day of Christmas. The traditions associated with Nollaig na mBan are peculiarly Irish and the most well-known one is the taking down of the Christmas Decorations. In my family we have always kept that tradition with the belief that to take them down earlier is bad luck and to leave them up later is even more bad luck!

Last year my ICA Federation had an afternoon lunch to celebrate so I had a look for as many traditions as possible. Here are the ones I found but I would love if you could send me any ones you know of.

• Take down the Christmas Decorations
• Clean out the ashes and start a new fire in the hearth
• Save Holly from the decorations - it will be burned on Shrove Tuesday to cook the pancakes
• Women meet friends to drink tea and finish the Christmas Cake
• Women have a day off from housework and the men take over for the day
• Have the floor swept and a bucket of clean water ready before going to bed - but the water should never be used next morning

So do you have other customs that you know about? I find it interesting that so many of the traditions still assume that women on a "day off" will still do things like sweeping the floor and bringing in water!

Here is a photo of some of my ICA friends at our Nollaig na mBan celebration last year.

Transformation of a border

 I was determined to finish the front garden tidy-up before I tackled the Main Herbaceous Border right beside the house so  every time I went down to the compost heap this border was constantly calling me to give it the annual clean-up! 

This is how it looked on New Year's day! So despite the very cold weather I got stuck into to clean-up - particularly concentrating on removing all the Helebore leaves - I added the helebores to this border recently and I am delighted how it has extended the season of this border that is viewed from the house whatever the weather!

This morning there is a really hard frost so it was a good opportunity to take a photo of the finished border! The large plant left standing is a Cerinthe that self-seeded here. I leave some of the mature plants over the winter because they are constantly in flower and are beloved of Bumble Bees when they come out of hibernation! The sight of the bees absolutely drunk buzzing around this plant warms the heart!

The frost melted, the sun came out, and I took the opportunity to take photos of some of the helebores making their home in this border.

These wonderful plants fill me with joy at this time of year - and since I started taking the leaves off in January I enjoy them even more!

Sometimes less is more

 There are a number of Cordalines in my garden. They came mainly as passengers in plants from my dear sister and I dotted them around the garden in the initial years but I have fallen out of love with most of them. One or two of them actually ended up in suitable places but the rest I'm afraid need to go! 

When I was creating the garden my policy was to fill all borders as quickly as possible and this helped the garden to mature quickly, but now that the garden is over ten years old it is necessary to look at each border and tweak the design. This photo was taken last year and shows how overgrown the border had become.

The large Cordaline has been removed from one of this border. This opened up the view of this border well, and the pruning of an overgrown Cotoneaster has completed the remodelling of this border. The pollarded willow in this border is once more a feature in winter when the branches colour up and the herbaceous plants will appreciate the light and be much better displayed  during the summer.

This is how it looks today - the willow is now the feature of the border - standing proud - but of course in Spring it will be pollarded allowing the plants beneath it to flourish.The smaller Cordaline has a reprieve for this year - but once it gets big enough to dominate the willow its days will be numbered too! 

This border has a selection of plants - including Oriental Poppies, Phlox, Corydalis, Salvia Forsskaolii, a small Hydrangea, a white Pulmonaria, Geranium Sanguineum Striatum and some others. With the removal of the large Cordaline from here these will now have the chance to thrive!

I think these three create a more pleasing tableau now. Time will tell if this rather radical restructuring has been a success. Isn't this what gardening is all about!