Did you ever play that game as a child, ” you can’t say yes, and you can’t say no” I loved those games that allowed you to express anticipation, disappointment, excitement and feeling foolish without a smidgen of shame. I wasn’t one for boisterous team sports, no not really. Then there was that one where […]
Category: photography
The Art of Gardening
This smattering of images from Saffron Thomas and Ian Stanley’s garden at Lisserlough near Boyle Co. Roscommon is your Sunday Treat. The open day was today and we the lucky ones visited last weekend when the weather was more clement. I met Saffron many years ago at one of the plant swaps in Knockvicar. Herself , Bridget Foy and Colette O’Neill were a trio of gardeners full of enthusiasm, Latin names and bore a kind of valiant stubbornness that wasn’t going to let the soil or the weather get in their way of having their cake and eating it. What a blast. I really needed to meet them. Although I am very happy to wax on about organics and growing vegetables, when I hear words like “Primula auricula” or the more elongated ” Acer palmatum “dissectum atropurpureum” I am right at home.
Lets take a closer look at this garden of trails and sculpture
We don’t luxuriate much in these parts . The soil needs a lot of work, fertility wise and texture-wise and you name it wise. In my case it’s a gritty clay topsoil albeit not much of it, above some sort of concrete daub, I’m not kidding. It is not like gardening in Wicklow and Dublin with it’s 2 foot of top soil, gardens like this take a lot of time, patience and effort to mature usually a pick too. And did I say determination? lots of that also. There is a word for a gardening technique I’m sure is never used around here. Its bastard trenching, not sure if the name is related to the process or has some other origin. In any case bastard trenching is not possible in West Cavan or anywhere around here, instead we go for the lazy bed. The lazy bit comes after . I will talk about that another time I think.
She told me the name of this one. ….
fab foxglove
Veronica I think
Feijoa Acca sellowiana
a nice wigelia and bee
Yes and we had a lovely lunch there too sitting on the terrace and Saffron insisted on us taking cuttings and seedlings, so generous. You can visit this garden in July 10th & 30 , August 21 and September 11. Call 0868691141.
By the way Saffron was one of the participants in my Art exhibition back there in 2014, fff . fabulous fecund female.
If you are reading this Saffron I will be back for my Iris!
Blooming Allright
It would be self indulgent to blog about ones personal miseries would it not? And it probably wouldn’t make good reading, however closer to the truth it would be .For the purpose of this post, I will try to find a middle path. The fact that I can’t join in by waxing lyrical about the […]
Just a Blow In 