April has definitely ended as a month of showers, which was a big change from the very dry March. Things are getting going nicely in the glasshouse. Our tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers and salad vegetables are all planted and growing away. Our two grape vines have had their initial training in and thinning of growth to aid with fruiting, and our peaches, nectarines and apricots (for the first time) have set fruit and had their first thinning. We really need some sunshine now to aid with the development. There is a good show of blossom in our orchard, so fingers crossed for a good crop.

Work out in the grounds is progressing well. There is good growth in the herbaceous borders and our azaleas and rhododendrons are now putting on a great show. The colours are dazzling, and really have to be seen to be believed. We have another new development, the riverbank walk, which is a simple bark path that meanders along the riverbank between the caves area below the castle, and the horse’s graveyard. It’s a nice natural walk, and we hope to have it completed in the next few days.

The tourist season is getting underway now, and it’s nice to see so many people enjoying the gardens. I have given several tours recently, and have two more booked in for the coming month. There is nothing better than showing the fruits of our labour to an appreciative audience! We have a very good team of gardeners here, and I think it shows.

March has been mild, but extremely dry, and as a result we have been watering a lot of our new planting. It’s been great to see how well everything has responded to the mild winter. We really needed that to give things time to recover. The early spring has continued with no real shocks, just a few light morning frosts.

We are well into our spring jobs, and have fed all the lawns, pruned all of the roses and begun our spraying routine. We are up to speed with our vegetable and general seed sowing. Tomatoes have been planted into the beds inside the glasshouse and we have moved our less hardy ferns back outdoors to their homes in the fern garden.

It has been a colourful month with superb displays from our flowering cherries, camellias and earlier varieties of rhododendrons. In the next few weeks we expect our azalea beds to start putting on a show, as well as tulips, and bluebells throughout our woodland areas and pinetum.

The new Irish garden is coming together nicely and we have started to include some information signs detailing folklore and background of the plant. It is good to give our multinational visitors a little bit of something Irish and educate them about the importance of habitat conservation both at home and abroad.

We have given several garden tours this month, and all of the positive comments have been very encouraging.

I was in Italy this month for a short tour of some famous gardens and magnolia nurseries, so expect to see our magnolia collection increase substantially over the next few months.

What happened to February? I blinked and it’s gone! We have been unbelievably busy here with finishing winter work and starting spring jobs. Already on our second round of grass cutting would you believe.

Seed sowing is going well and our glasshouse and hotbed is a mass of seed trays and six packs in various stages of growth. Our indoor potatoes are already coming through, as are carrots, radish, spring onions and salad leaves.

We started rose pruning last week and continued our tree and shrub renovation work and replanting.

Weed growth has been continuous practically all winter, so we have had extra work keeping the beds tidy. Just tidied all of our rhododendron beds, ready for the show.

A general spring clean is ongoing through the grounds and gardens. The next big job is cleaning up all of the accumulated rubbish along our riverbanks. I hate it! People have no respect for the environment. It’s dumped in upstream and washes down before it gets tangled up on low branches etc. What is it with people?

So far we have escaped any real winter weather down here in Blarney, and spring seems to be in the air. But fingers crossed we don’t get a shock. There’s plenty of time for frosts yet. Because of the mild weather we have started grass cutting very early and already have a good display of spring bulbs. The snowdrops on our front avenue are spectacular.

We have been doing a lot of seasonal pruning work in our arboretums, as well as ivy clearance from the woodlands around the estate. We hope to start planting in the new Irish Garden later in February.

Seed sowing has begun in the glasshouse. We have direct sowed salad mix, radish, spring onion, and started our indoor early potatoes. We have a lot of bedding plants just coming through in our hot bed. I always enjoy this time of year as you see ‘new life’ starting.

We also have forced rhubarb and sea kale coming along nicely outside.

December was a month for tree work. Unfortunately we lost two very large specimens of Oak and Lime. They both came down in the same night and have taken a lot of clearing up.

The Oak is estimated at 250-300 years old and was a wonderful specimen in a real eye catching location, so it will be sorely missed. The Lime tree had split fairly high up, and we have managed to pollard it, so fingers crossed it will live to grow on again.

We have continued our renewal project in the woodlands on the estate and have planted 200 native Oak and 100 Ash.

There are plans for another 3000 in the new year.

We are gearing up for the new season and starting seed sowing in January. The very mild winter (so far) has a few things confused. Our daffodil avenue is well on it’s way to full bloom, and our snowdrops are showing.

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous new year.

November has seen further progress here in the gardens. We have nearly finished our new stone steps in the fern garden and they look like they belong there! People were climbing up the rock face to get a better view of the ferns, so we decided to make it a little easier.

We are well into the clearance in our Irish woodland area and will shortly be setting out new paths and steps. The aim is to educate tourists about our own native species and the importance of conservation of natural habitats.

Ongoing garden jobs include; leaf collection and composting, renovation work in the arboretums, more fruit planting in the walled garden, pruning of our grape vines, tree planting and general tidying of the beds and borders.

We are delighted with the weather and have our fingers crossed for a mild winter.

An Active October!

October was a busy month here in the gardens. We completed planting our new rhododendron bank alongside the river. It should provide a great spring show in years to come. The new rose bed has also gone in at the turnstiles. We took the opportunity to interplant the ‘Blarney Castle’ roses with some standard ‘Trumpeter’ which will hopefully complement them nicely. We also planted up our 80m long rose pergola with City of York (white) and Francoise Juranville (Pink).

Rose ‘Blarney Castle’ – Photo taken in the field this summer at Macnamara Roses.

We have started another new project, clearing the ivy and scrub from the woodland areas along the back avenue. We are trying to encourage natural regeneration in our native woodland areas and create some real ‘Irish’ woodland for future generations to enjoy. The herbaceous border is looking very tired now and we have begun cutting back, tidying and lifting tender plants such as dahlias, cannas and even verbena. We are not taking any chances this year after two hard winters! We have also moved in all of our rare varieties of tree ferns (dicksonia and cyathea) and fleeced the entire stock of Dicksonia antarctica that are staying outdoors. The weather has now turned mild again and they are probably sweating in their covers, but better safe than sorry. The baskets finally gave up this week after holding on for such a long time. We certainly got good value from them this year.

We received a fruit order this week of fig, medlar, cherry, mulberry, mixed loganberry and raspberry varieties and a triple fruit tree with peach, apricot and nectarine grafted onto a single rootstock. This is going on the wall in our glasshouse as a fan trained specimen, and should make good use of the space available. The raspberry varieties are to replace our old stock and we have opened new beds for them. We will continue to plant more varieties as there is always use for them. All the jam in our cafe this summer was from our own fruit!

September Sun?

What happened to our Indian summer?

Cork did see a rise in temperatures for a few days but no sign of the sun. Our Cannas in the herbaceous border are all dwarves this year, and our Black Hamburg grapes are not nearly as sweet as usual.

On a positive note, the wine making has been a success and the third batch of pear and blackberry is currently in production (first batch already gone).

Bulb planting season is coming up and we have a large range of bulbs ordered to be planted throughout the estate. This will enhance what is already a pretty impressive spring show.

The dropping night temperatures will soon put an end to our hanging baskets and bedding displays and it will be time to replace them with something for the winter. From my experiences with last winter’s harsh conditions I would recommend Pansies over everything else. They took a real beating last year and still continued flowering into the spring when all else had given up.

We have a lot of work planned for the month ahead. Our second phase of our new rhododendron bank will be planted. (Plants sourced from Millais Nurseries, UK) This will complete this project and should provide a fantastic spring show for visitors.

We are in the process of clearing out the old rose bed by the main entrance. It has provided a great show every year but the roses were getting old and unhealthy, so it was decided to replace them. The new variety is Rosa Blarney Castle, new to the market this year, so it seemed a pretty apt place to display it!

August was the coldest recorded here in Ireland for 25 years and also a very dry month with rainfall well below average. We seem to be already seeing a start to autumn here in the grounds, with certain trees showing early colour.

The herbaceous borders are starting to fade in places and we are dead heading and tidying as required. Overall it has been a good show this year and we are very pleased.

It’s the time of year for pruning hedges, mulching beds and general tidying up in the vegetable garden. We have been cutting back our old raspberry and loganberry canes and tying in the new ones for next years crop. We have dug up the last of the potatoes. Lifted shallots, garlic and onions and planted out brassicas and leeks. Now is the time to sow spinach, winter lettuce and rocket to take you through to the autumn.

Late summer is the right time for taking a lot of shrub cuttings and we are starting to look at propagating some of our more unusual specimens. It makes sense to have some ‘up and coming’ stock plants to replace possible winter losses.

It’s also the time of year for wine making! The wild blackberries on the estate have been combined with some pears (generously donated by an interested acquaintance) to make a few litres of mixed fruit wine. Next it’s the Black Hamburg grapes. Reports to follow!

July has been another dry month overall and it’s been a struggle to keep up with the watering. The borders are all looking great now though, and the fern garden is coming into its own after a slow start. We have just planted our new Laburnum arch in the Poison Garden. It should be a great feature in years to come. We have also completed a new bridge linking up a riverside walkway at the base of the castle with one of the islands. Now comes the difficult decision as to which colour to paint it!

Jay Bird - photo credit: telepics1 via flickr

Our indoor grapes are ripening up nicely and we had a great crop of plums, peaches, nectarines and berries. We are now fighting a constant battle with our local Jays, to keep our apples and pears intact!

As usual there’s lots going on and it’s often a case of juggling jobs to keep up with everything. Special thanks to our students and volunteers, who are making the difference between success and failure.

Photo credit: telepics1 on flickr.