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.

June has been a month where we finally saw things start to put on growth. The warmer overnight temperatures have made all the difference, and features like the Poison Garden and the Herbaceous Border are looking great.

We also completed the construction of our new Rose pergola that frames the Herbaceous Border. It will be planted in the autumn, and at 80m long I believe it will be one of the longest in Ireland.

We’ve had good and bad news regarding losses after a second hard winter. A lot of our southern hemisphere plants have given up and have to be removed. One positive note is that our 2 very large Drimys winteri have broken out new growth up to 2m up the main stem. We will now prune them back to this. Also, one of our Wollemi Pines has put out new shoots from the base. Our only worry is if we have another hard winter, we will see these already weakened plants ‘finished off.

It’s been a very dry month and we have spent a good deal of time watering our newly planted areas. If the plant is killed by a harsh winter it’s one thing, but if it dies from lack of water, that’s just neglect.

A lot of our fruit is ripening now, and we are busy picking and storing for jam making.