Simply the Best!

It happens very often that a flower will catch my eye when I am working in the garden, most usually as I am on the lawnmower when, of course, I don't have a camera to hand and I am caught between carrying on with what I am doing or going for the camera to capture …

The Low Light’s in the Garden

Yes, as we say here, the evenings are drawing in; the house lights need to be turned on earlier each eveining with each passing week; the sun is later rising in the morning - though this is not my time of day and I rarely view it - and the light in the garden has …

Singing Edelweiss!

We had in mind for ages to visit the Swiss Cottage, outside Cahir, Co. Tipperary, but, as is often the case with attractions more or less on our doorstep, it was put on the long finger with a "sure, we can go there anytime" attitude in our minds. On Monday last, we reached the end …

Ten Thousand at a Glance

The advent of digital photography gave a sense of the child in the sweetshop to old fogies like myself who had been more accustomed to buying rolls of films in various limiting sizes - 12 photographs in a roll or 24 when funds allowed and then there was the delay of a few days as …

Visually in Lismore Castle Garden.

A Saturday morning appraisal of the coming weather advised us that Sunday and Monday would be wet and as this would lead to two days of confinement, to being indoors, inactive and probably dreary, we decided to put aside our plan to cut the grass before the wet weather and take a day out. Days …

There Were Other Geese!

John said that my day had been a wild goose chase, a search in vain, and while there was a grain of truth in what he said it was far from an accurate description of the day. John had come on a record of one of our very attractive native Irish orchids, Autumn Lady's Tresses …

Melting Point!

After a week or more of dreary grey weather, dull miserable days of low cloud, evenings darkening earlier than we had become used to, season of mists and all such, today we were brought back in a flash to those scorching days of mid-summer. The temperature rose to 25C in mid afternoon and it was …

The Jungle Garden – A Review.

Philip Oostenbrink writes of the jungle style of garden which has become very popular over recent years especially so with those who have relatively small garden space attached to an urban house for it creates an area of sanctuary, enclosure, privacy, of withdrawal and of transport to a setting which contrasts completely with today’s dense …

Playing Away Most of the Time.

Rather surprisingly, and quite out of contrast with our lifestyle of more than the past year, I have been away from the garden most days of this past week. There was a day to visit Meadow Saffron in a riverside meadow earlier in the week and another to see the last native orchids to flower …

Up to see the Ladies.

There was a mixture of emotions when visiting the Meadow Saffron - Naked Ladies is another common name, hence the title - at one of its two sites on the banks of the River Nore in Co. Kilkenny. It seems that these are the only two sites in the country where this plant is still …