Heritage Irish Plants – An Update!

Heritage Irish Plants – Plandai Oidhreachta is a collaborative project between the Irish Society of Botanical Artists and the Irish Garden Plant Society which will lead to an exhibition of the works of the artists and the publication of a soft-back book using the paintings to illustrate a collection of articles. The introduction will be …

Just Give Them Away!

I have been taught a lesson, a hard and harsh gardening lesson, but I have survived it and all will be well. Some years back a friend from Yorkshire, Alan Briggs, was staying with friends of his in Co. Wexford for the New Year and was intrigued to see snowdrops included in various posies around …

Favourite Books from 2015

  I’ve taken a look back over the gardening books I have read in 2015 and selected those I have enjoyed most. It is, I believe, important to say that these are my personal favourites and I don’t aim put them out here as the best books of the year. We all have our likes …

Paradise and Plenty – A Rothschild Family Garden

Paradise and Plenty – A Rothschild Family Garden by Mary Keen This book provides the ultimate peep over the walls of a closed and private garden and what a delight we are shown. We are shown Eythrope, the private garden of the present Lord Rothschild, one of a family of great English gardeners.   Baron …

Flora of the Silk Road – An Illustrated Guide

The Silk Road is a place of legends, adventures and dreams, hard travelling and great beauty. It connected the west and the east, Rome and China, and along its various routes it carried trade in silk, spices, gold and ivory and introduced the compass, printing and gunpowder from the east along with learning in astronomy, …

Heritage Irish Plants – Plandaí Oidhreachta

The beauty of the work of the members of the Irish Society of Botanical Artists was the inspiration for this project which features heritage Irish garden plants. The ISBA is quite a new society but has already made a fabulous contribution to Irish art and to our heritage of Irish plants with its initial exhibition, …

Kneepads and things!

My weekend travels brought me to four very large garden centres. On Saturday we went to Johnstown Garden Centre near Naas now, with the M9, only a little over an hour’s journey from Waterford.  We went to meet with friends who use an Irish internet gardening site, Garden.ie. It was a time to press the …

Brushing up the New Year.

  Yes, it is practically imperative that we move forward in a positive and buoyant manner. It is demanded of us to be happy and upbeat but I find all such carry-on just too energetic. However, I am happy and delighted with news of progress in a project in which I am involved. The Irish …

Just Miserable!

Social media, blogging etc. has the expectation, it seems to me, that we write happy things, clever statements, show the beautiful and the pretty, the upbeat and the positive or, failing that, pictures of cats and dogs. But gardening cannot always be upbeat, full of sunshine and pretty flowers; there are also the mucky, wet, …