Gardening with Wildlife

I cannot say that I garden for wildlife but I do garden with it. It is all around us and, as far as possible, I work with a live and let live attitude. Greenfly, blackfly, whitefly, slugs, snails, vine weevil larvae, carrot root fly, narcissus fly are all present in the garden and these and …

Snowdrop House and Castle

Monday was a pet day in an otherwise generally miserable February. We had blue skies and bright sunshine, a crisp spring day, and we were quickly into the car and off up the M9 to visit snowdrop gardens.  Burtown House, near Ballintore, Co. Kildare, is furthest away from us and was our first stop while, …

Suffering for Snowdrops

The Snowdrop Week at Altamont Gardens has become not only the established snowdrop event of each year here in Ireland but it is, undoubtedly, the best. It has run each year for over ten years and there are many reasons it is so successful. It the first place, it has the wonderful setting of Altamont …