This year has absolutely flown! It seems like yesterday that I was thinking about sparkly lights, my annual colour scheme for my Christmas decorations, and getting excited about the wonderful fun of Christmas gifting. I love gathering clues throughout the year, taking note of what the people in my life like and collecting gifts which will hopefully make their faces light up with joy. When it comes to gardeners or
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Did you know that the daisy is one flower which grows everywhere in the world except the Antarctic? When I came across this fact again during my research for a recent project I’m working on I was reminded why the daisy is one of my absolute favourite flowers. Surely a plant which grows in the heat of an Australian landscape will struggle in the much cooler Canadian landscape? But this
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Get inspired by master plantsman Jimi Blake and plant your own border of jewels I love this time of the year. The garden is still full of colour and flashes of colour surprise and yet there is a change in the air. Waking this morning I saw a misty fog drifting over the lake, a sign of chilly air coming in. Arriving perfectly in time for back to school days
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Great gardens reflect the people that create them. This statement is something which I think of every time I visit a new garden. Particularly those gardens that make you stop for a moment and admire their uniqueness, gardens truly are an expression of the creators personality. Much like people’s homes, gardens are spaces where people can continue to express their style and lifestyle in a unique and interesting way and
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Why our roadside perennials make more than just pretty borders Thought you knew the plants that grow on our roadsides? Well, I certainly thought I was familiar with most of them. That was, until I started to look a little closer and realised that our native roadside perennials are anything but simple. The other day, as part of my research for my ‘Native hedgerows’ series, I looked a little closer
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Embracing the grassy wilderness in our landscapes and gardens The landscape of Ireland is fascinating one to study with its many different geographical habitats. From our native coastlines to our open waters such as rivers and lakes and all the way to our country’s two major habitats- and bogland and grasslands, there is a mind-blowing diversity of flora and fauna, all of which come together to make up our unique
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Celebrating the great Irish hedgerow Is there a more ubiquitous element of the Irish landscape than the hedgerow? That softly mounding linear dissection of our fields, often accompanied by stretches of native walling, is something so uniquely Irish and found everywhere from the northern tip of Rathlin island to the South of Bantry. Today, after returning from a recent trip abroad, I find myself smiling happily out the train window at
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Take some time to admire our valuable native trees and shrubs and see how they shape our landscape Who doesn’t love our landscape in Summer? The wild Irish landscape which surrounds us in countryside and even the city, is truly unique. The rich tapestry of layers and textures of our native trees, shrubs and roadside planting rewards us daily with its splendour but how often do we actually consciously take
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It’s time. Looking out my window today at the streaming May rain day I decided to give up on waiting for Summer vibes to come and instead bring some of my own to the garden. It’s been a hard start to the year and most of us are craving the lush greens and explosions in the garden that we associate with this time of the year. So yes, it’s time
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There is something immensely satisfying about planting a flower that self seeds easily. Allowing plants to self seed feels like the antitheses of high maintenance gardening, a relaxed and informal way of the garden evolving on its own. To me, planting self-seeders is as though you are allowing the garden to play. In these instances it is nature that decides where to lay down roots, the wind carrying seeds in
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