Garden Show Ireland 2018

Much to my surprise and delight, we've just had several consecutive days of sunny weather. In fact, on one of those days, I actually had to remove my fleece. For me, warm dry weather means gardening, lots of gardening for I really am a fairweather horticulturist. The first of the pleasant days I spent on an outing to Garden Show Ireland at the beautiful Castle Grounds in Antrim. My pockets were stuffed with my new pension entitlement so I was able to spend freely. There is nothing I like better than access to plants with funds to spare. What I did not take into account was plants in pots are heavy and I had travelled by train. Sure the journey from show to the station was less than 15 minutes but fifteen minutes is a long time to carry two heavy bags of hard to find perennials.

That was on Friday and my arms and shoulders are still aching. Next year I'll take a wheeled trolley.

Two of the stall holders at the show. Our friends, Frank and Linda McCooke from Slemish Market Garden. They were selling vegetable transplants and herbs and were doing a roaring trade. While I was visiting their stand it was announced that they'd taken the silver medal in the Grower's section. And very well-deserved too. The McCookes must be the hardest working family in the Ballymena area. Yet they've always got time for a chat and a laugh with their customers as my photo shows.

This was my favourite part where all the exciting plants were to be found. I acquired some new geraniums for my collection, a polemonium, a creamy saxifrage, nine exotic lily bulbs and long sought after white oriental poppies.

Garden Pests

Northern Ireland is currently experiencing Summer Time and I have been making hay while the sun shines, or sort of... I have been weeding, sowing and planting and Nelly's Garden is actually looking OK. If it wasn't for all the interruptions life would be great.

First of all, I took Saturday evening and most of Sunday as a vacation from what the Americans call yard work. We went out for dinner with the Banjos and slept over. Then on Sunday, we all went to Garden Show Ireland. It was Marty and Jazzer's first visit (even though they live in Antrim) and I think they enjoyed it. I bought my usual geranium and wanted to buy some white papaver Orientale but missed out on pot plants so bought root cuttings from a beautiful Dutchwoman. Two white, two salmon pink and two red. Hope they grow! Going around the exhibits I realised that my bay tree is probably worth £120 and that the three trees I'm nabbing from Bert would cost me nearly 500 if I was buying them from a garden centre. And - the half dozen lupins I'd planted the day before and that were grown from a teeny little seed were worth nearly fifty quid at Garden Show prices. I actually felt quite rich.

Monday was family gardening day and it started off well when the black and white cow had a healthy bull calf standing by her side first thing in the morning. Then there was great excitement when Evil Edna started to show signs of imminent calving. Unusually, for Edna, she was considerate enough to hold off on the big reveal until the girls' homework was done, then had the calf birthed just as supper was being put on the table.

Yesterday Hannah and I went shopping in Antrim. I bought a hand weeding tool and Hannah bought socks. Bored with the shops we went to the Castle Grounds to walk. The council workers were still clearing up after Garden Show Ireland and I found a lithodora 'Heavenly Blue' in a bin and nicked rescued it. Another £7 saved.

Today, nothing much to do so worked in the garden. Planted geraniums, crocosmia 'Lucifer', cosmos, potentilla' and used my new weeding tool which is very useful for grubbing up dandelions and creeping buttercup. It was a very enjoyable day except for the invaders. First, there was the chicken escapees, three of the young hens that have no trouble flying over the fence. They spent the day in the flowerbeds gathering up grubs and insects.

Then I was wandering around taking pictures of this and that and heard this crashing noise and there was...

...Lily, who had to be quickly headed off before she started trampling on my freshly planted flower beds.

The next invader was driving a shiny red car that whizzed into the yard with one door hanging open and that turned out to be a mother and child delivering leaflets for a church lecture. I'd already noticed posters for this event in the village and was astonished that such people still walk among us. I told the woman that I was a firm believer in evolution and she looked at me very askance. She suggested I should come and add to the debate. I said I probably wouldn't.

Click to enlarge and get a better look at Evie's plastic dinosaur and the potentilla and geranium that flank it. The invite from the crazy people is propped against the alpine strawberry.  

Garden Show Ireland, 2016

For the third year running I attended Garden Show Ireland in Antrim's delightful Castle Grounds. The first year I went on my own. But for the past two years I've been going with Martha, Evie and Zoe and it has been much more enjoyable. It helps that we are all interested in gardens and plants. Martha saw lots of show gardens that delighted her and made sure that I got a picture so we could remember them.

This was a feature in a 'fairy' garden. Both girls liked it very much.

Take a photograph Granny!

So I did.

There were a couple of mildly unfortunate incidents.

Evie's strop. It didn't last long.

Martha not making it to the top of the climbing tower. She did very well for a first-timer.

Martha and Evie take the weight off their legs.

Zoe admiring the wonderful willow baskets on display.

It was a very enjoyable day and I even bought some plants - some variety of comfrey, unlabelled.  I'll take a chance. And inspired by all we had seen I actually planted out my allium pots today, weeded and watered, made a start on the sweet william and now have a very sore left paw. Despite my achey hand I henceforward mean to spend all fine days in the garden. The housework can go to pot!

Yes We Have No Bananas

1st May - Martha and Evie were here for a sleepover. We had fun. They watched Charlotte's Web again and I caught up with  Indian Summers which is silly and enjoyable.  We had stories at bedtime. I read Rapunzel to them, then told them stories from real life. Martha wants to hear stories about her great-grandmother Martha and I was happy to tell them. Both girls managed to sleep through the night without falling out of bed.

2nd May - Bank Holiday. It started badly for me when I tripped on the back door step and fell on the side of my face on the asphalt. Massive black eye, cut brow, grazed knees, very sore left hand and cut right hand. I was enraged. Bert  got up to see what I was roaring about, decided my injuries weren't life-threatening and returned to his bed. Once again, I was enraged.

The day after. 

I had promised Martha her favourite dinner and had a lot to do. Later that day someone asked if I'd put ice on my eye. I said I hadn't, instead I baked a cake. Martha's requested dinner was pepporoni pizza and cake with icing and sprinkles for pudding. So that is what we made. My hands were very sore but adrenalin kept me going. That night I was exhausted.

3rd May - I was expecting visitors, Peggy and Jim from New Zealand and Jim and Val from Australia. The house was a tip. I got up at seven and started in. Originally I had intended to bake scones and apple tarts and other homely fare but there was no time and my hands were too sore. So I went to the local bakery and bought what I needed. The visit went well. I hadn't seen the New Zealand cousins for years and I'd never met the Australian cousins. Swisser turned up too and the entertainment went on for several hours. It was a great bit of craic but that evening I was super-exhausted.

Cousins big and small

4th May - did a little bit of gardening and an awful lot of slacking.

5th May - The Assembly elections. I had Martha and Evie all day because both school and nursery were closed to facilitate the elections. I took them with me when I voted and had great fun explaining to them what elections were all about and I think Martha thoroughly enjoyed my explanation of the proportional representation system and how the single transferable vote works. Evie's advice was that I should vote for the Garden Party so I may have to think about starting it. That afternoon we had Laura and her three daughters and Hannah and Fergus. There was great deal of bouncing on the trampoline.

6th May - lots of gardening and partying. Swisser came and offended me when she said that Indian Summers was a ridiculous show because there were banana plantations in the first episode and there were definitely no bananas growing in the foothills of the Himalayas as she'd been there and didn't see any such thing. I was sure she was wrong. She also said the doctors think she has some kind of tropical disease which would serve her right for swanking. To make up for this evil thought I gave her my last bottle of the dandelion as she said it gave ease to her tropical disease. We were already drinking an elderberry which she wouldn't even taste because she was driving as even a sip would impair her driving. I have evil thoughts about this as well but that's as far as I'll go. Anyway she went on about how delicios the elderberry smelled so I gave her a bottle of that too and lifted a damson to be going on with. A couple of people turned up and they had a small glass of the damson as well and Bert had two glasses and I had the rest.

7th May - woke up very early and there were two things bothering me. One was the effects of the wine and the other was Swisser correct about bananas not being cultivated in Shimla? I couldn't stop fretting about it and got the laptop fired up. Wikipedia suggested that there were no bananas in the foothills of the Himalayas. I have to research this matter further and it's not that I need to be right. I just want Swisser to be wrong.

Then I put it all behind me, got up, showered, dressed and went to Garden Show Ireland with Zoe and the girls. I'll blog about that tomorrow. This banana thing is killing me.

A scene from Indian Summers. My new theory is that these are not even bananas. I will win the banana argument, win it or die trying.

Garden Show Ireland and a Stranger in the Dyke

Zoe, the girls and Granny went to Garden Show Ireland at the Castle Grounds in Antrim. I went last year on my own and enjoyed it very much. However it is far better with company. I did not buy a single plant, just took photographs. The truth is, I don't even have enough room for the plants I already have. My new rule will be - no new perennials unless there is an area of the garden already prepared for planting.

Beautiful aquilegia

Gorgeous iris

 At one of the show gardens where Evie kept trying to sit on the hedge

 Climbing

Zoe and Evie

There was so much for children to do there. The girls had a cookery session and a kite making workshop. There were swings, slides, golf, climbing and a chill out area. That last was bliss. Mood lighting, air conditioning and an episode of Bill & Ben The Flowerpot Men. It was close to being my best bit. Evie's worst bit was getting covered in mud three times and the stilt walkers. Her best bit was the jazz band and Martha's best bit was dancing to the jazz band. Zoe's best bit might have been the 30 minutes she got to look around on her own and possibly seeing Monty Don.

Dancing

Got back home to discover the coffee supplies were running dangerously low and headed out in the van to replenish. On glancing to my right at the bottom of our lane I spotted a large-headed fellow standing in the dyke. Or so I thought. It was actually an election poster featuring Ian Paisley Jr, or Ian Óg as ussuns like to call him. I really, really need to get these eyes fixed.

Stranger in the Dyke

Dinner Plans

I have had a busy few days. On Friday I went to Garden Show Ireland at the Castle Grounds in Antrim where I heard a very interesting talk by the delightful Alys Fowler. The talk was a tiny bit shambolic as is, apparently, her own garden, but no less charming and interesting for all that. I know it has changed my mind about a few things and I am determined to make great improvements to my soil and adopt the no-dig approach to growing. I will also be more tolerant of slugs. Apparently they are doing us a favour by eating seedlings that we'd never get around to planting anyway. Still feeding any I find to the hens.

Alys Fowler - my heroine

Plants people in search of treasure

On Saturday I went to cheer on the participants in the Giro d'Italia as they raced through Ballymena. Very exciting even though they were out of town again in a matter of moments.

Photograph taken by ZMB on Flickr 

Tonight Nellybert went for drinks with the First Husband and His Beloved. The carers were late in coming to Pearlie and the most curious one commented on me being 'dressed up.' I told her I was going into town to meet the First Husband. She said,

I don't like the sound of that.

I said,

Don't worry. Bert is coming too.

That seems very strange to me.

It's not. Far better that people get along. 

What does Bert think?

Oh Bert gets on well with FH.

Does he?

Oh yes. I only hope he gets on as well with my next husband.

You! You're not near wise!

So, FH and Beloved are taking the girls out for the day tomorrow so that First Daughter can get a wriggle on with her sowing and planting. I'll make dinner. We are having vegetable lasagne and rhubarb crumble as FH doesn't eat meat. Another busy day ahead.