News - Page 58
For a short time each year, elder trees flower. Their flowers are used to make delicious Elderflower cordial. Flowers are collected from elder trees growing in hedgerows & other wild & uncultivated places. You’ll need about 30 flower heads to make cordial. Elder trees are flowering now, but only for a few weeks before they’re gone again for another year.
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Keep crops going through autumn with some clever planning now. The veg garden may be at full throttle, with new potatoes, asparagus broad beans and peas on your plate and gooseberries and rhubarb for dessert – but if you don't look ahead your harvest will come crashing to a halt in a couple of months' time.
A late sowing of veg now means you can replace your earliest crops the moment you've harvested them, giving your veg garden a second wind which will las...
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Sow next year's spring display of wallflowers, forget-me-nots, hollyhocks and foxgloves – all of which are biennials, meaning they flower in their second year. Start them now and by autumn they'll be fat clumps of leaves, ready to throw up flower spikes to brighten up your garden next April and May.
You'll find dozens of varieties on sale in your favourite garden centre right now as seed. Hollyhocks come in single or exotic-looking double b...
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Discover new gardens on the West Cork Garden Trail, open until 30th June. This annual event sees 15 gardens in the West Cork area throw open their gates to reveal some real jewels of Irish horticulture, giving you plenty of inspiration to take home to your own garden.
West Cork enjoys a warm microclimate, warmed by the Gulf Stream, and you'll find a garden you love no matter what your style. Enjoy the Italianate splendour of Glenview Gardens, near Enniskeane...
Read more...Chinese Jasmine, also known as 'Star of Tosca' is a beautiful evergreen twining climber with rich, dark leaves. It has gorgeous pale yellow flowers in early Summer which are highly scented especially in the evening. It needs a sheltered spot to grow well but will reward you with heavenly smells in the evening...
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Prune pyracanthas to keep them looking beautiful and show off their spectacularly colourful berries. These easy-to-grow evergreen shrubs look good all year round, with frothy white flowers in spring followed by masses of berries in traffic-light colours: look out for different varieties in your local garden centre, from buttery yellow 'Soleil d'Or' to tangerine-coloured 'Orange Glow' and the best of the reds, 'Saphyr Rouge'.
They look particularly gorgeous tr...
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Stake taller plants before they get too big and flop over sideways, ruining your display and possibly flattening nearby flowers too. Delphiniums, peonies, dahlias and oriental poppies are all prone to toppling over sideways, especially after heavy wind and rain and sometimes under the weight of their own flowers.
Earlier is always better, as with supports in place before they get too tall plants happily grow out and around to cover unsightly...
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Hypericum Hidcote is a very useful and attractive shrub in the garden. It is tolerant of most position, and is particularly useful as a ground cover shrub, forming ultimately quite a large bush.
It is semi-evergreen, with a lovely yellow flower throughout the summer which attracts bees. It has quite a tradtional feel, and will cope well in most soil types.
Come and have a look at our selection!
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What to do in the garden in June:
There's no better place to be in June than in your garden. The veg garden is packed to overflowing: your flowers are a riot of colour and perfume. Keep the show dazzling with this month's key jobs.
General tasks:
Top up mulches to keep weeds under control: a 5cm layer of well-rotted stable manure feeds your plants as it rots....
Ireland has been Blooming this weekend as the country's largest gardening event enjoys its seventh year. The Bloom gardening festival has become one of the most anticipated events in the Dublin calendar with almost 80,000 visitors enjoying the show gardens, workshops and advice on offer at Phoenix Park.
This year the 28 show gardens set a particularly high standard, with top honours going to Gerard Mullen from Dungarvan, Co. Waterford for his modern evocation...
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