Spring has sprung the daffoldils

We've had three dry days in a row with a bit of sunshine thrown in, it must be Spring!
Well the daffodils seem to think it's time to show their faces and such welcome happy faces they are too.
Brave little trumpets playing the overture to the symphony of Spring.
They are the only splash of colour in my neglected garden and a few little primroses are hidden in the winter jungle of dead stalks and swampy grass.
Time for a bit of garden therapy and I could do with the exercise too:)

Garden Portraits

A few photographs from my garden that I mucked around with in photoshop.
Just having fun, but I really like the yellow against the blue.

Vibrant Poppies

Just a couple of photos from the garden.
Poppies are one of my favourite flowers, I love the vibrancy of the colours.
It's as if they know they only have a short while to bloom so they give it all they've got. A shot of pure colour.
Apparently the seeds can go into hibernation , if that's the right term, for years. So when road works or building churn up the soil poppies can suddenly pop up as if out of nowhere, just to see what's going on:)

Gardening, a learning curve

When I planted this flower bed last spring I thought I'd do it Mother Nature style.
In other words I got lazy after planting the lily bulbs and simply scattered a lot of different seeds willynilly. Then covered them lightly with compost, watered and left them to it.
The result is the chaos you see in the photo, not too bad but because I had no idea what was what when they were growing (being a bit of a beginner at this gardening lark) I didn't do any thinning out.
So the poor things were totally overcrowded and all grew very tall and spindly trying to get enough light I suppose.
Well I'll know better next year and give them a little more breathing space!

Wonderful Weeds

Even though I've a garden full of flowers, I found myself and my camera drawn to these old friends.



I don't know the botanical name for these but as kids we used them to play "soldiers", where you'd hold out your poor "soldier" horizontally while your opponent tried to whip off it's head using their "soldier", one go at a time.
The beauty of such destruction was that these "soldiers", being weeds, were unwanted and plentiful!
The equivalent these days would be Cannon Fodder on your PC.




I've always liked Dandelions.
I think it was initially their name captured my imagination, a dandy lion, so I thought because of the golden mane of the flower!
I know , I know, you just have to imagine the lions head.
Well I just googled them and the name comes from the old french Dent-de-lion, the lions tooth because of the shape of the leaves.
Another childhood game was telling the time with their fairy clocks.
I don't think I need to explain that one.

Weeds are just plants in the wrong place or in my case all over the place!

Mystery Rhododendron

This is my mystery rhododendron in full flower.
It's absolutely beautiful, and adds a tropical element to the garden.
It's a mystery because I cant seem to find out what kind of rhododendron it is.
I even blogged about it when it was about to flower
Anyway I'm going to write into The Irish Garden magazine and ask their Garden know how section to identify it for me, now that its in blossom.


Spot the Spider
My rhododendron is hosting a Misumena vatia

Californian Poppy

This is one of my personal favourites of the poppies that I grew and photographed in my garden last year.
I'm a little disappointed that they don't seem to have seeded all that many for this years crop. I thought poppies were avaricious self seeders.
Well anyway I wasn't leaving anything to chance and I did scatter seeds of the wild red poppy around. So I'm looking forward to them popping up!!
You can see more of my Garden photos in flickr (if you're interested)

Rhododendron

I bought this rhododendron at the end of last summer, in a half price closing down sale.
It's my bargain in the garden!
It's my pride and joy, and as you can see, it is literally bursting into flower. I've never seen one like it and I don't know the name of it. If anybody out there recognises it, please let me know. I have just tried googling it but there seem to be an endless amount of different kinds out there.
One thing I did learn was that the origins of the name are Greek, Rhodo meaning rose and Dendron meaning tree! Lovely.



The bark on the lower half is all cracked and falling off, should I be worried or is this just growing pains? Anybody, anybody?

Amateur in the garden.......

Trying to create a flower bed.


Ok, this was my first pathetic attempt, a Delphinium( I think ) surrounded by some geraniums, petunias and lobelias.
So I had a look at some chelsea flower show winners and started again.



Well it wont be going to Chelsea, but a much better effort.
Maybe a Little crowded to the back but I do want to leave space for some dwarf cosmo that I'm growing ( slowly ) from seed, and I'll dot in a few poppies as well when they're big enough to fight their corner!




I transplanted stuff from around the garden and unfortunately the fennel and the anemones went into shock! I gave them bucket loads of water which I'm hoping will revive them, not drown them. It's such a big learning curve, this gardening lark. I hope with my learn as you go method, that I don't have too many fatalities!
So if anybody out there has any helpful hints , I'd love to hear for you.

Gardening, growing Lupins

This is my second year of gardening and I'm loving it. I've a few lupin plants that I bought last yr, hurray for perennials, I've sown their seeds and low and behold, beautiful babies. Now I understand why they call it a nursery. Just look at that sweet seedling, its like a little hand.




Unfortunately I've discovered that they don't flower in their first year. A bit disappointing but there you go that's gardening for you. Luckily I took cuttings from the mother ship(see below) and so have a few slightly more mature guys, pre-teens maybe, coming on. I've no idea if they'll flower this year or not.




This is the result I'm hoping for, beautiful.



I can't remember if I had blue ones, I definitely had pink and yellow ones.


There are some interesting botanical facts to be found
here
for example
John Parkinson attributed wonderful virtues to the plant.

Many women, he says 'doe use the meale of Lupines mingled with the gall of a goate and some juyce of Lemons to make into a forme of a soft ointment.' He says that the burning of Lupin seeds drives away gnats.