A West Cork garden

WINTER IN IRELAND

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We are ending the month of November and with routine changes and many things to attend to recently I’m only now starting to slow down and to dwell on what I’m at and what I would like to focus on in the next few winter months.  I love winter.

Right now I like how there is such attention on gratefulness by so many people, so many friends.  When looking at the small gifts we receive everyday, it’s easy to feel gratitude.

Well, my garden is full of seedheads attracting goldfinches. And new life is to be seen in primroses starting to flower.

The sun is out today and there is ony a little breeze.  The garden has not yet died down so far, our really cold weather only arrives in January and usually last untill April. Our daffodils are already showing their head above soil. I could do work out there but I’m inclined to leave the seedheads for the birds, and as well as that the soil, the grass, everything is sodden, the rains having taken care of that.  So I will leave the outside work for now, and I will make my adventkrans instead. 

Wishing everyone an enjoyable Thanksgiving day

TIME FOR THE GARDEN

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GARDEN AWAKENING
My grandson helping me, so valuable.

With the month of March well under way our garden is crying out for attention.  I have great plans this year, among other things is planting more vegetables and in order to realise this I’m digging up one third of our small lawn. Exciting! 

I have been suffering a bit from writers block for a while now, hopefully my muze will return soon.

Wishing everyone a glorious spring, or as it happens, autumn time. Much love.

MIDWINTER FROST

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A few nights ago we had frost. I awoke to a white world, where every blade of grass, every flower, and every leaf was beautifully decorated with glittering ice, it looked as if during the night a fairy had strewn sugary crystals all over the garden. It was wonderful. And it was cold. A clear blue sky stretched out over the houses to the west and in the east the sun was already shining making everything glitter.
These flowers reminded me of the sugared violets used in cake recipes during Victorian times.
Every year I leave some of the hydrangea flower heads on the shrubs and they never fail to be of interest all winter long in many different ways.
Some of my favourite winter foliage would be conifers, pines, firs. Some have a lovely scent, especially around midwinter, and at Christmas time the warmth of the lights bring out this scent from our live tree right inside our living room, wonderful!
These are the trunks of privet bushes, they rise up high and grow by about 50cm every year which means a lot of cutting down, by now and after 30 years their trunks have grown so close together that they are now more of a fence than a hedge.
My newest garden plants are brightly coloured Gaultheria procumbens (Wintergreen). I am delighted with them. By the time I took this photo the ice was melting a little because of the sun, but most of the garden stayed white all day long. Quite unusual for the area, but much appreciated by me.

In a day or two it will be the winter Solstice and it is also the time that Ian celebrates his 80th birthday, yes we will be celebrating!