Volunteers

Really lovely Autumn weather these days. Sunny days and cool evenings, hoping for some really good Autumn colour. Garden is starting to go into its wind down mode. In the Herbaceous Border Asters are starting to give some colour and the Crinum lilies (Crinum powellii) are looking really well. The crinum lilies in the border are original to the garden we have some really big clumps of them that never let us down.

The veg garden is great at the moment lots of Apples coming into the Woodland Walk Cafe and spinach, chard, cabbage, beetroot and tomatoes. Ground prep will start now for next year. Want to try some green manures on some of the beds, will keep you posted. Will spend a good bit of time this Winter sealing the garden to try and get some control on the rabbit numbers.

Good time to give glass-houses a clean for heading into Winter.

On Sunday we had 16 volunteers from Investec Specialist Bank working in the woodlands. They put protective tubes on 400 trees and removed tubes that needed removing from about 300 trees. Thank you very much your help is really appreciated. Don’t forget you can still vote for the Roscommon Schools Sculpture competition.

It is the perfect time of year to get out and enjoy our woodlands.

Visitors to the Walled Garden

We are in Autumn wow, how the Summer has passed so quickly. Many will ask what Summer??? It has been one of the most difficult gardening years in a long time, but like all gardeners we soldier on. Some success in the vegetable garden we had a great crop of potatoes and lots of spinach and chard. The apple crop seems very good too. Our newly planted trees did not dry out at any stage (ha).

Of course pests were a major problem, mainly slugs and our good old friend the Rabbit. All we can do really is get on with it. There will always be gardening challenges.

Bob Reilly the renowned horticulturalist from Athenry visited last Thursday with a group of horticulturalists from Galway, we had a really great time in the walled Garden and woodlands. Bob was delighted to get a chance to visit the Cotinus obovatus (American Smoke bush) that he so kindly donated to Strokestown Park Walled Gardens a few years ago, great to see it has grown so well. See pic.

Planting Spring bulbs in container these days also, have leeks planted out for Winter too. This coming weekend Strokestown Agricultural Show is on the grounds Saturday and Sunday 8th & 9th September  should be a great weekend.