BURSTING WITH LIFE ?Venetia McEllin’s late-summer hot border.
Rewarded at last
Gardening
Venetia McEllin
What a wonderful summer we’ve had! After battling Arctic gales in the spring with continuous wind and rain, and seedlings positively bursting to get out of the greenhouse and into the ground, we have at last been rewarded! We went away on August 7 for four days to County Antrim, and came back to find plants flowering their socks off.
My new ‘hot’ bed was particularly impressive. My old wine-red pom pom dahlias are four times the size they were last year, giving a lovely show of colour. Teamed up with the orange calendula, sunflower black velvet, dahlia bishop of Llandaff, yellow helenium, rudbeckia, ladybird poppies (gorgeous) and my beloved schoolgirl climbing rose, the bed was a riot of colour, topped off with frothy fennel, white achillea and two-tone gaillardia.
Of course, I have been guilty of planting far too many varieties of flower. The trouble is that early in the year when nothing seemed to be growing, in desperation I bunged in anything that was in, or about to, flower. So I have black grass orniphogon, rubbing shoulders with geraniums crowding out my white peony, next to red lobelia famex and a solitary blue delphinium. Where did that come from? But next year I will be ruthless! For this year I just revelled in the colour and density of my new flower bed, not least because it also hid the dreaded bindweed!
I was also surprised that my roses seemed to do much better this year, but on reading my gardening diary (I know, a bit nerdy, but it’s amazing how helpful it is), I realised that I had fed my roses at least four times this summer and that, coupled with the hot weather, made them sparkle.
Also my tomatoes and cucumbers have been plentiful and my butternut squash, which I’ve not grown before, had me heading for the recipe books to look for interesting ways to cook and preserve them. My courgettes turned into marrows while we were away for those four days, and again I’ve been scouring the internet for recipes.
On the downside, I think that melons and I have run our course. This year, half the greenhouse was taken up with cucumber-like growth and little else. According to the books they have to be hand pollinated, which meant I watched flowers opening and tried to decide if they were male or female. I even watched YouTube demonstrations of hand pollinating melons, but as far as I could tell, all my flowers were male! I dutifully twirled a paintbrush around the insides of the flowers, but the result is one sad melon, the size of a tennis ball. Deciding that this will be my last year of melons, I went to B&Q and bought a fig tree. Hmm. We’ll see!
Maybe its the advent of autumn but I am beginning to see what plants are in the wrong place. I’ve started walking round the garden making lists of what should go where, and am accumulating lots of bits for next year. The important thing will be to have the willpower to give away plants that don’t fit, instead of trying to squish everything in.
Mind you, Seán has just been cajoled into enlarging a flowerbed at the back of the house, so I’ll have to fill it with something...!
Club outing
Ballinrobe Garden Club visited Uncle Matt’s Farm, in Oughterard last weekend. Run by Caitriona and Padhraig, who grow salads, vegetables and soft fruit, it’s a wonderful welcoming place. We had a great talk on seed growing followed by soup and home-made bread. Well worth a visit! Ring 091 550801 for details.
Venetia McEllin is a member of Ballinrobe Garden Club, which meets on the first Tuesday of the month at 7.30pm in Tacú Resource Centre, Ballinrobe. New members welcome.
