Glengarriff

Great little place called Glengarriff, which was about an hour from Kinsale. One of those places that you always wanted to get to, thought you had all the time in the World to do it, but you're running there at the last minute.

Turns out this small island was bought by a member of the Irish Parliament about 100 years ago. He starts this huge project to turn the island into a cultivated garden. Unfortunately, he passes away and his wife takes over. In the end the son donates it to the Irish people as a National Treasure.

Tons of vistas and views around the island, and this Italian Garden is probably one of the more famous places there.

Mystery Tree

Not that I think for a minute that we could actually grow this tree in our relatively dry climate in Indianapolis, I had to send this out to my garden geeks to see if they can identify it.

This photo does not due justice to the dramatic blues in this tree - absolutely amazing.

So Amber, I think it was your brother-in-law or someone who was the landscape architect who nailed the last mystery tree in France.

The Kinsale Wall

On the days I'm not feeling like riding my bike (6 out of 7 days), I'm doing the run/walk thing along the road to the plant from Kinsale. Perhaps as an excuse to do more walking than running I took my camera along and snapped some photos on the "weeds" that are growing along the two foot tall wall along the water.

Granted it's Spring over here, but it'll be interesting to see through the Summer on what's in bloom and growing.

From Seeds to Plants

Well you can't have a 50 foot patio go to waste, and the easiest and cheapest way I could think of to make it like home is tons of plants.

Of course, to fill said 50 foot patio with plants requires quite a few plants - so I had to go with the seed route (Mother Nature is the ultimate in thriftiness).

So after getting 18 2'X2' square pots, a crapload of dirt, and a tons of seeds - I'm off to the races. As Hilary Cox taught me years ago, the secret to growing seeds is pretty easy if you just follow a couple of simple steps.

We'll see how these puppies do - but they're doing pretty well so far.

Japanese Maple

Pretty stunning, huh.

Fall in our neighborhood is absolutely fantastic with all the varieties of mature trees in the area changing color - and our Japanese maple held its own this year with a really nice display. Granted the puppy is microscopic - about 4 feet tall - but it was still awesome.

Fruit Trees come in

The frosts are just around the corner, so that can only mean one thing - the cirtus trees are all packed into the house. Had to get a picture of them now, where the leaves are nice and full - give them four months instead, and they will look like pathetic trees just aching to get back outside.

And with the low rain, it will be interesting to see if any of them flower this year - unlikely - since they were looking pretty pathetic at the end of last winter, and they weren't too happy this summer.

First Amaryllis

The first Amaryllis has bloomed - didn't take too long after we remembered to water it. Alas I don't know the variety, but it's a big one.

I've been thinking of starting a new collection of bulbs like we had a couple of years ago, but realized that they might suffer the same fate in our basement as the last ones (forgotten about for a year).

Fruit Trees survive the summer drought

Cute little thing isn't it?

Looks like the trees survived the complete lack of rain this year, so now we're in the true home stretch to see if they can survive the winter. Hopefully this winter will be nice a moist - instead of a cold and dry disaster.

The pecan tree is perhaps the most interesting one this year. Totally refused to leaf out this year or do anything - but remarkably it's still alive. Don't know if it knew there would be no water this year, or whether it's just high maintenance - but hopefully it will do something come Spring.

Winter Harvest

Meager I know.

Turns out potatoes don't really grow well if you forget to water them in the middle of August and they turn into brown sagebrush. Actually it wasn't that bad, but almost. Realize now that the future garden needs to have a built-in watering system to keep things going - and my lack of sunlight doesn't help matters much.

On the carrot front, I also learned that those little root crops don't like containers. Even though this variety is a nice baby carrot variety - I need to have nice sunny loamy soil - which just doesn't cut it on the bedroom balcony.

Starting Strawberries

Realizing that I cannot afford to keep myself in strawberries throughout the year on Farmer's Market prices - I decided to make a little investment a la M. Emanuel and start a strawberry patch.

I purchase three different varieties, but only one has arrived so far. This is Honoeye (Fragaria x ananassa), which is supposedly good for freezing - should come up around June.

Daffodils are in

Even though we had a crappy growing season this year, at least it's time to do some plantings.

I really should have written down what kind of bulbs these are that I got from Mom, but mostly their daffodils I believe.

Bonsai

Not sure why I'm getting back into this now that we will be leaving the US off and on for six months, but I'm intrigued again by bonsai.

Stopped by Cit E Scapes, since they appear to be one of the few places in the city that actually has some bonsai material and picked up what I think is a Chamaecyparis obtusa (Nana gracilis) - I really need to start saving the tags that come with the plants.

Anyway, it doesn't look like much now (haven't even trimmed it yet), but hopefully it should form into an upright formal thing in a couple of years. The pot it's in now is temporary - need a round one.

Native Dogwood is fruiting

I think I had a photo of the dogwood (Cornus racemosa) flowering a couple of months ago, so now I have it in fruit form. Again, a lovely little tree that has filled out nicely over the last five years. I think the birds are thankful for the food supply. It seems to be one of the few plants that scoffed at the drought this year and told Mother Nature "Is that the best you've got ?!!".

In contrast the hybrid dogwood that grows right next to this tree is looking more pathetic and worried than if Michael Vick were in a room with my friend Rebecca and Obie.

Clematis

Amazing what a little rain can do...

Now that our Indianapolis climate resembles something less than the Sahara Desert, a couple more things are popping out of the garden. This week the clematis bloomed - still not the best display, but better than the burnt grass (thank you Obie) and entire patches of blank-ness.

The good news about this whole drought thing is that the garden is about 80% native species, so they're used to this sort of thing. Although I've definitely had plants that struggled, most have survived.

OK, one more plant is blooming

OK, a slight exaggeration on the limited number of plants blooming - we also have this lovely blue plant that I have absolutely no idea what it is. I never bothered making a tag for it, because most gardeners told me that this thing would get amold and die within the first year.

Turns out it's taking over an entire corner of the garden, so I suspect it's not the same plant. Anyway, it's a nice blue which is hard to find

Ruby Spice is blooming

One of the few plants in the garden that are actually blooming. And considering this plant usually like the swamps, I'm surprised it's still alive at all with the lack of rain we've been having.

Although we started with three bushes 6 years ago, we're down to 1. It's not really a favorite of Patrick's, although the insects like the flowers.

Cucumbers

The first cucumber is up!

My concern is that they prefer to be climbing on something before producing the fruit, and that space is kind of limited this year.

This particular cucumber is an heirloom, so I need to save the first one for seeds - but after that I'm pickling to my hearts content. Actually I do need to find some other use for cucumbers than the typical cucumber salad (salt, vinegar, onions). It's been a staple for the past four weeks since we get at least one cucumber from our Co-Op share.

Trumpet Flower is blooming

Despite our complete neglect of this plant over the years, it still continues to come back. Deuterium (sorry, don't know the rest of it) is an annual, but it sows itself. We first got it from Kelly Lowe years ago, when she was moving out of her apartment (I remember her just yanking it out in summer and shoving it in the ground - I think they like that). Anyway . . .

Nice huge plant that takes over the yard, grows in the shade, huge flowers, very fragrant, blooms only at night - so perfect for a moon garden.

Potatoes

Although our potatoes have not produced yet from our garbage cans, at least they are still on schedule. These beautiful things came from the local farmer's market who had started them in mid-April - about 1 month before we started ours.

Sorry to be so excited about potatoes, but the alternatives are not good.

Sun-dried Tomatoes

Gardens are exploding throughout Indiana despite our complete lack of water, so my sister, Julie, had quite a few tomatoes to spare.

Realizing that all could not be eaten in time, I decided to go ahead and try drying them in the sun. Since we don't live in Tuscany, most recipes just suggested a very cool oven. So after six hours (thank god, I can program it to run while we're sleeping) - the small tomatoes (1/4 the size of a roma) came out nice and dry. Turns out a cookie sheet makes about 2 cups of dried.

As I write this I am struck by the thought, that my large tomatoes are still sitting in the oven after four days (hope they were really dry). Oh well