Eibhlin's Garden update --more photos added

[Eibhlin ni Sheambrai]

After the building finished we were broke, exhausted and everywhere was just stones. I posted an ad for plants wanted.
We have been working hard and have completed two areas--a large triangular flowerbed and a wilder area near my birdfeeder. The flowerbed has a few large bushes moved from other places during the building, a silver birch in the centre that I got for €10 at the end of last summer, and all the rest are bits and pieces donated by others--mostly ground cover and thing that will spread and cover it all so I won't have to do weeding :). I put one of my re-cycled chair base/wigwams in and planted some sweetpea and so far so good, just coming up.
The rockery area was made last september--basically we had nowhere to put all the stones we were clearing off site so we piled them all down behind the wall and left them--a wonderful area for nettles and weeds. Anyway I attacked it last week and cleared the weeds, put in lots of soil and manure and popped a load of plants into all the holes between the rocks. Steptoes gave me a rambling rose which I put against the back wall so I am hoping it will take off and flourish there.
I also made a raised bed thingy out of three old bits of plank, joined together with old rusty hinges from the shed and put it around my goosberry and blackcurrant bushes to keep them weed free, so hoping for lots of fruit for homemade jam.Yum Yum!! Fruit bushes are now thriving(July)
Thanks to daz38, melissabell, sparkwell, earthprince, steptoes, angelfishingrods, pepperpixie, and others who donated but are not members of JTown (including the neighbouring farmer who gave us lots of horse manure !!) There is still a lot of work to do but the completed areas give my heart a lift when I go outside and I am minding them like babies:)

July update:We have continued working hard and bit by bit we are bringing order to the chaos. .we have now created another triangular bed with stones we dug up, more horse manure from our friendly farmer, wood chippings from our trees and cuttings from everything in the garden. Between the two flowerbeds is our Celtic cross made with concrete fencing posts and kerb stones (donated by my neighbour) and filled with different coloured stones to represent the four seasons and the four stages of growth-seed, greening,harvest and winter. We are delighted with how it turned out and with all the recycled materials we used--even the green coloured chippings are made from recycled glass. Our rockery is thriving and Steptoes daisies look a treat at the back of the border. The plant I got from JTowner in carlow--pepperpixie I think--is thriving although I still don't know what it is!!
We got steps built up to our wilderness area(had to pay carpenter for this) and I added pieces of expanded metal left over from dry-lining on the treads to make them safer in the wet and give grip. That will be our next project, clearing and planting this wilderness of nettles and bind weed.

[Mickey]

Just amazing work Eibh :o)
You work SO hard! I am in awe!

Well done, it looks fabulous!

[Gormal]

Looks lovely, certainly added some life/colour to the place. Well done

[unapam]

Fabulous work. You have done wonders, it is amazing what you can do with so little and lots of elbow grease. Well done Eibhlinn

[sparkwell]

Your garden looks really well Eibhlin you have certainly put a lot of hard work into it. You are more than welcome for the pot bound conifers I hope they were still alive when you planted them!

[Angelsfishingrod]

hi Eibhlin, That looks lovely,, I love the colour you have used on the wall... and the wicker things..reminds me of Spain... I will have to take some pics of my garden, it was nothing when we moved in.. and now full of colour.. I spend all day out there.. goodluck, :)

[Eibhlin ni Sheambrai]

Originally Posted by Angelsfishingrod

hi Eibhlin, That looks lovely,, I love the colour you have used on the wall... and the wicker things..reminds me of Spain... I will have to take some pics of my garden, it was nothing when we moved in.. and now full of colour.. I spend all day out there.. goodluck, :)

Hi Angelsfishingrod, I have to take a few more photos and put them up. The heat in June followed by the rain in July has made the garden grow like mad. I planted the mystery plant you collected for me and its doing well, just need to do some more photos. Watch this space!! Cheers, Eibhlin

[Pepperpixie]

eibhlinn, your garden looks fantastic and am so happy to see "mystery plant" in it's new home, the poor thing was very neglected overturned in a pot here, am sure it's delighted to finally have arrived at a good home. Wish i could help you out with the name of the plant but i was not the green fingered one in our home.

[palminnie1]

tis great, love the st. bridgets cross (oops) and agree about cutting down on weeds. love the end of the chair for the wigwam and the sweetpea really fab, am jealous!
I am thinking of next spring and autumn, was wondering on the ground cover too and also about planting blue bells and cyclamin in the shade.
plucked some seed heads off aqualegia, may have spelt that wrong, hundreds of tiny seeds came out - great! also saving lupin seed pods and teasel and others.
could swap some tallies for shortie crawlies!! great garden eiblin!
palminnie!

[Eibhlin ni Sheambrai]

Hi palminnie, do people really like teasels? We are over run with them and spend our time pulling them out. I know people dry them and spray them gold for flower arranging but they drive me mad. If anyone out there is into them they are welcome to come take a big heap of them. Ground cover is great as I couldn't keep up with all the weeding. We used to buy those rolls of black stuff in woodies but now we use whatever we have--old sheets, curtains, carpet etc. Once the rain can go through but not the weeds it doesn't matter what colour it is as it is going to be covered with bark chippings.
One creeper plant that has been really good and easy to grow is a thing called Ajube (I think) it spreads like strawberry plants with little runners so you can cut off new ones once they are established.It has lovely tall purple flowers, kind of spiky, by tall I mean maybe 6inches, but tall for the size of the plant. Eibh.

[palminnie1]

i love em, but hope to keep them confined to one small area. I have a tiny patio/yard as you know, but how are seeds distributed etc so i can be forwarned.

[Belarus]

This is absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable work there Eibhlin. Just wish I could do things like that. Have plenty space (maybe too much) but just aint got the talent to design it like you. Love the sweet pea and the cross. Well done and best of luck with it all. Enjoy it.

[Bunty]

Great work, it looks marvellous. It's refreshing to see what a bit of hard work can do. Real cottage garden look.

[Eibhlin ni Sheambrai]

Originally Posted by palminnie1

i love em, but hope to keep them confined to one small area. I have a tiny patio/yard as you know, but how are seeds distributed etc so i can be forwarned.

Hi palminnie, When the teasels get really tall and have big spikey heads on them, they turn purple with sort of little flowers. i think it is after this that the seeds fly everywhere. They are easy enough to pull up as roots aren't very deep so you could control them that way. Eibh.

[Eibhlin ni Sheambrai]

Originally Posted by Belarus

This is absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable work there Eibhlin. Just wish I could do things like that. Have plenty space (maybe too much) but just aint got the talent to design it like you. Love the sweet pea and the cross. Well done and best of luck with it all. Enjoy it.

Belarus, I never designed a garden in my life before. This was done in sheer desperation as we had no money left after the building work was finished. /most of it happened by using up materials left on site or begged and borrowed from friends, neighbours and JTowners. We just did one section first--the first triangle flower bed using rocks on site. The cross was made with materials from my neighbour and the new flower bed-another triangle just followed naturally from the other structures. Its a bit like eating an elephant--one piece at a time!!LOL Eibh.