Search Results for 'Anne Byrne'

The Ardilaun Hotel is delighted to win “Best Hotel Garden” once again in the Public and Commercial buildings category of the Galway City and Tidy Towns and Garden Competition for 2022.

Do you think of watering as a chore or a chance to potter about mindfully, checking on your plants? I suppose it can be either, depending on what other tasks you have to juggle at the time, but I’d like to suggest that increasing your use of the humble watering can will help nudge it towards the latter.

Every May I always wish I had planted alliums several months ago. These round heads of purple and mauve are super for plugging the ‘May Gap’ – those few weeks in May when the garden can seem very green but lacking in colour, because the bright pops of colour from spring bulbs are over, and the summer flowering perennials haven’t really got into their stride yet. Each plant produces lots of tiny flowers exploding from the centre to produce a perfect sphere and this is why they are often likened to fireworks. Taller ones will soar over the heads of smaller plants in the border, further adding to this effect.

If you’ve ever considered growing edibles but don’t know where to begin, the Pizza Garden could very well be for you. I’m not suggesting you grow your own wheat, obviously, that would just be silly when you can buy a perfectly good pizza base in your local supermarket, but if you fancy trying fresh home grown produce, pizza topping produce could be the way to go.

I have noticed a lot of confusion, amongst new gardeners especially, about the plants you buy for summer colour for your pots, window boxes and hanging baskets. For several weeks, tempting displays of colourful summer flowers have been visible outside all manner of retail outlets, from petrol stations to supermarkets, and it’s perfectly reasonable to think that if they are for sale, it’s safe to plant them out in the garden – but plant them too soon and you could kill them, and here’s why.

On a country walk today the hedgerows are frothy with the prettiest of white blossom – up close it’s like miniature cherry blossom, and in fact it shares the same genus as cherry, Prunus. It’s our native Prunus Spinosa, or blackthorn, whose wood was traditionally used to make shillelaghs. I remember miniature versions of these varnished and sold as souvenirs to spendy tourists, but the shillelagh, Google tells me, was in former times used to settle disputes ‘in a gentlemanly manner’, and modern students of self defence practice its use as a martial art. Which probably says a lot about where we are as a nation when you think about it. But I digress.

This week Roscommon Arts Centre’s mini-Spring season proceeds with a new virtual programme of free engagements for the public to enjoy.

In 2020, the world was faced with an unprecedented health crisis which left people faced with enormous loss – loss of future, loved ones, health, income, connection and confidence.

In 2020, the world was faced with an unprecedented health crisis which left people faced with enormous loss – loss of future, loved ones, health, income, connection and confidence.

When I’m not at the drawing board you will find me with my head stuck in a book. If it’s remotely fine and I have time, I’ll be in the garden with a book and a beverage, and surely wood burning stoves were invented for curling up beside in winter with a volume or three?