Chomping at the bit

One of the very best features of the Big Garden is… I won’t spoil it with words that will only fail. See for yourself.

The show will be ending soon at the Big Garden, but the daffs are coming up for the next spectacle, and will hopefully be around for the Hunter Trials (horses, horses and more horses) in April. I must take a photo one day of the best manure heap in Ireland — if only I could get to it without having to risk my life getting sucked into the mud equivalent of quicksand.

Back at the Little Garden. We all know Ireland is famous for its rain…

…but this is ridiculous. I can pretend like I have a moat around my little castle (thankfully corrected this week with one of those new-fangled inventions called a GUTTER).

Gardening undercover? My tunnel, which I usually call ‘Spain’ (as in “I’ll be right back; I’m going to Spain.”), has been redubbed ‘Venezia’ (I thought Venice was too obvious). If I was any good at graphics I would have made a little man in a boat singing ‘O Sole Mio’ and stuck him in the centre pathway of the tunnel.

But this was a few weeks ago and hope springs eternal. Buds are fattening, even bursting in some case (like the weirdly early willow I have at the very back of our place — the bees love it). As you drive along the motorway (which I unfortunately have to do twice a day), you can see big swathes of trees turning lovely shades of spring as if an artist has come overnight and dotted reds here, whites blushed with pink there. Remember to keep your eyes on the road or this could be detrimental to your health.

And just when you think you can’t take it anymore (the weather, that is), you can go into Venezia and pretend like you’re in South Africa…

Next time… Sow what?