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Ballymaloe Garden Festival

SATURDAY 31 AUGUST AND SUNDAY 1 SEPTEMBER More than Thirty Events For Seasoned Experts, Late Bloomers, Families and Foodies East Cork will be a bloom as the first-ever Ballymaloe Garden Festival unfurls on Saturday 31 August and Sunday 1 September. A packed programme of workshops, talks and garden walks is planned with most events taking …

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Plant of the week: Agapanthus

With this unusual balmy summer weather we are experiencing, this weeks ‘Plant of the Week’ is well suited to drought conditions. The architectural Agapanthus (African Blue lily) is a clump forming perennial with its strap shaped leaves and stout stems bearing blue and more rarely white trumpet shaped flowers. We currently have two gorgeous varieties …

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Feeling hot hot hot!!!

A funky song title from the 80’s as well as a great summary for the heat wave that us currently hitting Ireland. So just how hot is it? Well apparently this hot and beyond from the various in car thermometer images doing the rounds on twitter and Facebook. Well it’s not only gardeners who are …

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Plant of the week: Fuschia

Sarah’s plant of the week has elegant flowers from now through to the first frost, with their rich diversity of lovely hanging lanternlike flowers from pure white to deepest purple. May I introduce the fabulous Fuschia. The fuschia for me creates evocative memories of coastal drives in Cork and Kerry during summer. And is a …

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How to grow oca tubers.

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) is a South American tuber that is now beginning to show up in markets as an alternative to the potato as it is blight resistant and has good disease and pest resistance. Oca (also spelled ocha) is a productive perennial plant with waxy, brightly colored tubers that are best harvested from the …

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Moving on up!!!!!

Sometimes you get an offer which just cant be refused and even more so when the timing is just right. After our super long winter we had been evaluating the display tables made of recycled packaging crates, working out which had seen their final days and those that could be given some tender loving paint. …

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Chicks at Easter!

The weather may say winter, but this weekend Easter is upon us! The weather is causing some delay in the garden – protect young plants and if you have any evergreens in containers watch out for drying out as the roots freeze. If you do have frozen evergreens, give the foliage a light watering to …

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All you need is love

All you need is love, or more precisely all you need is Valentines Day to remove the writers block I have had since the new year. Now here at The Secret Garden we believe romance should be for everyday of the year, not just Valentines and we definitely don’t believe in increased prices or selling …

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Time for tea

The T Room is now three years old and what still amazes me, is that we still have customers who haven’t discovered the delights that lie within. We amended our roadsign recently and have signposts directing you up to the building yet some people don’t make it inside to this treasure trove. From the exterior …

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Double Delight

Saturday night delight!!!!! Firstly and obviously due to the large image to the left, we have made it as finalists in the SME category of the Blog Awards. Not bad going since there was over 60 blogs nominated in this category and as my previous post stated I did not expect to make the shortlist. …

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September Awards

September has seen us nominated in the Web Awards 2012 in the Most Beautiful Website in Ireland category. We were also nominated in this category in 2011 but we did not make it as shortlisted finalists, maybe this year. We do have a rather lovely website if I say so myself courtesy of Charlotte of …

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Spring (Bulbs) Already

Well here we are at the end of August and I want you to think beyond Christmas. A scary thought but with our spring flowering bulbs arriving shortly it is time to be planning, choosing and planting Crocus, Daffodils, Tulips, prepared Hyacinths as well as other lesser known bulbs Sarah as ever has selected a …

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