Where I live, from the moon!...

[Paddy Tobin]

Grass and Magnolias, John and Joakim,

You are perfectly correct John, it is a lot of grass. If you look at the second photograph of the garden above you will notice in the top right hand side something white - this is a goalpost, need I say any more? The youngest is fourteen now, becoming more interested in guitar than football and I think the goalpost might be sent to a better home as soon as I possibly can. I have started making a garden out of this area, starting in the bottom right. I have bought only a very few very special plants, usually good trees and the rest I have grown from division, seed etc. I could not afford to simply buy all I would need for the garden. Also, when a bed is dug or border is dug out it leads to at least three years of very constant weeding before the weed seedlings seem to be exhausted. Also living in an agricultural area means that there is a constant incursion of grass seed. It is better to make haste slowly - festina lente - rather than make a job that becomes a major chore.

Joakim, Mary and I love magnolias and have a good number in the garden, mainly cultivars of Magnolia soulangiana and M. stellata with M. liliflora and several others as well. They are delightful trees and always give a great display. Occasionally M. soulangiana cultivars can get caught by a late frost here and then can look dreadful, drooping leaves and browned flowers. However, the plants have always recovered and continue to bloom again. 

But Joakim, it couldn't compare with whiskey - Irish whiskey, that is(not that watery auld Scotch!)

There is an excellent garden just a few miles away from me here - I can walk along the river bank to it if I wish or drive around by the roads. This is Mount Congreve Gardens. For those who like magnolias, rhododendron, azaleas and camellias it is pure heaven. There are mass plantings of each of these plant types - never one rhododendron but, perhaps, fifty together. It was recognised a few years ago as the best spring garden in the world. The head gardener has just received a Veitch Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society for his work with rhododendrons. Amazingly, he is a local chap who went to work in the gardens as a teenager for a summer job, fell in love with the place and stayed there, gradually being promoted to the position of head gardener.

Great to see a love of gardening being recognised and rewarded - just like Ian and Maggi have been recognised with their recent reward: I have let the cat out of the bag here a little but I hope it will prod Maggi to make a new posting and tell us all about it in greater detail. I'm sure all members will rejoice in their success and join in congratulating them.

Paddy 

[David Nicholson]

It's a lovely bungalow Paddy, with a lovely garden in a perfect location. Oh I do wish I had that kind of area to go at. Then I would have space for polytunnels and a state of the art alpine house and, and , and.......!!!!!!

Now to more serious things. I see you are provoking racial differences in respect of the original amber nectar. Now, being a Yorkshireman and it being a well known fact that Yorkshireman suffer from (a) a genetic mutation of very short arms, and (b) the fact that from birth all Yorkshire tailors are taught to construct garments with very, very long pockets; we are obliged to live with a pure and simple philosophy as far as the drink is concerned. This philosophy is:- "If th'all pour it, I'll sup it" "Th'all" is derived from the Old Norse and can be translated as "you will". A literal translation of the philosophy is that if someone is willing to pay, then regardless of the substance being paid for and poured it would be totally wrong not to drink it. My life has been led with strict submission to the philosophy.

[David Nicholson]

Come on Maggi, come clean is it Lord and Lady Young?

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

My niece is married to a Yorkshire man so I am well used to the dialect, your "th'all" and the like. I have also had the long lecture on the proper way to make Yorkshire pudding - several times!

You know, I reckon those poor misfortunates who live in Scotland are a bit like the Yorkshiremen -  long pockets and will drink whatever is poured. How else could they be satisfied with that imitation whiskey that is produced there. You will have noticed that the greatest boast any advertisement for their product has is that it is made from pure mountain/spring water. Unfortunately, it still looks and tastes like the same water. Come across the pond for the better stuff.

Like yourself, I have had notions of polytunnels as I like to grow fruit and veg but she who must be obeyed likes things to be neat and tidy and polytunnels don't fit into this plan of hers. Ah well!

The old saying about the faraway hill being greener is very appropriate to our gardening discussions. We would always look in great envy at gardens in Devon and Cornwall with their mild climate and wonderful range of plants.

'Enjoy what you've got' might be good advice for us all.

Paddy

[Mick McLoughlin]

Moved in 15 months ago. Picture appears to be 3-4 years old. Front of house is north facing, gets very little sun.

[annew]

Took me ages to get this photo downloaded OK, so I hope it displays. Here is our bit of Yorkshire: A = Fruit and veg, B=glasshouses and micro nursery. C= rockgarden, now extended, D= mixed borders. It seems to have been taken a good 10 years ago, as we now have much less grass! Gales at present blowing from the left.

[Paddy Tobin]

Mick,
The glasshouse seems to take up a large proportion of the garden; indicative of your particular interests?

Anne,
You have an odd shape at the back of your garden - did you acquire an extra piece at some stage?
Micro-nursery? A small nursery or a propagation technique?

Paddy

[KentGardener]

Hi All

thank you everyone for posting - I am glad we have this thread - reading all your future posts will mean so much more to me if I can picture the garden in my mind.  Hopefully more images will be added over the coming months/years.

Paddy - "1 years seeding is SEVEN years weeding" (not 3!) 
Paddy - shame you are not in Co Tipp. - my brother live on the Devils Bit and gives guitar lessons.
Anne - where are the ferns located in your garden?
Anne - I hope they never build houses on the field at the back.
Mick - is that a greenhouse or shade tunnels?

regards

John

[David Shaw]

The Google-Earth site does not seem to produce anything for here (Dyke, Forres). I can zoom in to Aberdeen and see Maggie eating a do-nut in the back garden but all we get over here is a muddy smudge. Shame.

[Maggi Young]

Really enjoying these glimpses into your gardens, John suggested that the zoomed images would be more interesting than the maps I showed, and, wouldn't you know it, he's right again, so here they are.
By the way, these show the home of the Bulb Despot and the Forum Dogsbody, Mr and Mrs Young, we have been honoured by an award from the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, which I'll tell you all about when I have a minute, but trust me, Mr and Mrs Young are now, and we shall remain so. (If the Despot tries leaving me I'll mash his erythroniums)

[Maggi Young]

I am slightly puzzled by the "Mannofield" and "Aberdeen" captions that appear in these last two pix...Aberdeen is the whole city, as you might imagine, and Mannofield is the name for a small area around us, adjoining the "Braeside" area, ( where we get our Braeside prefix for some cultivars), though not the area where the caption sits!! Can't believe everything you read, can you?

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

Smudge in Moray? I think the quality of the coverage provided by Google Earth is in proportion to the population of each location, so obviously the streets of Aberdeen, for example, are quite clear but the same would not hold for fields and field boundaries. When in school I make use of Google Earth, which the kids enjoy, but it really doesn't show the area local to the school with any great detail - school is situated in the sticks.

This might explain your difficulties.

Paddy

[David Shaw]

Paddy
I think it is rather selective. Even the town of Forres and 'city' of Elgin are smudged. And yes, in reality the populations are small compared with Aberdeen and Inverness.

[annew]

Paddy - we bought the 2 arms of the T shape from the farmer at the back at the same time as the house. The micro nursery is really just the small scruffy bit where I have things in pots waiting to be sold/planted.
John, the ferns are all over the place, but mainly in the perimeter part of D and in the shade house attached to the big greenhouse. And yes, we also hope they won't build on the airfield!
Maggi, we need a microscope to see the Young estates!

[annew]

Aha! I think I just found you on Local.Live - yours must be the garden with lots of things in it, third house from the crossroads just south of what looks like a cemetary. Yes? I'm watching you...