Animals in the 2018 Summer Garden

The 1st of September is the first day of autumn for me, so this is the last day of summer. It is a good day to look back and reflect on what summer 2018 has been like in the garden I share with Marty.

The trees and shrubs and herbs which we tend are the ever-changing backdrop of the garden, but the forground is animated by the animals we share it with, and that includes the people who have visited it - everyone made in the divine image.

My garden highlight this year is the visit of two daughters and three grandsons. What joy it was in early August to see my daughter Ellie's three boys, Jonah, Cormac & Soren racing around Marty's Labyrinth garden, and to play 'Grandpa's Footsteps' with them and their Aunt Amy - their energy made me tired just to watch them!

Cormac, Ellie, Jonah, Soren & Amy at the entrance to the Labyrinth

Soren, Amy, Cormac, Jonah and Grandpa played 'Grandpa's Footsteps' - Ellie took the photo

We did so much else in God's wider garden too of course - swimming and paddling in Lough Derg at the swings below Coolbawn, meeting cousins at the Nenagh Show, rowing to Meelick in Luska Bay, cruising with my brother Tom from Portumna Bridge to Dromineer...

And then there was a lovely Waller family barbecue in July on the patio, all descendents of William Thomas Waller of Prior Park (my Great-great-grandfather) and their spouses.

Descendents of William Thomas Waller of Prior Park and spouses

I saw few other mammals in the garden this year, except for the feral cats, but I saw traces of the the badger, and I suspect woodmice took a lot of Marty's pea and bean seeds.

Of the birds, I was delighted to have a calling yellowhammer in the hedge (a little bit of bread and nooo cheese), as we missed him last year, and I saw my first swift, no doubt one of those that nest in St Mary's of the Rosary in Nenagh, passing through.

It was a mixed year for butterflies in the garden - no holly-blues this year, but plenty of speckled-woods, ringlets and meadow-browns. I was pleased to see a single small-copper, and also a couple of fritilleries, probably silver washed. I was very worried by the absence of vanessids until the last fortnight, but now we have small-tortoiseshells, red-admirals, peacocks and even a painted-lady.

That is enough for this post I think, but I shall post again about the plants of Summer 2018.

An empty garden

Joakim’s garden feels empty again – the four grandsons and three daughters have all gone back to their own homes, variously in Kilkenny, Wales and England, leaving behind them very happy memories, many photos, and a large pale patch in the lawn where the tent was pitched. The big boys – Cal, Finn and Gabe - came for a week’s sailing tuition on Lough Derg (with Shannon Sailing - I can heartily recommend them). They had a super time I think, and certainly plenty of wind! Little Jonah came with his parents to be shown off and run charmingly around the garden. I felt sad to see them go, reminded of so many goodbyes said, but very grateful indeed that they should have come so far to visit Dad or Grandfather/Grandpa/Oompapa on his own turf. The jury is still out on what Jonah will call me: I prefer Grandfather, because that was what I called my mother’s father and I value the sense of continuity, but there are those who feel that sounds too Victorian and cold – I can’t think why, because though older than I am now, my Grandfather certainly wasn’t.

Flower-fairies - Jonah and Grandfather in Susanna's Labyrinth

Happy Jonah!

Boys make a sandwich (t-b Cal, Gabe, Finn)

The Tent

I've not been good at blogging the garden this month (mea culpa!), but here are some pictures of the garden in August:

Susanna is the sweet-pea queen of North Tipp!

Day-lilies and white Agapanthus

Blue Agapanthus

Coppery Sunflower

Salvia patens - a gorgeous gentian blue!

Salvia cacalifolia - I have a bit of a thing about Salvias!

I have managed the vegetable garden better this year - here we have leeks, brassicas (Brussels Sprouts and Purple Sprouting) with asparagus, potatoes, climbing beans and artichokes behind. Susanna's peas were most disappointing, but we are now dining on our own potatoes, French beans and spinach-beet, and freezing for the winter.

First Fruits

The Summer is racing past me - it's the last day of June already, and I haven't blogged the garden since the last day of May. O mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! So what has June brought us?

We have been tasting the first fruits of the harvest.

We ate the first of our own new potatoes two nights ago, a fine variety called Charlotte, and they are very good. From now on we should be able to eat our own potatoes until the end of autumn at least: first the Charlotte, then an old early variety we brought back from France called Belle de Fontanay, and finally the main-crop Pink Fir Apple, knobbly but with an incomparable flavour. I can't wait.

We've also been able to pig out on raspberries for the first time, which is my favourite fruit - much better than strawberries to my taste. I foolishly neglected the soft fruit bed since I planted it six years ago, and allowed goat willow seedlings to grow up, saying to myself that the raspberries and red and black currants wouldn't mind, because they are woodland plants in nature. But this year the willows reached a good 12 feet and I have learned my lesson: without human intervention this garden would revert to Shannon-side willow scrub in less than ten years. I cut the willows down to the ground, and the fruit has instantly responded, though we won't get decent black currants till they fruit on the new wood next year, and I shall be constantly pulling the shoots from the willow stumps for years to come. The birds got the red currants, so I suppose I have to consider installing a fruit cage.

We've been doing well on globe artichokes too, really just an excuse to eat butter of course. I've had enough to give away. They are a mixture of green and purple grown from seed by Suzanna, so they are all more or less spiny and need to be trimmed with a scissors before eating. I must try to scrounge a root or two of the proper old variety without spines that my father used to grow when I was a child. The recent gales have been strong enough to blow some of the plants over despite their stout stems, so perhaps I shall try to pickle some of the small heads as the Italians do.

But the finest fruit of the season is my new Grandson Jonah!

Last weekend Suzanna and I flew to London to meet him for the first time. He is a little dote! At two months he is already half again as heavy as his birth weight; he constantly tracks the world around him with his lovely blue eyes; he is starting to enjoy making noises and playing games; and he is a very happy little chap, which is a great tribute to my daughter Ellie and her husband-to-be Darren, who are clearly wonderful parents. God bless all three of them! We also went with Ellie to show him off to some of my oldest and dearest friends from Cambridge, with whom I shared a flat in Ladbroke Grove all but 40 years ago. What warm welcomes we had, what wonderful teas, and what a pleasure to see my old friends holding the baby of the baby they had held when we all were young, what seems so short a time ago!

I offer this prayer of thanksgiving, adapted from the Prayerbook:

God my loving Father
maker of all that is living,
I praise you for the wonder and joy of creation.
I thank you for the life of Jonah,
for his and Ellie's safe delivery,
and for the privilege of being a grandparent.
Accept my thanks and praise
through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

When we got back from London, though, I contemplated murder. The hare had returned with leverets while I was away. They had eaten all the young French bean plants, and they were just starting in on the peas. My neighbour Geof has the same problem and is almost in tears about it. I searched the web for advice. The New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture says that night shooting is the only effective control, but I don't have the heart for that. Other sites say fencing with chicken wire is the only defence. A company in England markets a spray caller Grazers, but their Irish agent has not responded to emails - I shall try to order some on the web. Every time I see a hare in the garden - several times a day - I run out shouting and waving my hands in an attempt to frighten it into a more sharing disposition. Meanwhile ever practical Suzanna has been to the hardware merchant and built chicken-wire fences around her raised beds and salad pots.

The rest of the graden is looking very well, particularly the rambling roses. 'Neige d'Avril' is frothing over the patio arch, alongside 'Goldfinch'. The extraordinary petals of 'Veilchenblau' fade from an intial purple to violet grey beside shocking pink 'American Pillar'. Pink 'Belvedere', named for the great house near Mullingar in West Meath where it originated, is just starting by the gate, where it always attracts admiring comments from passers-by. I think I have finally identified the lovely repeat-flowering noisette I got from my mother as 'Champney's Pink Cluster', bred in America in 1811, though it might be it's child 'Blush Noisette', introduced in France in 1817.