Celebrating creation in Lent - Part 2: 1st Sunday in Lent to Saturday 4th March

 1st Sunday in Lent, 26th February

We have been blessed with a beautiful sunset this evening - we get so many here, and every one is different!

Monday 27th February

These pollarded willows give us great winter colour, ranging from bright yellow through orange to burgandy, as well as providing useful rods. They will be cut down to the stumps in early March, allowing the wildflowers in the bed in front to flower in the sun. Over the summer they will grow again a full eight foot to provide us with flames of colour over the winter. They would also be good for living willow sculptures and play houses. If anyone would like cuttings, just ask!

Tuesday 28th February

Daffodils for St David's Day, tomorrow the 1st of March, for all my Welsh family and friends!

They are volunteers, which came with top soil after our extension had been completed almost 20 years ago, so many that I mowed them down where they were not wanted. They come in two kinds:

# The earliest are these old-fashioned double daffodils. I'm not perfectly certain of their identity, but I think they may be 'Van Sion', first recorded 400 years ago. They can be found in a lot of old and abandoned gardens. They do not produce any seed, but clump up well as you can see.

# A little later comes a daffodil with pale yellow tepals and a darker trumpet, a cultivar of the wild species Narcissus pseudonarcissus, but somewhat larger. They aren't properly out yet, so I'll post about them another time.

Wednesday 1st March

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant hapus!

Some more daffodils for St David's day proper. Marty had these front of the house in pots years ago, but they ended up on the compost heap, where they flourish still. Every year I mean to move them somewhere more fitting...

Thursday 2nd March

Bergenias, cultivars of B. crassifolia in the Saxifrage family, sometimes called 'elephant's ears', are a marvellous spring-flowering groundcover plant. They come in many different shades of pink, shading to purple and red, as well as white. They are tough as old boots, strike easily from segments of rhizomes, and clump up well.

Ours, which came from my aunt Sally's house, are a delicate pink. They have been flowering for weeks and are now at their best.

Friday 3rd March

Some years ago my brother and sister-in-law gave me a present of this charming Japanese cherry, Prunus incisa "Kojo-no-mai", which is just coming into bloom. It is really a shrub, growing to little more than 2 metres, and needs no pruning or other maintenance. It looks rather dull for most of the year, but for a few weeks in Spring it is a stunner, covered with delicate white blossoms emerging from pink buds. The Japanese name means 'flight of butterflies'.

 

Saturday 4th February

These scrumptious white double primroses came originally from my brother Tom. They multiple easily from division, and seem to be more vigorous than other doubles - I used to collect them, but all the other kinds have been lost.

One of the lovely things about private gardens is the memories they invoke, of people who gave you plants, or places where you bought them, or collected seeds. How we are blessed by the memories!

Celebrating creation in Lent - Part 1: Ash Wednesday to Saturday 25th February

 Ash Wednesday, 22nd February

These primroses are giving me pleasure today. 

The rich purple one is Sibthorp's primrose (Primula vulgaris ssp. sibthorpii), from the Balkans and Turkey, an earlier flowering cousin of our native yellow primrose (P. vulgaris ssp vulgaris). 

They hybridise in the garden I share - the pinky primrose is a hybrid between the two.

Thursday February 23rd

These miniature daffodils, barely 8 inches tall, have charmed me today. I call them my Clonteem daffodils, as the family legend is that they came from my Grandmother's childhood home of that name in Co Roscommon. She passed them on to my mother, who in turn passed them on to me. 

I now believe they are actually a true wild species, Narcissus asturiensis, from the mountains of North Portugal and Spain. I would love to know how they ended up here in Ireland.

Friday February 24th

Two more dainty spring flowers spotted in the garden today:

• Blue Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica). It is starting to multiply in the wildflower meadow (now more a woodland glade as the trees in the lime alley form a canopy).
• Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum), growing in the wilderness. It was naturalised at my aunt's house, from whence this plant came.

Saturday February 25th

Lynda Christian is a talented artist living in Ballina, the other side of the Shannon from Killaloe. She recently posted a photo of the 'rag tree' she created some years ago for St Flannan's Cathedral, climbing up an inside wall for folk to attach ribbons in memory of loved ones. 

The photo is of some of Lynda's work in our garden: roses made from metal clipped from tins, bent into shape and painted, and attached to wire. I gave them as a present to Marty, who complained of the lack of colour in her labyrinth garden during the winter. We also have some holyhocks she made in the same way. Lynda has since moved on to other media, so sadly I cannot acquire any more.

The Garden at the end of June

Today, on the last day of June, the roses are beginning to go over. They've been lovely this month, but the recent wind and rain has left them bedraggled. Their beauty is fleeting, as human beauty is, and we must enjoy it while we may, and look forward to beauty yet to come...

A full blown David Austen rose
- but who can tell me which one?

Another blousy yellow rose fading to pink

Rambling roses bedecking the espallier pear trees
- Belvedere, Veilchenblau, American Pillar

Belvedere is rather too vigorous, but what a show!

There is so much else in the garden too. Marty's labyrinth garden is particularly good this year, thanks to Geraldine the gardener who manages it for her.

Daylilies and Penstemon 'Purple Bedder' burning brightly
as the blue Lupins fade out

Philadelphus 'Belle Etoile'

The whole garden is delightfully scented by Philadelphus 'Belle Etoile'. And since we had the sceptic tank pumped out it no longer has to compete with other fragrances!

Perennial Foxgloves

We have two forms of perenial foxgloves, a larger one and a smaller one. The bees love them both, but the smaller ones frustrate the large bumble bees which can't fit their bodies inside the finger. But something does manage to polinate them, because they are spreading all about.

Blue Delphinium spires

The Delphiniums are just going over. Which reminds me I must ask Geraldine to leave some heads so that I can save the seed.

Anthemis 'Grallagh Gold' with Salvia 'Hot Lips'

Marty also has raised beds in the back for a cutting garden, and it too is splendid this year. Here we can see a real local which should be much more widely known and grown - 'Grallagh Gold'. It originated as a chance seedling in the garden at Grallagh, just outside Nenagh, where Mrs McCutcheon propogated it from cuttings. I was generously given some by one of her descendents.

And finally we come to my part of the garden which I fear is terribly overgrown this year. I might claim to have been a good eco-warrior following a no-mow-May policy, but in truth I have just been unable to keep up with rampant growth. My age is telling on me, and I am becoming over-blown and blousy like the roses! But I am pleased at the way the wild flowers continue to do their thing in the Willow Border. Here you can see white Yarrow, purple Greater Knapweed, blue Meadow Cranesbill, and pink Red Campion.

Wildflowers in the Willow Border

God in the Garden in April

This article appeared in the April 2022 issue of Newslink, the diocesan magazine for Limerick and Killaloe, part of the United Diocese of Tuam, Limerick & Killaloe. Photos by Joc Sanders

Soft pink flowers of Magnolia 'Leonard Messel'

Usually at this time of year my spirits are high as I watch the new life of Spring accelerate away. But this year is different – my spirits are low. A part of God’s wider garden is being ripped apart as I write in mid-March. We are watching the crucifixion of the people of Ukraine. The news is full of images of wrecked apartment buildings, images of men saying goodbye to weeping wives and children fleeing as refugees, images of men and women in uniform preparing to kill other men and women in any way they can.

Ordinary people and governments here in Ireland and throughout Europe are responding with extraordinary generosity, collecting goods and money to help Ukrainian refugees and to provide humanitarian aid. But images of destruction and refugees from wars in Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia have not elicited quite the same generous response. Is it because the disaster in Ukraine is happening close to us in Europe, to people who look so much like us? Are we unduly partial in our response?

Meanwhile, NATO Governments seem intent to feed just enough weapons into Ukraine to keep the fighting going, to weaken Russia without risking a wider, even more destructive war, possibly a nuclear one. We do not know how this war will end, but we do know that the economic sanctions already imposed will make life difficult for us all, not just in Russia, but here in Ireland and throughout the world.

We see evil manifested in Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but it is not the Russian people who are evil, any more than the Ukrainian people are. As Christians, we must pray not just for the people of Ukraine, but also of Russia, and for an early negotiated peace. We must pray for the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, of Russia and NATO, that hard and warlike hearts may be softened, that they are led into God’s paths of peace and justice. And we must pray for grace for ourselves to resist evil and do God’s will.

Yet, as well as evil there is hope in God’s garden. Evil will not triumph in the end. Easter will soon be with us, bringing a triumphant resurrection. Our fields and gardens are burgeoning. In April we will see the victory of life over death re-enacted once again in the growth of our crops, the blooming of fruit trees and the beauty of flowers. Here are a few images taken last April in the garden I share with my wife Marty, where God is always to be found.

A yellow tree peony sheds light in a shady corner

Cherry blossom opens before the leaves

Red and yellow Apeldoorn tulips naturalised in grass

Change and continuity in a country graveyard

From the July/August 2021 edition of Newslink, the diocesan magazine for Limerick & Killaloe

Killodiernan church in its ever changing flowering graveyard

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” Matthew 6:28,29.

Here in Ireland as in so much of the world, within my lifetime, modern farming practices – crop monocultures, weed killers, insecticides - have gravely damaged the wonderful diversity of life in our fields and forests. We have been making a mess of the beautiful living planet God has given us – I call it out as blasphemy.

Yet some special places remain where we can still experience something of what has been lost. Old graveyards are often the last pieces of unimproved grassland in the neighbourhood, and Killodiernan in North Tipperary, 5km from my home, is one such. The short turf is densely packed with a multitude of wildflowers and grasses growing as a sustainable community, which emerge and bloom in succession throughout the season, before being mown in the autumn. 

In mid-June the graveyard is yellow with birdsfoot trefoil,
mouse-ear hawkweed and buttercups

The succession begins in April with primroses and cowslips. In May the early purple orchids star, alongside blue bugle, and wispy white clouds of pignut. Now in mid-June, the graveyard has turned yellow with bird’s foot trefoil, bulbous buttercup and mouse-ear hawkweed, amid the dainty waving heads of quaking grass, dog daisies, and two types of orchid – common spotted and a multitude of twayblades. Other species will take over in succession to them, until late summer paints the graveyard blue with devils-bit scabious. 

A splash of pink from a common spotted orchid in mid-June

This is a rare survival, an ever-changing tapestry of colour and texture, preserved by the accident of the church being built here. It is managed sensitively by the church wardens for wildlife. Other local pastures must have looked like this to the delight of our forebears for hundreds of years, before they were reseeded with ryegrass and fertilised to maximize productivity.

The graveyard is home to scores of twayblade orchids
with flowers like little green men

This type of grassland is not natural, however. The climax vegetation after the last glaciation would have been woodland. What we see now is the work of human beings over millennia, who felled the trees and worked with the grain of nature to make a living from the land. And since the graveyard was enclosed, generations of faithful worshippers have left their mark too by planting other exotic flowers, including snowdrops, daffodils and bluebells, montbretia and fairy foxgloves, now naturalised. What we see now is a product of both change and continuity.

Killodiernan church itself is a product of both change and continuity. The present building dates from 1811, replacing the medieval parish church a mile away, in ruins since the 17th Century. It was built to hold 120 people as a simple barn-church with tower and small gallery, with a grant from the Board of First Fruits. Over the years succeeding generations have extended the church, reorganised the interior, and still lovingly maintain it. 

We will experience a lot more change in future, as our wider society confronts the challenges of global heating and biodiversity loss, and the Church adapts to new circumstances. A new world is coming into being in our generation. Change may make us anxious, but we must not let anxiety overwhelm us. We are enfolded in the love of the God whom Jesus calls Father, and we are guided by the Holy Spirit. Let us seek to preserve what is good and true and beautiful from the past, while we make the new world more like God’s kingdom than the old world we leave behind. 

There will be change, but there will also be continuity.

The three-cornered dance of life

This short piece was submiited for the May 2021 issue of Newslink, the Diocesan Magazine for Limerick & Killaloe

How blessed we have been by our gardens in this second Spring of Covid lockdown! The early bulbs - the snowdrops, the crocuses, the daffodils – seemed brighter and more numerous than ever this year. As I write it is the turn of primroses, cowslips and tulips to star. Dandelions are everywhere, so bright and cheerful – if they were rare and difficult to grow, gardeners would pay fortunes for them. And I have been harvesting purple sprouting broccoli, and the first asparagus from the polytunnel - so much tastier than that from the supermarket.

Bees feasting on pear blossom as they pollinate the flowers

It is the flowering fruit trees that attract my attention just now. The wild blackthorn, damsons and cherries blooming in the hedgerows promise an autumn feast of jams and flavoured gin, and I trust the birds will leave a few Victoria plums and Morello cherries for puddings. The pear blossom is already fully open, and bees are busy fertilising it, as they gather pollen and nectar to feed their growing young. The apples and the quince are in bud and will be out by the time you read this. I look forward to fine weather so that we will have a good fruit set.

The ravishing pink of apple blossom

This prompts me to reflect on the wonderful three-cornered dance of fruit trees, insects, and fruit eating creatures. The trees offer up pollen and nectar to the pollinating insects to feed them and their young, while the insects return the favour by fertilising the flowers. The trees then bear sweet and tasty fruits, so irresistible to us, while birds and mammals like ourselves spread the trees’ seeds far and wide.

Looking forward to harvest
- Still life with quince, apples and pears by Paul Cézanne

By the grace of God, the trees, insects, birds and mammals have evolved together over millions of years to partake in this communion of life, in which all benefit and no one loses. I see it is an image the kingdom of heaven, reflecting the mutual love and communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in our triune God.

April Joy

These last days of April are quite magical, with clear skies, warm sunshine, and nature burgeoning all around us. I feel entirely blessed. The garden is filled with bees and other insects, including butterflies. Already I have seen Brimstone butterflies, Holly Blues, Speckled Woods, Orangetips, Small Tortoiseshells and Peacocks. Unfortunately I am not patient enough to try to photograph them, but the plants stay still. Here are some that are giving me joy just now.

The red and yellow Apeldoorn tulips are now at their best, standing up in the grass among the dandelions I must deadhead before they seed any further than they have already.

The buds on the Large-leafed Lime trees in the Lime Alley are just starting to open, not all at the same time, since they were seed propagated by Jan Ravensburg from Clara, who supplied the young trees. There is plenty of natural variation among them, and I am starting to find seedlings here and there.

The Quince tree, variety 'Vranja', gave a good harvest last year. There is even more blossom than last year, and with the fine weather I am hoping for a good fruit-set this year. But I must remember to give it a bucket of water, as they prefer damp ground.

In the 'Wilderness', the native bluebells are spreading around, and I love the arching stems of the Solomon's Seal, with their delicate, drooping yellow-white bells. 

The cowslips are spreading well in the wildflower meadow. There is a good deal of variation in the size of their petals, with some as large as cultivated polyanthus. I suspect their are some genes from the common primrose in them, which usually produces the hybrid known as False Oxlip, with primrose flowers on a long stem. But these retain the classic cowslip colouration. I think I shall try to bring the largest ones into cultivation, away from others and from primroses, to see if I can develop the strain.

But perhaps my greatest joy is the little clump of Coralroot (Cardamine bulbifera) growing in the wildflower meadow. In Ireland it is an extremely rare garden escape. I found it in the old overgrown garden of botanist Patrick Kelly's ruined house outside Ballyvaughan in Co Clare. It reproduces mostly from purple bulbils which form in the leaf axils, rather than from seed. I gathered a few bulbils 2 years ago and grew them on in a pot, which I planted out last year. This year they are flowering for the first time, and I hope I will be able to naturalise them in my garden, as Patrick Kelly did in his.