Willow patterns

Golden Willows, pollarding in progress

Yesterday I finished pollarding the ornamental willows in the wildflower border between the croquet lawn and the beech hedge. Their bare stems provide winter colour, but every year they must be cut down to the stumps or they would grow too tall, and older stems lose their vivid colour. It looks rather brutal, but within a few weeks the stumps spring into growth, and by the autumn the shoots are up to 8 ft tall. In winter sun they become brilliant candles against the brown leaves of the beech.

A brutally pollarded stump

There are 3 each of 3 different varieties: Golden Willow (Salix alba 'Vitellina'), Coral Willow (Salix alba 'Britzensis'), and Violet Willow (Salix daphnoides 'Aglaia'). When I planned the planting I was aiming for a rainbow effect and chose cultivars said to be of equal vigour. For me, however, 'Britzensis' is somewhat outgrown by the other two, and though the tips of the stems are coral red, the effect is little different to 'Vitellina'. 'Aglaia' stems are such a dark red that they barely stand out against the hedge, but they do produce some 'pussy willow' blossoms in March. I sometimes wonder if I should have stuck with just 'Britzensis', but truth to tell I love them all!

'Aglaia's pussy catkins

The border beneath the willows is mostly planted with native wildflowers, though there are also snowdrops and a few daffodills,which bloom successively from now to the summer. They seed themsleves around and the only maintenance they need is a rough chop back of last years dead stems, and removing perennial weeds like docks and dandelions, which otherwise would take over. It becomes a lovely ever-changing tapestry of colour. The show begins with Red Campion (just starting now) continuing with White Campion and pink hybrids, continuing in the summer with Dog Daisy and blue Meadow Cranesbill, with Great Knapweed, Chicory and wild Marjoram continuing on to autumn.

The Wildflower Border at the end of May 2018

Rest in peace,Tim Robinson

I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Tim Robinson in London on 3rd April 2020 at the age of 85 from Covid-19, just 2 weeks after the death of his wife and colaborator Mairéad, whom he always called 'M' in his books. Although I never met him, he has been part of my life through his maps and books for nearly 30 years.

When I first came home to Ireland, struggling with much sadness, my refuge and garden of delights was the Burren in Co. Clare, where I escaped for weekends to walk and explore as often as I could. Tim Robinson's Burren map was my constant companion. I revelled in its bare limestone rocks eroded by water, its botanical teasures, and the traces left by its human inhabitants over millenia, from neolithic tombs, through iron age forts, to medieval abbeys and cathedrals. My original map has become dog-eared and stained from use, but I have it still. I bought a second and a third copy, but I lent them out and they haven't returned - I will need to buy yet another when Covid-19 is over and I am able to visit the Burren again.

Tim Robinson's map, showing the location of
the ruined house of  'P. J. Kelly, Botanist, d.1937'

Tim Robinson's map, showing the location of
the Glen of Clab, and Poll an Bhallain

His map introduced me to many secret corners of the Burren. Places like the ruined home and overgrown garden of Patrick O'Kelly, an amateur botanist who made a living selling Burren wild flowers by mail order in the first half of the 20th century - there I found Coralroot (Cardamine bulbifera), an uncommon plant he must have introduced that still persists. And the Glen of Clab, the lined by spring gentians (Gentiana verna), leading to the massive circular depression Poll an Bhallain - a polje caused by the collapse of an underground cavern carved out of the limestone by water.

Later on, I discovered Tim Robinson's books, the 2 volume 'Stones of Arran', and the 'Connemara' trilogy. In these books he disects the landscapes to the minutest detail, recovers the stories of their inhabitants, and relates them all in a cosmic philosophy of wonder. His writing is gloriously evocative.

Most recently I have been reading his last book of essays, 'Experiments on Reality'. In the Preface he declares a materialist faith, writing:

'My focus is, as always on the multitudinous ways in which our physicak bodies relate to the physical universe. This commitment to material nature in its wondrous plenitude encourages me to reappropriate terms, themes and tones long regarded as the property of religion, and dares me to denounce supernaturalism as blasphemy.'

Although I am sure he would deny it, for me his life's work reveals more than a little of the glory of our loving Creator God.

Tim Robinson near his home in Roundstone, Connemara, Co Galway. 
Photograph: Brian Farrell

Peas, please! - Friday 3rd April 2020

Young pea plants of the variety 'Homesteader', grown by Marty

 My wife Marty has taken me to task for calling the garden I share with her 'my' garden in this blog, although of course it belongs to us both. Like many homes with two keen gardeners, we each have our own parts and our own jobs. Marty manages our handsome front garden with the help of our skilled gardener Geraldine, and raises most of the vegetables, which she plants out into raised beds. I manage the grass, the hedges and shrubs, and the mini woodland I call the wilderness.

Honour where it is due, today's subject is peas, both as a vegetable and as flowers, and Marty has been busy with them. In the photo above you can see a tray of young pea plants in the greenhouse. The variety is an old one called 'Homesteader', which Marty got on our visit to the US last year - it's not a name I recognise on this side of the Atlantic. It is a heritage variety dating back to the early 1900s, and clearly still popular in America. Marty is delighted with the high germination rate. I look forward to picking and eating fresh peas in a little over 2 months, just cooked for a minute or two with pleanty of farmhouse butter!

My Grandfather, Jocelyn Waller of Prior Park, grew peas in the 1960s for the Erin Foods factory in Thurles, like many other local farmers - sadly the plant has been closed for many years. They had to be harvested by a contractor at exactly the right time and sent to the factory to be frozen within hours. Do you remember the Birds Eye advertising jingle, "Sweet as the moment when the pod went pop"? It was the same idea. I remember the anxiety in the house as harvest time approached. Were the peas ready? Could the contractor be got in time? Would the peas obtain the desired price at the factory? I'm not sure, but I think he soon decided peas were too much trouble as a crop, and stopped growing them.

Marty's Sweet Pea plants waiting to be planted out

Marty is also growing Sweet Peas in the greenhouse, as she does every year - the seeds were planted in the winter, and as they grow tall they are chopped to make sturdy, branching plants, to plant out when the danger of frosts is past. They are always wonderful, and during the season she picks large fragrant bunches for the house and to give away - I call her "My Sweet Pea Queen of North Tipperary". She says for the year that's in it she wants to concentrate on vegetables, not flowers, but I hope she finds a good place so that these strong plants don't go to waste - a summer without sweet peas would be no summer at all!

Flower of the day Thursday 2nd April 2020

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna)

Today's flower is the beautiful Lesser Celandine, another wildling, a harbinger of Spring. It brightens the darkest ditch or woodland with its gleaming yellow cups before the leaves of trees cut out the light. It has blessed me by coming  into the garden as a volunteer without my help. I did once plant a small patch I found in the ditch with pretty black markings on its heart-shaped leaves, but that seems to have reverted to the ordinary wild type. There are several much more spectacular varieties you can buy in the horticultural trade, such as 'Brazen Hussy' and 'Coppernob' with dark purple leaves, and 'Collarette' with double flowers - but I really prefer the wild type.

The proper scientific name for the Lesser Celandine is Ficaria verna, but the older among us will know it by the name given it by the great 18th century botanist Carl Linnaeus - Ranunculus ficaria L. This reveals its close relationship to the buttercups in the genus Ranunculus. Oh why do the botanical systematists keep changing the names of the plants we learned as children!

Another, much less attractive name for it is Pilewort, because historically it was used to treat piles (hemorrhoids). An ointment of raw leaves is still recommended in some herbal guides for application to the affected area. Supposedly, the knobby tubers of the plant resemble piles, and according to the doctrine of signatures, this resemblance suggested that Pilewort could be used to cure piles. Please don't try this at home - far better to enjoy the fleeting blossoms!

Wordsworth, when he wasn't wandering lonely as a cloud admiring daffodills, was very fond of Celandines - he wrote no fewer than three poems about them. Here are the first lines of one of them:

To the small Celandine
Pansies, Lilies, Kingcups, Daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are Violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine.

Flower of the day - Wednesday 1st April 2020

Wild primroses - Primula vulgaris ssp vulgaris

Our native Irish primroses are making a fine sight in the bank at the back of the garden just now. Wildlings, they are such a mark of Spring in ditches and woods right across the country, and worthy of a place in any garden.

The proper scientific name for primroses is Primula vulgaris, and our wild ones with pale yellow flowers are a subspecies: Primula vulgaris ssp. vulgaris, native across western and southern Europe. The latin epiphet 'vulgaris' means 'common'. Occasionally, rather muddy, light pink individuals grow wild or in cottage gardens alongside the more usual light yellow variety.

Primula vulgaris ssp. sibthorpii

I also grow another primrose subspecies, Primula vulgaris ssp sibthorpii. This is native to the Balkans and South-west Asia and its flowers vary between a bright light pink and a deep purple. The ones I have are a strong purple and flower much earlier than wild primroses - they began in January, and are now nearly over, with just a few blossoms hanging on.

I am excited that these two subspecies are hybridising in my garden, despite their different flowering times. The hybrids are very vigorous, floriforous, and a strong bright pink. I shall try to propogate them and pass them on to any fellow gardeners who would like them.

My hybrid Primula vulgaris, growing alongside one of its parents, P.vulgaris sibthorpii

I rejoice in the diversity of God's creation!

Flower of the day - Tuesday 31st March 2020

Magnolia 'Leonard Messel' in bloom today

Magnolia 'Leonard Messel' has come into full flower today - I just love its delicate pink goblets born on bare branches. Strictly speaking it should be called Magnolia x loebneri 'Leonard Messel', because it is a selection of the cross between two Japanese species, M. kobus and M. stellata, which arose by chance at Nymans, Messel's great garden in Sussex. Unfortunately my plant has lost its leader, broken off by the wind because I had grown an everlasting pea through it for interest later in the season, but happily it is growing a new one, so I look forward to it developing into a fine specimen.

'Leonard Messel' blooms a few weeks later than its parent Magnolia stellata, also in the garden, which is now at its very best, a veritable snow white pyramid of starry blossoms. Later in the season, after the leaves come out, I find it produces a few late flowers which are tinged with pink. M. kobus is white, so I wonder if 'Leonard Messel' gets its beautiful pink from its stellata parent.

Magnolia stellata in bloom today

Let us rejoice in the glory of God's creation in these strange times!

Death stalks the garden

The remains of an unfortunate pigeon

Murder was done in my garden a few days ago. The wings and feathers of an unfortunate wood pigeon lie strewn over the flowerbed beside the water-filled famine pot where pigeons often come to drink. And I think I know the culprit: next day I spotted the feral cat we often see skulking close by, no doubt hoping for another meal. I wrote murder, but that is the wrong word. The cat was simply doing what God has created cats to do, and deserves no moral blame. Cats kill to eat, and God feeds cats as well as people.

The culprit - a feral cat

We all know that a different killer is stalking God’s wider garden just now – the Covid-19 corona virus – and we human beings are its prey.

Transmission electron microscope image of the corona virus (Credit: NIAID-RM)

It appears that for most the disease is quite mild. But it kills a proportion of both older people like me and those with pre-existing conditions - though even for these 90% or so will recover. The Chinese and the Koreans seem to have brought it under some control, and we can pray that we in Europe will do so too, but I think most of us will be infected eventually. Lives can be saved if we succeed in reducing the rate that it spreads (‘flattening the curve’), so that the health service is not overwhelmed, and those who need intensive care can get it. This is why it is so important for us to follow official public health guidance. Let us be the good people God has made us to be by doing so, showing God’s love to our neighbours.

I do not fear death. I know I am mortal, but I would like to stay around for a bit yet. I hope to see the grandchildren grow up, perhaps even to welcome their children. Of course I am apprehensive about dying, dreading indignity and suffering, though perhaps Covid-19 is not the worst death. I will accept what comes, but not facilitate it.

The way I see it is this. My life from birth to death is like a piece of 3 dimensional string in the 4 dimensions of space-time, starting at birth and ending in death. My life-string twines around the life-strings of every other person I encounter along the way, including family, friends, neighbours and strangers. God is not constrained by dimensions and sees the whole of my life-string, from birth to death. Love is what pleases God. God judges me as a function of the love I show, both for him and for every person my life-string touches, summed over the whole of my life-string. I know that I often displease God. But despite the times I have displeased him, I believe that God is forgiving and will always love me, always love the whole of my life-string, just as he sees and loves everyone else’s. This, to me, is eternal life, why I do not fear death.

And God’s garden is full of life as well as death. While we humans worry about Covid-19, the natural world burgeons and unfolds as the days lengthen, this year as every year. The buds of Magnolia stellata in my garden have opened already. The pussy willow is yellow with pollen for the bees. And other pigeons are billing and cooing, getting ready to raise a new generation.

Magnolia stellata bursting into flower