RTÉ Guide DIG! spring 2017

SPRING 2017

DERMOT O’NEILL’S EXPERT TIPS SPRING FLOWERS

DESIGN YOUR Dream Space

GARDEN BIRDS

GIY FRUIT & VEG

Reader Offer Garden Kneeler

Remote Control Laser Light Projector

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M

arch can be the cruellest month for garden magazines. Plants are barely in bud, garden beds can be dark and forbidding and you can have any flower you want, as long as it’s a daffodil. “There will be nothing to shoot” is the perennial cry of photographers sent forth into the wilderness.

But the times, technology and the climate are a’ changing and DIG! is testament to that.

Down in the (sometimes) sunny south, the garden of Hester Forde is blooming with some 30 varieties of hellebores nodding in the spring sunshine. Our gardening expert, Dermot O’Neill, stops by to shoot the breeze as our photographer shoots the plants. Another garden filled with unexpected colour is home to best-selling novelist, Patricia Scanlan, whose green space is both refuge and inspiration.

Gardens can be a haven (and heaven) for birds too and Oran O’Sullivan, co-author of the pocket-sized bible that is Ireland’s Garden Birds, offers some advice on how to make your space more amenable to our feathered friends. Then there is the design of your garden: is it pleasing to the eye as well as being a functional space?

Award-winning designer Leonie Cornelius takes us through the fundamentals of how to start that dream garden.

More than anything else, though, now is time to plan, plant, prune and prepare for the coming months.

Dermot O’Neill is your guide to getting that garden ready for summer and he also suggests some vegetables that can be ready later in the year.

Donal O’Donoghue

4 HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

Spring is all about planning as the days lengthen and life returns to your garden. Dermot O’Neill offers some expert advice and winning tips on how to get your green space ship-shape and ready for the months ahead

6 SPRING GARDEN DAYS Her new novel is set in the lazy sunshine of Spain, but for best-selling writer, Patricia Scanlan, there is no place like home. The queen of contemporary Irish fiction talks to Donal O’Donoghue about her life and times and favourite plants

8 SEASONAL PLANTS Growing your own vegetables can be easier than you might think and doesn’t necessarily require greenhouses or poly-tunnels. Dermot O’Neill suggests a number of vegetables, including sweetcorn, tomatoes and mange-tout

10 LOST IN SPACE? Gardens are intensely personal places, but how do you design that outdoor space to reflect your personality and ambition? Award-winning designer Leonie Cornelius puts you on the right path and also picks her own favourite public gardens

12 THE GREEN, GREEN GAS OF HOME You can you make your home healthier by making it greener with the careful addition of houseplants. Stephen Meyler is your guide to picking the best of the crop

13 BIRD ON A WIRE

Managing Editor: Catherine Lee Editor: Donal O’Donoghue Consultant Editor: Dermot O’Neill Sub-editor: Stephen Meyler Designer: Jonathan Foley Pre-press: David Mahon Photographer: John Cooney Advertising sales: Karen Foster (contact 01-208 2880) Oliver Hayes (contact 01-208 4714) Published by RTÉ Commercial Enterprises 2017

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contents

14

There are ways and means to make your garden a must-visit location for birds and the information can be found in the classic text, Ireland’s Garden Birds. Donal O’Donoghue asks co-author Oran O’Sullivan about the pocket-sized bible

14 ME & MY GARDEN On the edge of Cork city there is a garden that is an earthly delight: created, nurtured and tended to by the irrepressible Hester Forde.

Dermot O’Neill pays a visit and discovers that you never stop learning

13

10

RTÉ GUIDE DIG! 3

Springtime in the garden is all about getting ready: pruning, clearing back, planting and protecting.

Dermot O’Neill offers some invaluable advice and useful tips

THE SPRING GARDEN F

or many of us, March signals the start of the gardening year. After the winter weather, now is the opportunity to assess your garden, to see how much work needs to be done for the summer season ahead.

Now is the time for planting and sowing, mulching and weeding, rose pruning and lawn care. All your efforts now will be rewarded with summer bounty. Before you get stuck in, it’s a good idea to start a newseason checklist and tick off items as you do them. This will help you to be organised and to prepare for planting. My annual list includes the important jobs like pruning and checking the condition of equipment like lawnmowers and secateurs. This list also covers essentials to stock up on like fresh seed compost to give seeds the best start.

A walk around the garden will also reveal important tasks such as pruning roses or shrubs. Take a close look at the lawn, which may have had a tough time in the winter, so will need some extra attention, such as aeration, the addition of sharp sand and some lawn feed. You may also have to scarify with a lawn rake to remove choking moss and thatch, but this should only be 4 RTÉ GUIDE DIG!

done when the lawn has dried out enough to be walked on. Your lawn will soon be looking fresh.

This is an exciting time if you are starting a garden; as the days get longer and warmer, you will notice all the new growth starting and a visit to your local garden centre is a chance to get some invaluable advice and to see some tempting seasonal plants that are ready for planting now.

Before you get too enthusiastic at the garden centre, first consider what will work in your plot. Apart from the aspect – is your garden sunny or shady, exposed or sheltered? – the foundation of everything you grow is the soil, so knowing its nature will pay dividends. Start by finding out your soil’s pH, which is a measure of how acid (low pH) or alkaline (high pH) it is. pH kits are easy to use and available in most garden centres.

The soil in Irish gardens tends to be in the pH range of 6-8. This in turn determines the range of plants that will do well. Most garden plants are happy in neutral (pH 7.0), but ericaceous plants like azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons and most heathers need acid soil. Grown in alkaline soil, these plants

may develop an iron deficiency which results in leaves turning yellow, with growth and flowers suffering. If you are determined to grow any of these, they may be best in a container with special ericaceous compost.

Alkaline soil encourages more earthworms and fungi that break down organic matter, as well as bacteria that absorb nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it into a form used by plants to build leaves. Slightly alkaline soil is best for most vegetables, especially members of the brassica family like cabbage, kale and broccoli, which will appreciate a dressing of lime if the soil tends towards acid, but seaweed-based fertiliser will have the same effect. However, potatoes are much more likely to be affected by scab in soil which has been limed, so don’t lime soil in which you intend to plant them, easy if you practice crop rotation in the vegetable garden.

Another common garden plant affected by pH is the hydrangea. In fact, the common mop-head type is a good indicator of soil pH. If your soil is alkaline (limey) the flowers will be pink and if your soil is acid, the flowers will be blue or shades of mauve and purple. White-flowered hydrangeas

TOP TEN SPRING JOBS TO DO NOW Prune roses to encourage strong flowering stems and to reduce the risk of disease. Cut back old or crossing stems to just above a bud or young shoot. Cut away dead wood completely and remove any spindly growth.

Early salad crops can be planted under the protection of a cloche, while onion sets and shallots can also be planted now.

Treat lawns for moss and weeds, use a lawn spreader and apply a feed and weed killer. You may need to wait a few weeks longer in colder areas.

Get tomatoes started in unheated greenhouses in growbags or containers now. They are greedy feeders so make sure the soil is well fertilised.

Brighten up your day by planting a large container of spring bedding, to give a blast of colour and scent near your hall door. A walk around your local garden centre will provide you with a fantastic range of seasonal beauty.

Many spring-flowering bulbs can be lifted and divided just after flowering.

Snowdrops in particular respond best to this moving ‘in the green’.

Not all clematis need pruning now; it depends on the variety, so always keep the label so you can ask if in doubt. Varieties that flower on the current season’s growth are pruned back now to healthy emerging shoots or even to the ground.

To give your plants a boost as soil temperature begins to rise, use a slow-release fertiliser which will release nutrients as the plants require them.

Grow your own borage (Borago officinalis) from seed. It’s a very easy herb to grow and wonderful for attracting bees into your garden. The blue flowers taste of cucumber and look wonderful floating in a summer drink or frozen into an ice tray.

There’s still time to sow half-hardy bedding plants under cover and to plant up dahlia tubers in pots of freedraining compost. Keep them protected from late frost.

RTÉ GUIDE DIG! 5

For best-selling novelist, Patricia Scanlan, her garden is a place of refuge and inspiration. Donal O’Donoghue visits her at home

ROOM WITH A VIEW

“W

ait until I tell you about the twins,” says Patricia Scanlan. “Now, what are their names again?”

“Madison and Savannah?” you suggest.

“Savannah? Are you sure?”

I think so but let me check. Yes, there it is in her new book, Orange Blossom Days: Savannah.

“Oh God!” says Patricia, who is already up to her oxters in her next novel. “Of course I was on heavy drugs when I was writing Orange Blossom Days (she underwent a painful hip operation). In the beginning, Madison was actually Mason and then he turned into twin girls. That wasn’t planned at all but the result of one of the stronger painkillers that I was taking at the time.”

Patricia Scanlan is, as you might deduce from her novels, wonderfully diverting company. So diverting in fact that this interview wanders off into unexpected nooks and crannies, from the curious allure of clocks (her late father, Paddy, was an avid collector), to the freedom offered by her first washing machine, and what’s top of the download pops (information gleaned from her nephews and nieces). “Do you want a chocolate biccie or are you off it for Lent?” asks Patricia as we head out to investigate another of her passions: her garden. This is 6 RTÉ GUIDE DIG!

both refuge and inspiration, and is in tip-top shape, thanks to her long-time gardener, Joe, who is on stand-by just in case there are any hard questions.

Scanlan is the godmother of modern popular fiction in Ireland, the author who set the ball rolling for contemporaries like Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly and Sheila Flanagan. “I suppose I was also lucky, in that while Maeve (Binchy) was the big author of the time, her stories were largely set in the 1940s and ’50s and I was writing contemporary novels,” she says. “That was new at the time in Irish publishing and I got loads of publicity.” Her first book, City Girl, was written at night in bed with an electric blanket and three dressing gowns. It earned the then librarian the princely advance of £150 from her publishers. Later, after changing publishers, she earned enough money to give up the full-time job.

We walk into the garden. “This is my favourite tree,” says Patricia, standing beside a Daphne.. “I love it because in the second week or so of January you get this scent. The buds have been on it since the end of December and it then bursts into bloom in January.

It just kind of says ‘Yes!

Spring is coming.’” Indeed, the colours of spring are everywhere and occasionally we are lost for words. We admire three verdant clumps of purple-flowering heather, momentarily stricken by collective amnesia.

What is that? Is it lavender? I’m sure I can hear Joe chortling from inside the house.

Patricia then shows me the camellias, which she transplanted successfully from her previous garden.

“Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.” (Steve Prefontaine)

Patricia Scanlan grew up in Dublin, and has four brothers (including her twin, Donald) and one sister. In the early days of her writing, the brothers, musicians, would be at one end of the room playing away and Patricia would be at the other end on her portable typewriter. “The noise didn’t bother me at all,” she says. “I can write anywhere.”

And she does, a work ethic instilled by her parents. “Mummy’s treat was 20 John Player; Daddy’s was a plug of tobacco and they never got into debt.” Like parents, like daughter. With the royalties from her books, Scanlan always treated herself to something special: City Girl was a new bathroom, Apartment 3B was a fancy patio and Francesca’s Party was a shopping spree to New York.

Now she lives in Clontarf, a bright and Patricia with one of her favourites, spacious home with Daphne an unexpectedly big and bountiful garden to the rear.

Her father, Paddy, died last December and she is sorting through some of his possessions, including paintings of seafaring scenes and delicate china teacups from his travels in the merchant marine in the Far East. “We both shared the same sense of humour,” she says of her dad.

“He was an inspiring man, someone who didn’t whinge and just got on with things.

I really miss picking up the phone to ring him and have a laugh. Daddy was always interested in what I was writing. Before he passed away I’d visit him in hospital and there I’d quietly edit the proofs for Orange Blossom Days.”

In Orange Blossom Days, one of the characters lives by the belief that “good often came out of bad”. It’s something that Scanlan also believes. “Sometimes you are brought to your knees, maybe in a relationship, maybe with your health, and in that case it’s how you deal with it and what you learn. I was ripped off in business but in a way it was freeing because if you hang onto it you only damage yourself by becoming bitter and twisted. I’ve also found that when you let something go, doors begin to open. In my case, when I left my Irish publisher the doors to the English market opened.”

In 1995, following surgery on her back, Patricia Scanlan was at her lowest ebb ever: unsure if she would ever be able to write again and unhappy with her publishers. “I dealt with it by saying that this was not the worst thing that was ever going to happen to me and that there was a reason for it.”

But what if she couldn’t write again? “It would be devastating,” she says. “This book, Orange Blossom Days, was written

through difficult physical circumstances. I was waiting for a hip replacement and in pain. The book was my escape. I was blessed with a vivid imagination. Sometimes that can be a curse. After daddy died, I said to myself I’ll take a little break but the gods laughed as the idea for the next book came into my head.”

She uses social media for her job but is ambivalent about its ubiquity and power. “In some ways it’s a tyranny,” she says. “It’s a great tool when people or movements are being suppressed but then you have individuals who feel they have to reveal EVERY SINGLE THING about themselves.” While none of her novels have been adapted for stage or screen, she “lives in hope”. But her biggest boost as a writer is the feedback from readers. “I was in a postoffice one day when a woman approached me and said: ‘I just want to thank you!’ It turns out that this lady had read Apartment 3B and the character of Claire gave her the courage to leave her own domineering husband.”

Patricia Scanlan is not married and she says she would have liked to have had her own family. “I would have liked children, but I had endometriosis so for me that was not possible. But if I had children, I imagine I would not have written to the extent that I have done.” In any case, nine nephews and nieces keep her busy (sleepovers, parties, presents) and she is a doting aunt. “I would be very hands-on and I’m godmother to three of them,” she says. “One of the biggest compliments I ever got was from my threeyear-old nephew. I had just given him a bath and was lifting him out, when he opened one eye and said: ‘Tricia you’re a great snuggler’ and I thought ‘What an accolade!’”

She doesn’t watch much TV, instead spending her precious free time reading mainly non-fiction (“I don’t read fiction when I’m writing”). She has a mobile home (or caravan as she puts it) in Wicklow, which is her bolt-hole. She sees religion as “a man-made device” but believes a person doesn’t die but that their spirit goes on. “I believe that we come to this world to learn spiritual growth, to learn the lessons of life and how you deal with it. In that respect, I’d be very interested in metaphysics and I’d also believe in the energy of Jesus. But the institution of the church was all about the suppression of the feminine.”

It’s nearly noon and Patricia has yet to put on the lunch: corned beef and cabbage.

While her books have earned her a comfortable living, she still buys lottery tickets. What would she do if she won? “I’d probably still write,” she says. “There’s only so much money you need.” The greater need is in her head and in this, her late father continues to be an inspiration. “When he was ill in hospital a consultant came in to him one day and asked: ‘How are you today Paddy?’ And he said, ‘I’m alive, what more would you want?’ I thought what a great attitude to have.”

And so she goes on, alive in the world, prompted by that vivid imagination as she taps it into reality.

Orange Blossom Days by Patricia Scanlan is published by Simon and Schuster RTÉ GUIDE DIG! 7

How does your garden GROW? If you are intimidated by the idea of growing your own vegetables, Dermot O’Neill has some pointers on how to start and provide for the kitchen table

G

rowing your own vegetables has never been more popular and many are easier to grow than you may think. I can remember my grandfather growing his own tomatoes in a cold glasshouse and I firmly believe that involving children in growing vegetables will give them a great insight into where their food comes from.

You can grow vegetables in the ground or in a container and many families are trying GIY – Grow It Yourself, which works particularly well for the younger members, who can watch the seeds they plant, grow, flower and mature into vegetables they can then eat.

Here are a few easy vegetables to try yourself.

Sweetcorn is great to try and great fun to grow. They don’t work so well in containers, so start the seeds off in a frostfree place and plant out in a sheltered sunny spot in well prepared soil when the risk of frost has passed. Sweetcorn is wind-pollinated so plant it 1520cm apart in a large block.

The corn on the cobs develop at the end of the summer and are wonderful to eat with a knob of melted butter.

Mangetout and Sugar Snap Peas: They are easy to grow from seed and can be started under shelter now and planted out in late April during a mild spell where you want to pick them. It’s a good idea to stagger the sowings to provide you with a regular crop throughout the summer and avoid a sudden glut. Use netting or a trellis for support. Plant out in soil that has been dug well or in a deep container about 15-30cm apart. Harvest the pods as they reach maturity, as this will encourage continued cropping.

8 RTÉ GUIDE DIG!

“Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.” (Steve Prefontaine)

Tomatoes are very delicious when picked ripe from the vine. You can buy starter plants now or grow from seed. They must have a frostfree position if you are going to grow them outside, but to get the very best from them they will need shelter and warmth. When in their final position, water them to keep the plants evenly moist. Use a good quality liquid tomato feed and start to use it as soon as you see the first flowerbuds develop. Little and often will give you a much better flavour. There are many different varieties to try, but a great favourite of mine is ‘Gardener’s Delight’, which is full of mouthwatering flavour.

If you have space, I recommend trying one of the dark, almost black-fruited varieties which kids are fascinated by or there’s even a tumbling variety, developed for hanging baskets or for the side of large containers.

Black Tuscany kale (cavolo nero) is a great favourite that I grow with an old-fashioned variegated kale variety which has a smaller leaf and is harder to find. I stagger the sowings of cavolo nero in rows. This variety produces wonderful dark green frilled leaves that are tasty when lightly steamed and served with butter. The seed is sown in drills on well prepared ground and the first batch is ready in approximately six to eight weeks.

RTÉ GUIDE DIG! 9

Do you have a dream garden but don’t quite know how to realise it? Design expert Leonie Cornelius sets you on the right path to garden heaven

The T

SPACE outside

he poet Alfred Austin has a wonderful quote: “Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are”. What a great thought to start with when you approach the design of your garden.

Gardens are intensely personal places; much like our homes, they are spaces where our lives unfold day-to-day. More often than not, however, our garden’s appearance has little to do with the dream we have of the perfect garden.

But is a dream garden actually achievable in a real space? What about function and form and the practicalities of a garden? What of bins and clotheslines, maintenance and good circulation? Yes. These are all vital starting points to a successful garden and core to making your space work for, not against you.

However, there is a step before this that often gets forgotten about or is treated as a sideline in garden design.

This is you and who you are. Think about this: what are your passions, your everyday 10 RTÉ GUIDE DIG!

pleasures, your style and your likes? What do you see yourself doing in your garden space?

And then most of all, what are your garden dreams?

At this stage I would ask you to imagine the most beautiful garden you have ever been in and consider what made it so special to you?

Perhaps it was a garden on holidays which made you feel free and easy and lovely? Or maybe it was your granny’s wild garden, overflowing with playful colour? Then again maybe it was a public garden space, for example, the Taj Mahal in India, with all its perfection and symmetries, that has stayed with you. Whatever the space, this can become your dream garden inspiration and form the backbone of your design choices for the garden.

This is what I call the dream gardens exercise in my book Dream Gardens and I find it a wonderful way of identifying your dreams for a space. The visuals you collect are based on your personal memories and the emotions

you associate with those memories, so they will be intensely personal. Before you start looking at the vital functional needs of a space and its forms, I feel it is very important to study these emotional associations with our favourite space or spaces. The idea is that no matter how important reality and practicality is, we don’t want to ever lose the feel of your dream garden.

When it comes to creative design ideas, our initial efforts are often put into creating the best and most beautiful home for us to live in. We tend to think from the inside out and there is a good reason for this, as our homes are where we spend most of our time. Gardens on the other hand, are more often than not secondary spaces that are dealt with after the home design is complete.

This makes sense in one way, as it is good to live with your garden for a while and get to know it before making design decisions.

On the other hand, there is plenty to be said for considering the garden an integral part of the design process with the home.

Vital connections between the inside and the outside can be considered at the home build stage and many architects now like to work collaboratively with garden designers to make sure the inside is reflected in the outside and vice versa.

This is the perfect time to start looking at the functions of the garden and what you want it to do for you. Your garden should be a reflection of how you live. So, when considering your garden from a functional point of view, the best way to start is thinking about you. Think about you and your family’s likes, your hobbies and how you use the garden. Think about how your day in the garden looks at present. Then consider how you would ideally like your day in the garden to be. For example, you may use the garden once or twice a week to read a book or eat outdoors with the family, and only when it doesn’t rain. That’s what you have right now.

You may like the idea of using the garden more than that and even when it does rain.

These considerations will have an impact on what you want in your garden: A roofed pergola for shelter from the rain, for example, or a summerhouse for eating and reading.

Designing a garden at this early stage means you can make informed and well considered choices early on. Every design feature, from colour to plant choices, is based on your likes, your passions and your everyday needs. Creating dream gardens is not about being perfect, it’s more about being perfect for you. So, in answer to the question, ‘Is a dream garden actually achievable in a real space?’ Absolutely.

Leonie Cornelius is an award-winning garden designer, interior architect and judge on Super Garden. For more go to leoniecornelius.com. RTÉ’s Super Garden is back on TV later in April.

Dream Gardens by Leonie Cornelius is a clear and easyto-follow guide to creating the garden of your dreams.

Focusing on how a garden makes you feel, Cornelius guides you through every step of the design process in expert but clear detail, from discovering the principles of good design, to finding the right style and helping you with the practicalities of building your new garden.

Dream Gardens is published

by Mercier Press.

LEONIE’S FAVOURITE GARDENS TO VISIT POWERSCOURT GARDENS, CO WICKLOW When I first visited Powerscourt, I was absolutely stunned by the sheer scale and perfection of it. These gardens, which were voted No.3 in the Top 10 Gardens of the World by National Geographic, have so many stunning sections to explore. One area which I particularly love are the almost hidden Japanese gardens. These slope into a small rock-filled valley with a Japanese gazebo at the bottom of the design. Elegant, understated and beautifully structured and maintained.

BIRR CASTLE GARDENS, CO OFFALY The gardens of this castle and science museum are incredibly beautiful and a testament to many generations of plantsmen, including the current Lord Rosse. At this time of the year, the gardens are an explosion of cherry blossom, such as Prunus serrulata ‘Kanzan’, as well as almost 30 varieties of Magnolia. Two years ago, I had the honour of a tour through the gardens with Lord Rosse himself, who showed me the wonderful areas of unique planting and unusual plants from all over the world.

JUNE BLAKE’S GARDEN, CO WICKLOW June Blake’s contemporary country garden in Tinode in West Wicklow is well known for its sweeping naturalisticprairie style planting which spans three acres. The garden is particularly interesting this year as June has planted over 10,000 new tulips! I love the rectangular water feature surrounded by cobble and the perennial borders are truly breathtaking.

The green, green gas of home How can plant life enhance your home and your health? Stephen Meyler suggests some green options for your living room

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ack in the 1980s, NASA, no less, was studying how to use plants to clean the air on space stations. They discovered that many of the most common houseplants are able to remove chemicals given off by synthetic fabrics or cleaning products, that can accumulate in the air in our homes. These chemicals include nasties like benzene, formaldehyde or ammonia, all of which can damage your health if present in high enough concentrations. Here are some of the best (and easiest) plants to clear the air.

Spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum): Spider plants are among the easiest houseplants to grow, making them a great choice for beginners or forgetful owners. A fan of bright, indirect sunlight, spider plants will send out shoots with flowers that then grow into baby spider plants. Absorbs: xylene, formaldehyde.

Golden pothos (Epipremnum aureum): This beautiful plant does best in cool temperatures and in low sunlight and is one of the best for removing nasties from the air. They can be grown in hanging baskets or set on a high shelf where the vines can cascade down.

Absorbs: benzene, carbon monoxide.

Peace lily (Spathiphyllum): This is a very popular indoor plant because of its large, dark green leaves and spoon-shaped white flowers.

It’s also really easy to grow, preferring a welllit spot out of direct sunlight, where it can give you years of enjoyment.

Absorbs: acetone, trichloroethylene, benzene.

12 RTÉ GUIDE DIG!

Areca palm (Chrysalidocarpus Chrysalidocarpus lutescens): This palm was ranked top of the air purifiers

by NASA. Arecas need bright light, but not direct sunlight, which will turn the leaves yellow. Keep them evenly moist but avoid overwatering. Absorbs: formaldehyde, trichloroethylene.

Bamboo palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii): The bamboo palm is easy to care for and is a popular houseplant that can become very large.

Each stem is long and slender with bamboo-like ‘nodes’. Water the palm using room temperature water when the soil surface feels dry. Don’t leave it sitting in water. Absorbs: formaldehyde.

Boston fern (Nephrolepis): The Boston fern (above) is the most popular of all ferns to grow indoors and one of the easiest to care for. It thrives in humidity and indirect sunlight making it a good for the bathroom.

Absorbs: formaldehyde.

Snake plant (Sansevieria laurentii): The Mother-In-Law’s Tongue is a succulent plant, which means the leaves retain water like a cactus.

Snake plants can handle a variety of light situations very well, even managing in minimal light and are a good choice for the bedroom.

Water sparingly. Absorbs: xylene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene.

Dragon Tree (Dracaena marginata): This low-maintenance plant is among the most popular in office spaces and homes.

It doesn’t need a lot of sunlight and will survive if you forget to water it sometimes.

Needs well-drained soil. Absorbs: benzene, formaldehyde.

Rubber plant (Ficus elastica): The rubber plant is near the top of the list for removing formaldehyde.

As it grows, bacteria that naturally live on its leaf surfaces break down chemicals into air and water.

It prefers bright, indirect light; regular watering and mist the leaves occasionally. Absorbs: formaldehyde, xylene, toluene.

Ivy (Hedera helix): An attractive accent plant with lobed leaves and trailing vines, ivy is perfect for enclosed spaces where the air is dry. As well as removing chemicals, it can also reduce airborne mould spores, so useful for people with allergic conditions or respiratory conditions. It needs bright light but not direct sunlight and moderate watering. Absorbs: formaldehyde.

With thanks to Zoe and Mandy at Urban Plant Life, the only garden centre in Dublin city centre, an urban oasis in the historic Liberties, with products and plants to suit all your gardening needs. plantlife.ie

Your garden can be a haven for feathered friends and a new edition of an Irish classic tells you just how to make it so. Donal O’Donoghue talk to the co-author of Ireland’s Garden Birds, Oran O’Sullivan

BIRD

ON A WIRE F

irst published in 2008, Ireland’s Garden Birds has become a bible for birdwatchers (and bird lovers) across the land. It is co-written by Oran O’Sullivan and Jim Wilson, long-time colleagues and BirdWatch Ireland veterans, who have spent many years with their noses pressed against the kitchen window. Their pocket-sized guide isn’t just a guide to identification but also a guide to attracting our feathered friends into your garden in the first place.

As such, it is indispensable: or as Oran O’Sullivan puts it, the perfect “window-sill guide.”

Oran is home in Wicklow when I call.

With Milo (a Yorkshire terrier not partial to pheasants) as company, we yap away about the birds. Oran, who grew up in the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham, surrounded by fields and birdsong, discovered the joy of wildlife in one of his first-ever books, the Ladybird book What To Look For In Winter.

It was swiftly followed by the Spring and Summer editions. The bug had bit. Oran joined Birdwatch Ireland and entered the Young Scientists’ Exhibition with a project investigating birds and their feeding preferences. “I got a green rosette for my trouble and in my formative years that was important to me,” he says.

Oran first met Jim Wilson, a native of Cobh, in the 1970s during a bird-watching expedition to the birdwatcher’s Shangri La of Cape Clear Island. “Jim had published a field guide to whales and dolphins which was quite successful and we spoke about doing a book about Irish garden birds,” he says.

“When we were growing up there was no specific guide book on Irish birds, which was quite frustrating as you thumb through lots of pages to get to the native species. So independently we had the same idea to do this book and we came together, divided up the tasks and put it together.”

It is, essentially, a book in two parts: the first is about the garden habitat and how to make it attractive, from January through December, to birds. There’s a table of favourite bird foods for Ireland’s Top 20 garden birds, a guide to nest boxes and how to situate them in your garden and lots of good tips (including putting a bell on your cat to give birds a warning and to delay pruning garden shrubs until late in the year to give birds cover). The second part is about the birds and how to identify them. The new edition features 57 species, 30 of which you will have a good chance of spotting in an Irish garden if you’re patient enough.

There is a new addition to the latest edition, the great spotted woodpecker, a stunning feathered beauty that was only known in Ireland prior to 2006 as a rare winter visitor (although the chances of seeing it in your garden are still pretty slim). “I have two that come into my garden from the local woodland to feed on peanuts,” says Oran. “Feeding garden birds can have an impact on various species and you can make a difference. And of course, birds help your garden too, as blue tits and grey tits will feed on aphids all summer to feed their young.

Garden birds are not only nice to look at but they can also do a job for you.”

You don’t need much to watch birds.

Perhaps your most important accessory is a notebook. Useful tools also include a camera, binoculars and of course Ireland’s Garden Birds, which has photographs of all the species and their vital statistics, including identification features, diet and life span. Oran blogs regularly on matters ornithological at gardenbirdyear.blogspot.ie and he dreams about publishing a journal that chronicles a year in the life of a bird garden. “So if Collins Press are interested…” he says and laughs. So I leave Oran (and Milo) to their birdwatching. Now where did I leave that notebook and pen?

Ireland’s Garden Birds by Oran O’Sullivan and Jim Wilson is published by The Collins Press.

RTÉ GUIDE DIG! 13

Forde perfect

I

recently had the pleasure of visiting Hester Forde in her remarkable garden Coosheen in Glounthaune on the Lee estuary just beside Cork Harbour. Here I discovered a remarkable person and a very special garden.

On a sloping site, this suburban garden covers one third of an acre, all of that space overflowing with fantastic plants. It’s full of trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs, roses and climbers – a true plantsperson’s paradise.

Hester (right) and her husband Patrick started gardening in 1988 and in the near three decades since, they have created one of the most remarkable collections of plants you will find in a private Irish garden.

Hester explained how they started by working on the soil, removing tonnes of rubble from the poor ground and building raised beds filled with the best quality soil.

Over the years, they have used compost, grit and rotted organic matter as a foundation for the plants growing in the garden today.

Everywhere I look, there are treasures to be seen. Just now, there is a great array of Galanthus (snowdrops) in full flower, including some rare Irish cultivars like G. ‘St Anns’, which has elegant spindly petals.

The Fordes’ collection of snowdrops is assiduously labelled, a sure sign of the true galanthophile!

Close by, hellebores are doing their best to steal the show, with more than 20 named varieties looking wonderful, a symphony of subtle shades and patterns on the modestly nodding flowers. Hester has collected a number of newly developed varieties, including doubles, anemone, speckled and ‘Picotee’, in colours from midnight black through to gold with red centres.

Complementing this early spring display are miniature daffodils, including a rarity just coming into full flower, Narcissus ‘Eystettensis’, also known as Queen Anne’s double, which Hester acquired from the famous English plantswoman Beth Chatto many years ago. Close by, another miniature, Narcissus ‘Lemon Silk’ is looking sumptuous.

Next, I notice a sweet spicy fragrance on the air, which can only come from Daphne bholua; the variety in this case is ‘Peter Smithers’, which has deep purple-pink buds opening to white, heavily scented clusters from December into March.

As we wander about the garden Hester points out Edgeworthia chrysantha, showing off its attractive pale yellow flowers, held in fragrant clusters. The plant is named after Michael Edgeworth, an amateur plant collector and brother of the famous Longford author, Maria 14 RTÉ GUIDE DIG!

Edgeworth. Hester is on the look-out for a redflowered form, ‘Red Dragon’.

The garden is broken up by meandering paths that draw you on to the next set of treasures, One dramtically striking foliage plant is Schefflera taiwaniana, with glossy evergreen foliage that adds structure to the border. Hester tells me it has flowered and set seed, real proof of the mild climate this garden enjoys.

When the spring colour is spent, Hester is looking forward to her collections of summer and autumn flowering plants, including an

Not far from Cork city is Hester Forde’s garden of earthly delights. Last month, Dermot O’Neill visited this plant paradise to explore a place transformed by hard work and a vivid imagination

enviable Crocosmia collection. She proudly shows me her new glass-covered area, which is overflowing with succulents, Salvia species and a myriad of late-flowering treats. My visit has been an exciting, informative and exhilarating experience, but it looks like I will have to come back in another season to see Coosheen’s other wonders.

Coosheen, Glounthaune is open by appointment from May-September, see irishgardenplantsociety.com for details.

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