Although March was a middling month, good growth started in Coolwater.

Saxifrages giving their usual exuberant display.

Hutchinsia Alpina, constantly flowering.

Another new trough, this time with ericaceous plants.

Sempervivums in plutonic rock.

Always dependable, Polygala.

And another water-worn limestone boulder ready to be planted up.

Mini Rhododendron.

Always colour in Coolwater any time of the year.

Atlas Blue Cedar cones.

I’ve just made up new wooden panels going on top of the wall to try and protect my Japanese Maples at the foot from the wind.

Pixie Cups & strange tunnels through limestone.

Saxifrages have been exuberantly bursting into flower with the mild weather during February and here are some pictures to show.

Mini Rhododendron Ptarmigan is joining in too.

The following pics are of six more troughs made up. All have been planted, although I have deviated from the path of righteousness and goodness and bought some deciduous plants. Deciduous plants? I hear you say. Has he lost his marbles? Well, maybe so but the fact of the matter that I have planted some deciduous plants. In the distance, I think I hear a loud cheer from Terra Nova Garden. ?

Now to a “strange” part but really not so strange. A friend, Mike Moloney, gave me a hand in the garden by taking off the mud, covering the top of my new Dolmen. Amazingly, he discovered four holes about four inches in diameter going right through the rock to the bottom. I’ll have excellent drainage for whatever I plant there.

Pixie Cup lichen growing in another trough. There’s even more but I couldn’t fit them into one photograph. No sign of the actual pixies, though: only their cups left behind. ?

For some, January is a trough in the gardening year; in Coolwater, www.coolwatergarden.com it’s a chance to construct more troughs. These are seven new circular troughs, 42″ in diameter (over 1 metre) and I’m defining their characteristics with a variety of materials.

Three are of large chunks of limestone prised out of a front garden in Corofin, Co. Clare. Some of the boulders being too heavy to lift up into the troughs, I made up ramps for those. The soil composition for these limestone troughs is one third limey top soil, one third compost & one third limestone grit.

Two troughs featuring Bog Oak sourced from nearby Ballyneety Co-Op have been filled with ericaceous compost and these will be planted with shade-loving woodland plants.

The sixth utilizes red sandstone flagsones, which were patio stones from a demolished very old mansion nearby. This will be planted with Mini Rhododendrons, most of which have an ultimate height of only 4 inches.

The last one features iron oxide coloured hard shale from a farm in Castleisland, Co. Kerry and will also be planted with woodland plants.

The last two pics are of limestone troughs.

December rocks! Well. It certainly has done in Coolwater. I got hold of several rather large limestone boulders from a neighbouring farmer’s field. They were situated in about a mile from the road and a John Deere was utilized to bring them out. One was so big that even the powerful tractor couldn’t lift it and it had to be left there.

Two of the boulders have placed so as to form a Dolmen, although I didn’t have a body to place underneath 🙂 and others will be left freestanding. As you can see I still have to gouge out earth from the grykes. On the pallets are smaller limestone rocks that I will use to fill seven more circular troughs that I have obtained. These rocks were dug out of a front garden in Corofin and will need a bit of weathering in order to blend in.

These are the troughs in the West Garden in the course of construction, which will be filled with the stone from Corofin.

Hopefully, they’ll end up similar to this one overlooking the water garden.

I always seem to have much more work to do in the garden in the wintertime than in the summer. It’s a full-time job in the winter. I’ll be looking forward to the summer when I can relax. I’d say that’s the opposite to most people but then, Coolwater is a different garden! 🙂 I’ll finish off with a couple of sunrise piccies. We’re known for our sunset pictures over the West Garden but sunrises can be equally as good here too.

October in Coolwater still full of colour in this very mild autumn so far.  October 2016

In the Watergarden the red waterlilies are still in full bloom, although the pink, white and yellow ones are no more. Lobelia Queen Victorias stand out like red traffic lights at the edge of the water with their companion reeds now turning bronze. Up on the arid bed, the statuesque flowers of several Yucca Gloriosas are shooting up like Roman Candles with flowering Sea Pinks and Dianthus at their base.; they’re quite a display. I dug up a large Beschorneria from the arid bed last month and gave it to someone so I have that big hole to fill with earth yet.

Down among the troughs, mini Rhododendrun Sapphire is full of flower now and nearby, Saxifraga Hareknoll Beauty thinks it’s Spring. Lots of other alpines in flower, Achillea Huteri, Leucantheum Hosmariense, Daboecia Cantabria “Jack Drake”, Hylotelephium Cauticolum and Aeschynanthus Buxifolius KR7798.

Out in the West Garden, I’ve decided that the fuschias are for the high jump. They’re all twiggy now, no leaves and I don’t like a twiggy garden in the winter. There’s about 10 of them and they’ll be going into a local farmer’s woodland as understorey. It’s where I get my 12 builders bags of woodland leaves every January so a fair swap.

My Magnolia Grandiflora is on a downward spiral. I got from someone a couple of years ago who had it in a large pot where it was definitely not thriving. I’ve mollycoddled it with plenty of leaf mould, iron sulphate, shrub fertiliser and manure and it makes a spurt of foliage every so often then dies back each time. I might leave it til the Spring and see what it’s like then. I rarely lose plants and I’d like to keep my record if I can. (I might put a note on it for St. Jude.)

What are really looking good at the moment are Arbutus Marina and Drimys Granadensis, both totally covered with sprays of flowers. On the other side of the West garden, Ashi Zuru is looking outstanding in the Japanese Maple bed. This is a tree that looked dead in June. I did nothing to it and it’s bounced back of its own accord.