Above is one of the rhodanthemums, outside the Copper Pagoda.

Finally the persistent rainfall stopped towards the end of April. It has in fact been raining almost every day in the garden from July last year to the end of the third week this month. Probably some sort of record. Anyway, the plants, apart from the succulents, didn’t mind. 🙂

April was tulip month in the garden, whilst Clematis marmoria, an inch high plant, excelled in the Alpine House.

Above is a Ramonda from the Pyrenees in a cleft in one of the troughs, while another trough contains this Sanguinaria canadensis.

Newly emerging fronds of Dryopteris affinis are always a delight to see in the Spring with Bergenia cordifolia joining the party too. And, below, Viburnum plicatum, in the West Garden, spreading its wings.

And last but not least, a Nectaroscordem tripedale flower from Armenia starting to open.

A little bit about “hardware” additions to Coolwater Garden this month. We’ve painted some of our wooden chairs a bright red: maybe some would say, “an eyeball scorching red”. 🙂  You can’t fail to miss them walking around the garden.

Then, we’ve also acquired a tree stump from a neighbouring farm and have inserted it into the end of an old heating oil tank. We’ll be planting up on top of the stump next month.

A new pergola has been erected over the coombe in the West Garden. A slightly difficult job as it is on a slope and also curves in the shape of a C.

We’re thinking of not painting it as, “Once you paint, you always have to keep painting from thereon”.

A selection of climbers are waiting to go in. The junipers will be removed and replaced with mostly Mossy Saxifrage, as it is quite shaded there.

We’ll still call this area “The Coombe”, even though the bottom of it has been concreted now and water flow stopped.

Two different oxalis. The one above is Oxalis versicolour, the petals, when folded, resembling somewhat like a barber’s pole and Oxalis massoniana below, only found in the wild in one place in South Africa. Both are in the Alpine House in the Water Garden, as I don’t want to lose them to the winter wet in Ireland.

Still in the Alpine House, these succulents are happily ensconced in one corner.

Lewisia cotyledons just keep flowering and flowering all year around.

And it appears that the Aloes are starting to follow the Lewisias’ lead, as they now don’t seem to stop flowering and they don’t mind the poor stoney soil, that they’re in.

Outside, we’ve revamped one of the troughs, as eventually the growing plants overwhelm and hide the rocks. So, we now build the rocks much higher when we update a trough. This rock is decaying acidic mudstone sourced from the Ballyhoura Mountains and we’ve planted Mutisia moligodon from Chile, which hopefully will grow to a metre wide. It will have large pink flowers.

And here is our one and only Dicksonia antartica, pictured before we wrapped it up for the winter on the first of December.

Trimming brown Cordyline leaves.

One of the Japanese Maples in its Autumn glory.

Namurian rock pathway in the West Garden.

Some of the circular concrete troughs under a Flowering Cherry tree in the West Garden.

Steps up to the Mirador in the Water Garden, to look at a view of Skule Hill.