Extreme Gardening

Category: Fungi

  • Winter Colour

    3 DECEMBER 2022 There are always surprises each winter when a few flowers appear out of season. These roses at the bottom of the drive are just some of the many blossoms that are popping up all over the garden. There is usually just one bunch per plant but it is enough to brighten up…

  • Autumn Colours

    The autumn colours have been very impressive this year, as this young blueberry bush demonstrates. However, they lost their leaves very quickly as they were exposed to the series of storms that have battered the garden on and off for weeks. By next year, I am hoping that the hawthorn hedge that I have planted…

  • Fantastic Fungi

    It has been a very strange autumn in the garden. In the last few weeks bumble bees, hoverflies and even the odd butterfly have made the occasional appearance on sunny days. The holly offers plenty of food but some of my catmint plants have started to flower again and are equally popular. Even the Eleagnus…

  • New Beginnings

    I have a love-hate relationship with the Inula Hookeri which dominates whatever part of the garden it inhabits. Its flower is interesting from the moment it appears, but it spreads rapidly and will quickly push out anything growing near it. Each winter I have the arduous task of containing it, muttering under my breath as…

  • A Frog By Any Other Name

    Gardening at the moment is an exercise in dodging thunder storms, rain showers and wind gusts that can knock you off your feet in a very undignified manner. Everywhere there are hints of the jobs to be done and even the grass is growing despite the cold. So are the lichen as Fergus my frog…

  • The Survivor of the Year

    My copse and the once bare hillside just after Storm Barra I now know what a ‘weather bomb’ is, although I would far prefer to have read about it in a book. Ophelia was the last severe weather ‘event’ in this area, although the devastation to my garden when the ‘tail end’ of Darwin hit…

  • In the Absence of Leaves

    Winter has arrived with a bang and in an unusual collaboration with nature I planted my garlic on the day before the first heavy frost and put out all of the bird feeders. So, with any luck I will have plenty of birds throughout the winter and no vampires. Indoors, my newly planted turmeric is…

  • A Kaleidoscope of Colour

    I don’t ever remember Ireland being famous for its autumn colours and my memories from childhood are that leaves turned a dull brown at best before falling. Scotland had the perfect climate to produce dramatic autumn colours and I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw the vivid yellows of the ferns in the lower…

  • Animal Helpers

    Autumn has finally arrived. The wind is now from the north west and is bitterly cold. The dramatic sunrises and sunsets almost make up for the chill, but there are no more relaxing tea breaks in the warm sunshine as I go about my gardening chores. This month I am taking advantage of the offerings…

  • Fungi

    20 November 2020 October was a relatively dry month all things considered and mushrooms were noticeable by their absence. This was disappointing, as I have had a full fairy ring on the driveway for three years in a row. Last year there were two intersecting rings with two different fungi species and I had high…