Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden Podcast
- EP272 Siobhan O Mahony Talks Planting Combinations, best plants, Bulbs & Gardening Courses. The Art of Evolving Gardens: A 35-Year Journey
Journey through the 35-year evolution of the O'Mahony Garden, a stunning landscape on the Cork-Limerick border that transforms an ordinary plot into five distinctive garden spaces, each with its own personality and purpose.
Siobhan O'Mahony shares her gardening journey that began with essential shelter planting and gradually expanded into a thoughtfully designed landscape. The original garden focuses on low-maintenance shrubs and trees punctuated with seasonal bulbs, while the aptly named "kitchen garden" outside their kitchen door bursts with vibrant hot colours year-round. Perhaps most remarkable is the transformation of their sons' football pitch into borders with distinct colour themes – cool calming blues and pinks in one area contrasting with rich wine and magenta tones in another.
The garden continues to evolve with newer areas including a practical raised bed vegetable garden featuring container-grown raspberries and a young woodland planted with 28 Himalayan birches (Betula jacquemontii) underplanted with specialist snowdrops and spring flowering bulbs. Adjacent to this, an annual wildflower meadow delivers spectacular summer colour without demanding maintenance.
Siobhan's practical wisdom resonates throughout the conversation – from her colour-themed planting approaches to her strategic use of containers to maintain continuous displays near the house. Her advice for new gardeners is refreshingly realistic: focus on trees and shrubs for structure and lower maintenance, then concentrate colourful, higher-maintenance planting in smaller areas where it can be enjoyed daily.
The garden welcomes visitors three times annually and hosts workshops on container gardening, vegetable growing and flower arranging. Whether you're starting your own garden journey or looking for inspiration to refine an existing space, this episode offers practical strategies for creating beautiful, manageable gardens that bring joy throughout the seasons.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
how's it going everybody, and welcome to episode 272 of master, my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is is one that I've been looking forward to. So we mentioned every time, every year around this time we start to get back into the open garden features and, as I mentioned, open gardens are kind of inspirational for people who are gardening at home. They go to these beautiful open gardens, they generally speak and talk to the creators of these gardens and they see things that they can sort of take home and replicate or you adapt to their own gardens. So, as I said, are inspirational these open gardens, and this week I am heading down to the Cork Limerick border and I'm talking to Siobhan from the O'Mahony garden.
Speaker 1:So the O'Mahony garden is developed by Siobhan and Mossie and it's a garden that has been developed over 35 years. It's a garden that I haven't visited, but really looking forward to hearing the story. Siobhan and mossy run courses down there as well, so they run things like the container, the summer container course, the vegetables for beginners course, a christmas reed making courses and, I'm sure, many, many more. So, yeah, the garden itself seems to be, from looking on Instagram, huge amount of color and you know all the different windows, but there seems to be a big mix. So we have a new woodland area. From what I can see, there's the color of the tulips at the moment and there seems to be various different areas. So Siobhan is going to tell us all about that now. So, siobhan, you very, very welcome to Master my Garden podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks, john, and thanks for thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, we were just talking before we started recording about the beautiful weather we're having, so we're all having a great start to the gardening year. I'm sure it's the same with you guys. Your garden looking at your pictures on Instagram is awash with color even at the moment, but it's not something I guess that has just popped up overnight. As your website says, you're developing this for 35 years, so maybe give us a little bit of the kind of backstory of of the O'Mahony garden and we'll take through the talk to the various areas then.
Speaker 2:OK, well, we were here about 35, 36 years um, and when we, when we started really we just started we needed to put in shelter because we're, you know, we're quite, we're quite um open. So our first, our first task really was to put in our shelter. So we put in lots of trees and we put in hedging and then then we started with the main area of the garden. We have five areas to the garden. We have what we call the original garden and then we have a little area at the back, and then we had a little vegetable patch and then we took over the Bayes football pitch there a few years ago, and the latest project is the woodland vegetable patch. And then we took over the Baez football pitch there a few years ago, and the latest project is the woodland.
Speaker 2:But, um, I suppose we started. We started gardening really from the, you know, from the first year that we came in um I. It was developed over the years. I didn't have a lot of time, um, at the beginning I was working in Cork, so I was commuting to Cork and so really I was a summer gardener until about five or six years ago.
Speaker 2:And then I got really interested. I did Jimmy Blake's Plants Person's course about five years ago and previous to that I did some classes with Helen Dillon. Helen actually was my idol. I started watching her 35, 36 years ago on television and I loved her planting style and I loved her colour combinations and my colour. I garden by colour and I suppose it started really from seeing Helen's garden you mentioned there. You know about visiting other gardens and getting inspiration and that's where my inspiration came from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a great story, it's it's.
Speaker 1:I suppose it's it's a kind of common theme that I hear on the podcast, not necessarily with open garden features on the podcast, um, not necessarily with open garden features, but with people who are you know who are who are doing nice gardens and at their own homes.
Speaker 1:And you start off, you have a site that's open and you get the trees around it in the shelter and a lot of people, actually a lot of the open gardens, have said that that was the first thing and the the so at the start you didn't have much time, which is kind of common at the moment and probably even more so at the start. You didn't have much time, which is kind of common at the moment and probably even more so at the moment. You know there's so much going on for, I suppose, especially younger families, they've so much going on running around with football and work and all the different things that are going on and time. You know people, people are summer gardeners essentially because of that. But were you interested in gardening from day one, or is it something that has developed over the years?
Speaker 2:no, I was interested from day one. My mother actually had a lovely garden and, um, she, she was always gardening and even I remember having, you know, I think, even just a tiny patch. I just wanted a tiny patch at home so I could set my own flowers yeah and so it. It stems from there. I was just the minute. I was more.
Speaker 1:I was more, probably more interested in the garden than I was in the house initially yeah but made lots of mistakes along the way and so when you started out, there was no grand plan. So you're, you're on about an acre and you got the. You got the shelter built in originally, but was there? Had you? Did you have a vision sort of how it would develop? Or has the vision changed over the years?
Speaker 2:we were actually, I suppose we were gardening for three or four years and, um, I suppose I lost. I lost a lot of stuff, like I started by putting in two beds of roses, um, and I lost every one of them because of the you know the wind, um, so we, after about three or four years, we went to late brian cross and he drew up a plan just for the original garden. So at least we had a plan then to work on and that was, uh, you know, again, putting in. We could put in beds then, and borders as we could afford them, and and mossy, mossy did all the, the building and the hard, the hard landscaping, and it really stemmed from there. So the first few years that's what we were working on. We had a plan for just that one area and then I suppose that gave us confidence then to start working on the other areas and developing the other areas ourselves yeah, that's a brilliant point that you know you you started off.
Speaker 1:You don't have a sort of grand plan for the place, but you you start planting in roses. You figure out that that's not working.
Speaker 1:But then you go off and get your, your, your overall plan done or a sort of a vision done for the place, but you, you start planting in roses, you figure out that that's not working. But then you go off and get your, your, your overall plan done or a sort of a vision done for the place and then you add in the beds as you can afford, as you said yourself at that time, and that's absolutely and that's quite typical of you know people in this situation, and it is it is a really good thing to do is to get a design plan, a planting plan, even if it's only a sketch of your, of your own doing that you have and it can change and it can maneuver over the years.
Speaker 1:But if you, if you do have a kind of a grand idea of this is what I'd like in 10 years time and this is what we can start with and it gives you something that there's a kind of a progression plan and, as you said, you do one bed, it's successful, and then your confidence grows and you're able to do more. Then maybe you're able to start propagating your own plants, so it becomes easier to do. These beds are more accessible to do these beds.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that that's a great point um, well, I found at least when you have a plan like that, originally, like I was going, we originally I was going to put the pond in at the bottom of the garden, but in the plan he put it in at the front of the garden so that you could see it, and so at least where we didn't stick to the exactly to the planting plans but we stuck to where we should put the beds and I think that was that was a great help yeah, and obviously then you started with roses and they didn't do well.
Speaker 1:So Helen Dillon has famously said right plant, right place. I'm not sure if it was if it was her phrase originally. But she, she always said that in her, you know, in her writing and in her, in her, in her tv work she always said right plant, right place. And I suppose you started to find out that and that's kind of different for every garden too you, I think you learn.
Speaker 2:You learn as you go along and you know a plant um might do very well in a place um you know, and uh, it mightn't do very well in another place, and then you could buy the same, the same plant and put it somewhere else and it might do really well.
Speaker 1:So it's trial and error really yeah, and that can be within a garden as well as in different gardens, so you could have a spot in your garden that something just doesn't do well in, move it to another spot with more suitable conditions and away it goes and it can be very successful. So, and it does take a little bit of time probably to figure that out in your own garden.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, it's, it's important, it's important piece as well I remember actually buying a verbena, um, and you know, I really at the time I I wasn't really into putting the right place at the, the right plant to the right place, and I planted this verbena in a damp, shady corner and wondering later why it died. Now I understand yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So now I always, I would, I may always um check the the label of a plant and check to see whether it's a a sunny or shade, or whether it is dry or wet yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's hugely important and I think that is that's something maybe that gardeners beginner gardeners maybe fall down on.
Speaker 1:As well as that, they they go into a garden center and they shop with their eyes and this looks beautiful. I'll stick that there. This looks beautiful. I'll stick that there. As you say, flip around the back of that label, just see, yeah, I prefer full sun. Well, am I getting that where I'm putting it? And it's just little basic things like that can help a lot. So the garden as it is today, pretend I'm going to go on a virtual tour now and arrive at at your front door and maybe talk us through the areas of the garden okay, so, um, the, as I said, the original garden um is about maybe, maybe half an acre and, as I said, we originally put in hedging and trees.
Speaker 2:Now the hedging back then was lalande and we've started to take that out because it's starting to die back, and so in this area it's mainly shrubs and trees, because I want low maintenance here, because there's there's high maintenance in two of the gardens, you know where you have the herbaceous beds.
Speaker 2:So, I'm trying to cut down and work in this area. So we have a pond and which is surrounded by azaleas and rhododendrons. We're lucky enough, actually, we're neutral to acid soil so we can grow these plants. So my spring borders these would be mainly my spring borders I concentrate on some. You know I don't have spring bulbs in all the borders. I concentrate on some of the borders and plant these up with bulbs. So then there's another bed that it's actually a bed of white hydrangeas and box balls and blue salvias. So that starts in February with lots of snowdrops and then it has the crocus in February and then we're on to the tulips. At the minute Now I'm building the layers of bulbs in these beds. So we'll say, at the moment I see the tulips, you know it needs more tulips, so I'll plant in more tulips next year. And then it's followed by a bed of blue alliums, globemaster I find Globemaster a really good one because it's really good in the wind, it's got good strong stems and then it's followed on by the white paniculata hydrangeas. So I suppose that's the original garden.
Speaker 2:And then the next garden is what we call our kitchen garden. Now, it's not veg, it's not fruit and veg. We call it our kitchen garden because it's just outside our kitchen door and the color theme it's circular. It was a curved garden. This is quite a small area so I was looking, you know. Again, you talk about inspiration. I was looking at a magazine one day and I see this beautiful circular garden. I think it was Joe Thompson's garden in Chelsea and I went out and I changed the lawn to a circle so it gave us more planting space. So the color scheme really for this garden is all vibrant colors. You know, the oranges, the reds, the yellows, the purples, really vibrant, a mix of colours.
Speaker 1:Kind of your hot border, as they call them these days.
Speaker 2:Yes, because we're looking out at this all the time. So you know it's important to have colour here all the time. And just outside the patio door we have a little pond, a little water feature, a small little circular water feature. Again, I was in Chelsea what? 30 years ago, and this is the one thing I brought home from it. I saw this little. I still have the photograph. I brought home this picture of this little pond. So that's what we have there. So that's the circular garden, that's what we have there, so that's the circular garden. And then the other big garden, really the main one, is what we call the pitch, and this was the boys football pitch up to about five years ago. So we started by putting in one bed and taking a goalpost and then we put in and then took another goalpost and put in another bed, and so the in this border. It's quite a big, quite a big area.
Speaker 2:And again, I started with my curved borders and initially I grew lots of herbaceous. As you know, it's quite expensive to buy plants to fill a big border. So I grew lots of the plants from seed, lots of lupins and achilles and things like that. And again, watching TV Gardener's World one night I was looking at this lovely garden rectangular with borders on both sides. So I again went out with the bamboos and the twine and straightened my borders. So uh, it's here.
Speaker 2:Then I decided to um, you know, put in different colored borders. So one border, probably my favorite border, is this lovely, cool, cool colours the pale pinks, the pale blues and the whites, so it's really calming border. And then on the other side we put in peach and peach and salmons, and then to contrast that, we put in, you know, whiny and magenta colours. And so again we're building on these beds and adding more plants all the time. And also in this border then, or in this garden, is a white border. So it's quite difficult to garden in the white border because there's a line of lime trees.
Speaker 2:As I said, it was never meant to be a garden and if we knew it was going to be a garden, we'd never have put in these lime trees. But anyway, the ground is really really poor and dry. So I really it's survival of the fittest here. So I try to put in whatever will grow. Well, I just add more and more of it. So, and then there's a big patio, is where we, you know, where we sit out and we have a a really good size um patio and um in front of that, then going onto the lawn of two narrow beds, and I was hoping that we could have lavender. You know two, two beds of lavender, but obviously we're a heavy clay tile so lavender doesn't really do well, so I've put in Nepata Persian Blue.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 2:It gives the same effect. It's like a bed of lavender.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:So again in these beds, actually, I have lots of roses, believe it or not, but they're the shrub roses and they do really well here, the shrub roses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Can we take a? We're going to reverse back to these three gardens first. So on these borders, you mentioned the white border, which is a little bit difficult under the lime trees. You mentioned the salmon type colours, so maybe just give us a flavour of the plants that we're going to find in the salmon colour border, in the magenta purple border, and was it a bluey calming border that you mentioned?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so in the cool colours, in the pale pinks and the blue border at the moment I'm looking out here at the moment, at the moment there is. I don't have a lot in any of these borders at the minute because I concentrate on summer colour. So the pink border there isn't a lot there, there's just Brunnera really at the minute, and following on from that then I have Peonies and Lupins Teletrum and lupins telictrum, and then following on from that I would have the roses, olivia Rose Austin, which is a lovely, really pale rose, and lots of phloxes in here. I love phlox.
Speaker 2:You know, the lovely pale pinks and the pale blues and lots of dahlias in here. So at the moment I have all the dahlias potted up in the tunnel and I put them out the end of April. So lots of the pale pinks and the mauves and the white dahlias in here and I also grow anterinum from seed. Actually I planted some of them out now the other day. So I have the pale pink and the white in the pale pink border and I would have fox gloves in there as well and I also have for next month I would have the sweet rocket and I grow that from seed as well. So that's they're the main plants and then I've dotted. Actually, in that particular bed I have a very special plant and it's um a diorama that I got from Helen Dillon's garden wow, angel, swish and rod yes, yes, yeah yeah, brilliant, and you got that as a little plant, was it?
Speaker 2:um, I got it on her sales table at one of her you know one of um one of when I was up there brilliant, yeah, yeah, no, that that'd be nice, and they're brilliant plants notoriously slow to grow oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They have to.
Speaker 1:They have to light the the spot they're in yeah, you know, I saw them from seed a few years ago and um I'm not very slow I'm not the most patient person, and they were sold at the same time, as you know, loads of other things like uh, achillea and uh what else was there for being a bonner?
Speaker 1:eight boranians and all of those at the same time, and I was looking at this little little, tiny little green stem coming up out of ground for months and months and months. So no, very, very. You need a lot of patience for them, but they're when they're when they're fully formed, they're beautiful they are amazing and I love actually, um, I love there's a really dark one called blackbird okay it's a really, really dark one.
Speaker 2:I like these dark colors as well, but I have one of them. I bought two, actually, but one was you know it didn't. They're only across from each other, only a metre from each other. But one did really well and the other just died on me. So yeah, they are finicky.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely finicky. Funny it does. About 100 metres away from there's an old cottage, it's actually there's about 100 meters away from there's an old cottage, it's actually there's nobody living in it anymore, but there's there's, uh, five or six clumps of angels fishing rod up on, up on kind of old stone walls. Yes, they're absolutely class. Uh, yeah, I don't know how long ago they're planted, but they're just class there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautiful yeah, they do like poor ground, actually, because one self-seeded on my gravel yard right, yeah, and grew away there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, stepping back into the very first garden you mentioned, so you were going for the lower maintenance shrub type rather than the perennial borders, but you're utilizing you're obviously utilizing bulbs to give you that color and and some hydrangeas yeah, yeah um, how do you find you mentioned that you're? At the moment, your tulips are out but you're looking to build up the stock there. Are you sort of planting tulips every year, are you? Are you looking for the the more long-term tulips?
Speaker 2:or the perennial tulips, and I in there at the moment I have um ballerina and I think negrita is probably the best. Negrita is brilliant to come back and I have I think it's national velvet, which is a you know. So I wanted all these um velvety colors, but I found that there was something lacking. So actually I added um, you know, I grow them some, I grow, I grow tulips in pots as well, so I'll take them when they have finished flowering in the pots, I'll put them into the bed. But I've put in. I think it's a daydream. Is it daydream? I can't think. Yeah, I think daydream is kind of an orangey yellow and I have tried it now, you know, putting it into the border and it's after lifting the colours. But I just need to add more, like I have. I've more negrita in pots for my pot display. So, um, I'll transfer them into the beds when they finish flowering and they'll be there for next year yeah, yeah, yeah, and it is.
Speaker 1:I think that's important. I know a lot of people use tulips for for that spring color and obviously they're, they look class. But the the ones that, the ones that are dying off after one year it's kind of hard to see how that's. You know you really should be looking for the ones that are going to come back, the perennial type ones.
Speaker 2:Definitely the perennial ones for the borders. And I buy the you know the fancy ones for the pots, but I'd also grow the perennial ones in the pots. But I'd also grow the, the perennial ones in the pots, so that I can add to my borders wherever there's gaps yeah, and. I do the same with the. You know the daffodils, and actually daffodils. I only plant the miniature daffodils in in the borders because you know the way you have to wait for their leaves to die back yes and the big leaves are to take too long so you actually don't notice they.
Speaker 1:They they miniature leaves yeah, and and if you're in a windy garden, which I'm sure you're not at this stage with your, with your um it's pretty windy enough at times it's windy enough, is it? Yeah, then, the smaller ones are obviously they do, you do better, they're a little bit sturdier. Yeah, for sure. Um, you mentioned globebemaster as your allium. That's another brilliant one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did put in Purple Sensation. And Purple Sensation didn't you know? Some people talk about Purple Sensation being even a weed, that is. You know it spread so much. But I didn't find it did well with me at all but, the dope master is coming back you know it's coming back now for the third year, so yeah, it's a good test, brilliant.
Speaker 1:So, and then the the pitch that got that got changed. You mentioned the different borders there, so we're heading for the fourth garden after that. So where are we heading for now?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, it's the vegetable area which is raised beds. There's six raised beds in there and I have a little glass house as well. So I'm just getting ready now, really the beds, to plant out a lot of the you know the veg, to plant out a lot of the you know the veg. Again, I have the brassicas, the legumes, and then the roots, the roots and alliums together. So I think you know the crop rotation is important. And then in the other beds I have, I actually have a miniature or a small or a container grown raspberry and it's doing really really well. I did have raspberries out in the ground and, as you know, they just go. They just go everywhere. They were coming up everywhere. So I got container grown raspberries from Mr Middleton online and they're doing really well. I actually had them in a bucket for the first two or three years because I had no place for them and they still survived. So they produce lots of fruit. And then I have another one with blueberries and another one with strawberries.
Speaker 1:And these are all containers.
Speaker 2:Sorry, raised beds actually.
Speaker 1:Raised beds yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're container grown, you know they're suitable for containers, but they're grown in raised beds. Raised beds, yeah, yeah, they're container grown, you know they're. They're containers, but they're grown in raised beds. I find the, the raised beds um really easy to um to garden and in the in the glass house, then I grow the tomatoes and the cucumbers and the um what else?
Speaker 1:as peppers yeah, yeah, brilliant, and the, the raspberry that you mentioned. So that is that is. That is one that like, anytime anyone puts it into the garden, especially the autumn one, it goes, it goes wild. And you do have to like. I was only doing that last saturday myself. I have three autumn gold in a in a ground bed and they're popping up three, four, five meters away, yeah, yeah so I'm chopping the chopping the ground in between and trying to pull them up.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it does. It takes a little bit of work to keep manners on them. But container grown ones the the standard varieties in containers. They can be hit and miss, but if you have a variety that's specifically for containers this is the bush variety now and, like I, get fruit every year brilliant. And yeah, you probably have to give it a little bit of a feed, I presume earlier in the season um, well, I I the feed I normally use.
Speaker 2:I I feed um all the borders, I feed everything with a style renew, feed the style you know to improve, the style improve or style renew. I find that really good because our soil would have been quite poor here and this is my fourth year using it and I find it really good. That's interesting now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the reason, the reason it's interesting is I've seen the product before, but I've never, I've never, used it. And a couple of weeks ago at the, the glda conference, I was talking to the, the man there, and he gave me a sample bag to try. Yes, so I have tried it on two vegetable beds, just I didn't put it on them all, I wanted to try it on two, just to see. Was there?
Speaker 2:could I see any kind of a difference? Well, I'm using it now with four, about four years, and there's a huge improvement in my style. Um, and you know, it's a bucket. A 10 kg bucket is the equivalent of spreading three tons of manure, so this is much easier. This is much easier, you're getting the benefit.
Speaker 1:You're getting the benefit of the microbes and so on, but obviously with a lot less material.
Speaker 2:Actually, where I first heard of it was Helen Dillons, and when I did classes with Helen, I suppose five or six years ago now, and she was using it and she said that they used to use it in the botanical gardens. So if they, she said, if they use it, there must be good. But I do. I've like the, the soil now where I use it, like there's lots of worms and activity and the soil has really loosened up. So, as well as that, then I use my seaweed as well, and I use the liquid seaweed quite a lot, and then for the vegetable beds, I would give them an organic fertilizer about a fortnight before I'd start planting anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant, yeah, so in that. So that's the. So we've kind of four of the gardens covered then and there's a fifth garden.
Speaker 2:That's the newest area. It wasn't even there this time last year At the end of April. Actually we put it in. It's a woodland and it's two areas in one really, because it's the woodland and there's also a wildflower meadow and actually there's also. We put in a. Really I also do cut flower garden and I do a cut flower garden workshop, so I grow all the, we do the workshop in February, so we grow all the seed in February and then it's ready to go out at the end of April. So this year or last year I've put the cut flower garden into a very long raised bed. So that's in this area as well. So the wildflower meadow we'll probably set the seed now, in another week or two, but I like the wildflower meadow, the classic one, the poppies, the cornflowers. There's no grass in the mix, it's just all flowers.
Speaker 1:So are you going with an annual mix or are you going with an annual and perennial Annual? So you're going to do annual and so on a yearly basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last year. You know we did a small test the year before with just a very small area. But now what I did last year, I actually collected a lot of my seed, so I have a lot of seed from from last year. I'll just probably buy, maybe you know, a packet or two of seed, but I have a lot of the seed gathered from from last year and um also. Here then is the woodland I love. I love woodland and spring plants. So we put in 28 um birches, jack monti, yeah, and that's under planted then and like there's, there's only a very light canopy on it at the minute. So I'm sure it will take four or five years, you know to to to look to look anything. So that's under planted then with lots of spring bulbs, again hellebores and um, lots of woodlandy plants that like shade and so that's the newest area.
Speaker 1:We might go back to the wildflower meadow in a second. So it's from looking at it on on your, on your instagram page. You have uh, I think it's wood chip pathways through the woodland, is it?
Speaker 2:um, just uh, no, there's. There's wood chip actually on the on the the side borders oh, is that what it was down the wide, the weeds yeah yeah, so you have these 20-something Jackmontais gone in.
Speaker 1:They're going to grow beautiful over the next few years, tall white stems and under-planted. You have helibores. What else have you got in there?
Speaker 2:It starts again with snowdrops. I like gathering snowdrops, I like the different varieties, not just for the sake of having so many different varieties, but I just like the different ones, particularly the yellow ones like Spindlestone, surprise and Madeline in these. So I have about 20, I suppose 20, 25 varieties of Snowdrop. So I've planted them all in here. And then it starts again with the crocuses. Put in Species Crocus, and I've put in what else? Lots of hellebores, yes, and ferns.
Speaker 2:actually, what I've put in as well for the summer is a miniature hydrangeas I didn't want the big hydrangeas because they would be too big, because I do love hydrangeas, but I've got a miniature ones which I think will only grow about two, two feet high.
Speaker 1:Time will tell yeah, yeah, that'll be nice, yeah, and that'll be. That'll be something that will change over the next few years and, as you say, as the canopy fills out and it becomes more shaded as a woodland, you'll see the changes. Brilliant, yeah. And wildflower meadow is annual mix, you know poppies, cornflowers and so on. Yeah, that'll be a real, real pop of colour.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was amazing last year. A real pop of colour. Oh, it was amazing last year. Now we did make, I suppose, a mistake last year in that we tore back all the sile from the top sile, but actually we're very rocky. There was rock jutting up in parts of it. So, we actually had to bring back in some of the sile for this year. So we actually had to bring back in some of the soil for this year. So we brought in another inch or two of soil this year.
Speaker 2:But, it was amazing. Last year it was probably my favourite, one of my favourite parts of the garden.
Speaker 1:you know, mid-summer- yeah, yeah, and we didn't even necessarily have a wonderful summer weather-wise for wildflowers, but still, yeah, you'd have a lot of flower in in year one with all that, all those annuals, and you mentioned earlier the taken out of the lalandais um yes, and I think you said it's kind of still ongoing or there's some taken out, but not them all yeah, we, there was a lalande um.
Speaker 2:It was actually dividing the original garden and the football pitch, and so we started taking it out in this area and by the time we got down to the corner of the football pitch it was a really windy day and we said if we took the rest of it we'd have had no shelter. So we took out this area just in the dividing the pitch and the original garden, and we put in a double beach. And so now when we look out of our living room, we're looking down as a seat, we look through the double beach and there's a seat at the bottom, whereas before we were just looking out this big green blob. Yeah, so um. So in the meantime then, we've planted a white torn um, a white torn hedge on on the farm side um of the, of the rest of it, and when this, when this matures, then we'll take the rest of the, the lalande yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I was only talking to somebody about yesterday, but they were taking out lalande as well, yeah, so, yeah, I was only talking to somebody about yesterday, but they were taking out lalande as well. And uh, yes, they were all to go and they were recommended by everybody at the time, but but there wasn't anything available back then.
Speaker 1:Really, it was either green lalande or yellow lalande yeah, private that was very little choice yeah, there wasn't much choice and and I suppose what people were looking for at that time was they were looking to screen areas quickly, and it definitely did that because it was so fast yeah, yeah, sure you could. You could plant a hedge and have it fully formed in three or four years it was.
Speaker 2:It was, it was giving shelter in three or four years yeah, yeah, which which is kind of unheard of really.
Speaker 1:Now, you know you, there's very little else, yeah well, well, the beach we bought.
Speaker 2:Actually we, we um bought beach, um what? Five foot high.
Speaker 1:So we've been instant hedge, instant hedge, yeah, yeah we're buying time at this stage yeah, and we mentioned at the start that some of the courses that you're doing, so tell us about some of those. I know you have quite a nice kind of classroom. Is that purpose built or is that something that was really?
Speaker 2:it all just happened, accidentally, really. Um, I was a computer teacher and, uh, for adults, adult education and, um, I suppose we were always at break time, we were always talking about gardening or whatever, and a few of the girls asked me would I give gardening classes? So it was at the back of my mind. So then one day one of the girls said Siobhan, would you really start these gardening classes? We'd love it. So I went off that day and I organized it and we started in the hay barn. So actually I had one. So actually I had one class. I had one class done before COVID and then COVID hit. So then the hay barn was ideal because it was, you know, well ventilated and people just came dressed for the occasion. And so after a year or two then we see that, you know, the numbers were getting bigger. So we well, mostly converted an old shed into a classroom.
Speaker 2:So the main course that I run really is it goes from February until October, just once a month, one morning a month, and the idea behind this is that people would see the progression in the garden. Going back, I did Jimmy's course myself and it was ideal because I thought it was a great idea. You actually see the progression in the garden and you know people can see actually, rather than just um, you know, just hearing about it. So that's, that's that's the most popular um course.
Speaker 2:And in a class I start with them a slideshow, so it might be something on designing or it might be maybe feeding plants this month, and I also take a group of plants that might be annuals or biennials. So we do a slideshow for the first hour and then we spend an hour outside around the garden, you know, seeing what's in flower this month. And then we have we do some practicals. So whatever's to be done this month, like I have a class now, tomorrow, and we'll be pruning hydrangeas, we'll be pricking out seedlings that we did last week we'll be taking basil cuttings from lupins, and so we do some practical every month as well. And then, of course, we have the tea. So it's quite.
Speaker 1:It's quite a social occasion as well yeah, yeah, brilliant, sounds great and other courses that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2:On your uh vegetable for beginners the workshops, then workshops are just once off. You know, if somebody wants to concentrate on something.
Speaker 2:So we start in in february with the cut flower garden, because that's really when you start planting your seeds for your cut flowers. And I used to do wedding flowers, you know, years ago I used to do the, you know, do the churches and the bouquets and things. So I always had an interest in flower arranging so, and you know, nowadays it's been more sustainable to grow your own. So we have that workshop in February. So it covers really from sowing seed going right through to arranging your flowers and making a hand-tied bouquet. And then in May which, oh yeah, last weekend and the weekend before then people were asking me would I do something on vegetable gardening?
Speaker 2:So I did a vegetable gardening for beginners workshop a vegetable gardening for beginners workshop and then in May, coming up next month, I have summer container gardening. Again, you know I think container gardening is great for people. You know they might not have the time or they might not have the health for your normal gardening, so you can still have a garden with your container gardening. So we concentrate on summer containers and, you know, putting the colors together and the different flowers that we can use. And then in September I have a bulb workshop because, again, september is the time you buy all your bulbs for spring. So we have a bulb workshop and they create their own bulb lasagna to take home.
Speaker 1:Brilliant.
Speaker 2:And then last year I started, somebody asked me, would I do Christmas reeds? And that went down a bum.
Speaker 1:Good.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the container basket one is an interesting one, isn't it? Because all of the open gardens, or any of the open gardens that you can think of, they all utilize containers very well, even though they have huge and fabulous gardens as well. So, like I think of, you know, tj Marr's garden. The pots in the courtyard there are phenomenal, so they all utilize those. So it is container gardening and staging of pots, as you say. It's a lot easier to do and you can have something that looks different, probably three or four times a year, different windows, different plants, and you can swap them in and out and you can always have something that looks beautiful right outside your, your your back door or your your patio door or your window or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so I normally plant into plastic pots and then place the plastic pots into the ceramic pots yeah, so when something has gone over, like some of the tulips are gone over already, so I just take away that, take away that pot, and pop in another one and pop in another one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have two for the for this time of the year. I would have just two main um pot pot displays, really one outside the kitchen door and one outside my living room door, and one is pink. Um, again, I I garden by color, and one is a yellow display and one's a pink display.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant. So it sounds like loads to see down there, something for every month as well. And then the different styles of gardens, so your lower maintenance, but still with color, shrub and bulb, I guess mix. Then your vegetable garden, your your pitch, which is now converted into several different colored borders, and now your new woodland and and wildflower meadow.
Speaker 2:so there's loads of kind of different types of gardens, areas of interest there well, the thing is, somebody can come and say, well, some people come and they say, well, I like the circular garden, I'd like to bring that one home. Some people would say they, you know, they like the woodland. More people would like the. You know they can take a section of the garden and create it in their own space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just given that you started and you know you said you made your mistakes with the roses at the very start Any tips for someone that will be kind of starting out on creating their garden? What would you, what would you say?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, in my classes at the moment I have a really good mix of people.
Speaker 2:I have people that have just retired that want to cut down on maintenance, and I have younger people that are just starting from scratch, but they may have not have a lot of time. So what I suggest is people starting off that don't have a lot, or anybody that don't have a lot of time, put in, put in your some nice trees and put in nice shrubs and I like beds of shrubs as well. The same shrubs, maybe a bed of hydrangeas, you know, the mop head, or a bed of the paniculatus, because these are easy maintenance and you can mulch them and then keep an area of colour Around your house. It can be a bed around your patio or it can be a container garden In your patio and you can concentrate on your colour and your work and your work there. But there's no point in putting in all these colourful fancy borders if you can't maintain them. Put in one colourful border that you can maintain and the rest put in your trees and shrubs that are low maintenance.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. That's brilliant advice. It's actually something that we've probably talked about a good beyond some of those things we've talked about on the podcast. Quite a lot is, you know, the, the staging, where you're slipping in and out the pots of your ceramic pots and getting color close to where you can see it, you know, so that you, you can, you can always be looking at something nice, but it's easier to maintain. And definitely what you said at the very start there was to add in trees and and shrubs to give a kind of a structure initially and so yeah, they're all.
Speaker 1:They're all brilliant tips and then you can.
Speaker 2:You can add little areas of interest, like you can pop in a board bath or you can pop in. I have lots of um seats. I think it's. It's nice to have seats or benches around the garden that you can just sit and enjoy yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, that, I think that's that is.
Speaker 1:Another important one is that you can have this gorgeous garden, but to have seats and somewhere where you can sit down and enjoy it and take it in is quite important as well. Yeah, some brilliant, brilliant tips there. Where can people find them at the garden? So so tell us about you know, open days, courses coming up, how people can contact you to find out more, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Actually, John, all the information is on o'mahonygardencom. We have a website and in there is a list of all the classes and actually what's. You know what's the contents of each class, and there's also a section there on open days and actually what's the contents of each class and there's also a section there on open days. We just have three open days in the year at the minute, so there's the first Sunday of July, the first Sunday of August and the first Sunday in September.
Speaker 1:Okay, so three open days, and do you need to pre-book or do you just arrive?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, um again, and I we're also on instagram and facebook. So, coming near the time, I'll put up um you know, an advertisement that it is opened and at 11 to 4 on these three sundays. So, no, you don't have to book, just just turn up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant. So I'll put the link to the website in the show notes anyway, but keep an eye on the website.
Speaker 2:Instagram and Facebook, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you'll get more information as the time goes on around. Courses and open days and so on Sounds like a garden really worth visiting for everyone. There's loads of practical advice there as well. So, yeah, it's uh been a really interesting chat to Vaughan and thank you very, very much for coming on. Master, my Garden podcast thanks, john thanks a million.
Speaker 1:So that's been this week's episode. Huge thanks to Siobhan for coming on um, really interesting information and lots of kind of tips and things that we would have actually previously mentioned on the podcast, which is great to hear. You know, setting up your structure initially, getting a sort of a master plan to work to. That can change over time, but at least it gives you something that you're you know, getting a little bit of structure and you have something to be working towards all the time Sounds like a beautiful garden.
Speaker 1:The different areas there's something of interest for everyone. So the new woodland area, the wildflower meadow, annual wildflower meadow, and then the different borders, all with the different colours and colour themes through it. The planters area and the low maintenance one I think is one that's going to be interesting for people as well. A lot of the shrubs creating a sort of a structure there, and then the bulbs giving you that little pop of color and interest at various times of the season. So loads of interesting stuff there and definitely definitely a garden worth checking out. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening.