Property News · August 20, 2016

If you’re moving house, which plants will you take – and which leave behind?


After four decades of tending her Dublin plot, Helen Dillon reveals her must-keeps and mistakesWhen we bought this house in Ranelagh on the edge of Dublin City 44 years ago, my husband Val insisted we would never leave it, except in our “wooden overcoats”. And I don’t know why, but I’ve always disliked the words “retire” and “downsize”. So it was a surprise to me when, in early February, the notion of moving house and making a new garden came into our heads. The decision was made, and we move this autumn.I love this old garden, and also the house. But I’ve become a sort of madly busy maintenance person. Just when I think I’ve got an area sorted out (any plant squashing its neighbours has been pruned, or propagated and moved elsewhere) I notice all-encroaching shade is developing in the opposite bed. Honey fungus, the prime disease of old gardens, is rife, especially in old Dublin ones where everybody grew their own fruit until the boom arrived and they bought their fruit instead, and didn’t dig up the old trees carefully enough, thus making ideal honey fungus conditions. Vine weevil, heaving populations of slugs, snails, swift moths, flat worms and what I hopefully imagine are only large mice have taken over. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…If you’re moving house, which plants will you take – and which leave behind?

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