Gardening is a way of communing with nature. I may not be the world's best gardener but I like gardens and am interested in growing things. Having a very small suburban garden has many advantages in that it is small and easy to keep under control but one of the problems of being small is that many shrubs outgrow the space available for them. This means, that over the years, we have had to dig up shrubs and give them to people with larger gardens. You may not have spotted it but I did say 'we'. Thérèse is the real gardener of course. I dig the holes, cut the grass and cut back the harder shrubs. I also am the one who has done the hard landscaping. When it comes to choice of flowers or shrubs Thérèse makes the decisions. Drop in sometime and see if you agree with her choices. We don't do any 'nursery' gardening as we just do not have the space. This is a pity as it must be very satisfying to bring plants and flowers on from cuttings or seed.

The task I set myself for today, the 28^th of October, 2002, is to start a gardening page. I was looking around the garden for some inspiration and could not take my eyes of the acer palmatum disectum in the corner. For the past two nights we have been having an Atlantic storm and it has really tossed the garden and caused a lot of leaf fall. Somehow the acer survived but, as there is more torrential rain forecast for tonight, I don't expect it to survive much longer. To remind me of the beautiful colour it turns at this time of the year I photographed it and here it is. Quality is not great but the colour is good.

We enjoy this tree very much each year.

Yesterday I booked my flight to Heathrow for my first visit this year, 2003. The principle reason for this visit is that Oonagh and Tim, who are members of the Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain, have, very kindly, invited Thérèse and myself to visit the Chelsea Flower Show with them on Members day as guests. This is something to look forward to as we have seen programmes on television about it over the years. In fact we have stayed very close to where it is held in Chelsea when Barbara and Sinéad lived in Battersea, just across the Thames. One year we were there during the Show but were not able to get in as admission has to be booked well in advance and even then the applicants well exceed the number of places available. Next year we will be special as it is on Members Day that we will visit. In fact, the tickets have now been booked, all we need do is to turn up on the day. A few years ago Oonagh and Tim took us to the Hampton Flower Show and this was just amazing too. First, the number of people who were there and then the extent of the grounds and the number of exhibits on show. Despite the thousands of people there I met Charlie Wilkins from Cork. Charlie, whom I know for years and years is currently the gardening correspondent for the local paper, The Irish Examiner. It certainly is a small world. So, watch this space, you may even see a photograph of Thérèse with Alan Titchmarsh. Just had a phone call this evening the 9^th of April, 2003, from Thomas to tell me that they 'have a new garden'. Over the past couple of weeks they have had major work done to their back garden. It was sloping to one side and they have had a retaining wall built and back filled and just today they have had a new lawn 'rolled' out. Instant grass. Barbara says that it has transformed the garden and makes it look so different from what it was. That is something to look forward to seeing very soon.

The soil in the area that we live in is clay and difficult to cultivate. Over the years we have been improving the friability of the soil by digging in humus of any type to hand. To facilitate the growing of lime intolerant plants we built a peat bed in the garden. This is about 30 cms. in height and over the years we were very successful in growing azaleas and camellias in it. One plant that thrived in it was a Pieris Forestii. I particularly liked this as it had such a range of colours throughout the year. Unfortunately we developed some disease in the raised bed last year and one by one the plants died off. Some we salvaged and put in pots but others were just too big to save. We haven't discovered what happened the bed. One advisor said it was lack of nutrients, I thought that this was not so and suspected disease. We have treated it with some horrible chemical and have left it unplanted all year in the hope that whatever it is that caused the problem will have died off. Time will tell. I expect that we will plant it up next Spring.

The title on the picture says it all. Note the colour of the Acer in the background.

This is a great photo I took a few years ago of Thomas and George in our garden. I don't think that I could compose this shot again, I certainly could not be assured of the same pose from the 'figures'.

This year, 2003, we have had a very good month of March. No sleety snow showers or rain. Lots of dry days, in fact most days were dry and a lot of sun. Spring has now definitely sprung and my first addition to the garden is the construction of a pergola over the 'walled in' peat bed. This work has been in progress for the past few days and is likely to be finished in a day or two. I will delegate the planting up of this to Thérèse, I think that she intends to have a rose bower or some sort of climbing roses on it - time will tell. No doubt a photo will be taken in due course. The pergola is quite substantial, a lot of timber has gone into it but as we get a lot of strong wind in this area I felt that something substantial was needed as the 'windage' of the finished project will be added to by the plants growing on it.

Well the pergola is finished and the planting has been started; the photo probably does not do it justice as I don't have a 'wide angle' facility in my digital camera and just can't get 'far enough away from it' to give a better impression. I'm sure it will look less sparse when more growth has taken place and various plants have flowered.

Since the photo, above, was taken I have made an addition to the pergola. In between the verticals on both ends I have added three cross pieces, somewhat like the back of a 'ladder-back' chair. On the three nearest the garden gate I have cut out the names of our three grand children, one on each cross piece. Thomas is at the top as he is the senior grand-child; George comes in the middle and Zoë is on the low level where she can see and recognise her name. She thinks it is fun, that is all that matters!

More recently I have added two further names to the pergola. That of Mark and Katie. I made these modifications within hours of the little people being born and I finding out their names! Maybe I am running out of space faster that I realise!!!

Barbara and family visited us this August, 2003 and fortunately the weather couldn't have been better nor the garden be in better condition. Due, of course, to a lot of work being done almost daily. Barbara was experimenting with her new and very sophisticated digital camera and we took a couple of panoramic photos of the garden with it. Here are two, the first is facing about South East and the second one is facing North West. Hope you like them.

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