Cut Flowers

Cut Flowers  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  May 25, 2022 “Growing your own flowers for cutting is all about bringing the outside into your home, reconnecting with a sense of seasonality and nature. Flowers are food for the soul, and it’s time to rediscover the beauty of blooms grown in tune with the season.” Growing your own cut […]

What to sow, grow and do….Benjamin Pope

What to sow, grow and do.  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  June 9, 2022 What to sow, grow and do – A seasonal garden guide from Benjamin Pope. Benjamin Pope has worked in horticulture for over twenty years and is presently head gardener in a private estate in West Sussex where he cares for a large walled kitchen garden with extensive herbaceous borders and […]

Charles Frederick Ball

Charles Frederick Ball  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  May 20, 2022   A portrait of C.F. Ball from 1910 I have known of C.F. Ball for many years, through Wendy Walsh’s beautiful watercolour painting of the plant from the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, named for him, Escallonia rubra ‘C.F. Ball’, from inclusion in Dr. E. Charles Nelson’s A Heritage of Beauty, a […]

Gardening for Gorillas – a book from IGPS member, Stephen Butler

Gardening for Gorillas  Paddy Tobin  Book Review, General Interest  May 18, 2022 It is time for those of us who complain about our garden pests, slugs and snails, greenfly, blackfly and aphids in general, vine weevils, leatherjackets, rabbits, foxes and badgers, even pigeons and pheasants to put things into some perspective and a reading of Stephen Butler’s book, […]

Borde Hill

Borde Hill  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  May 13, 2022 Four generations of the Stephenson Clarke family have created one of the great gardens of England. The plant-collecting enthusiasm of the garden’s founder continued in following generations with wonderful design and modern planting ensuring the best of gardens, one full of the exceptionally good plants organised and displayed […]

Alderborough Nursery – A Review

Alderborough Nursery  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  May 6, 2022 This book is a wonderful testimony to the esteem in which we hold beautiful plants, gardening and horticulture here in Ireland. More especially, it recalls the central part one family nursery played in the life of an Irish community so that it became part of its social history, […]

The Crevice Garden – A Review

Gardening with a Curl!  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  April 15, 2022 “I know a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead And when she was good, she was very very good but when she was bad, she was horrid!” So went the old rhyme and so it is with rock gardens- […]

Coastal Wildflowers – A Review

Coastal Wildflowers Paddy Tobin  Book Review  April 4, 2022 This book delivers far more than its title promises as a great number of the plants included have never felt the salty spray of the sea on their flowers or foliage. It might have been more accurate to say the book describes plants of coastal counties for the […]

Treepedia – A Review

Treepedia  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  December 1, 2021 This little volume is a collection of fact-filled snippets about trees and related topics – people and places, facts and figures, the odd and unusual, the fascinating and the amazing, nearly 100 entries covering all matters arboreal. Jane Maloof is founder and director of the Old-Growth Forest Network and […]

Gardens Under Big Skies – Noel Kingsbury

Gardens under Big Skies – Noel Kingsbury & Maayke de Ridder  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  December 1, 2021 This has been my most enjoyable gardening read in ages and certainly one of my top books of the year. It is one I recommend without hesitation. A large format book crammed with excellent photography showing wonderful gardens. Noel Kingsbury […]

E-Bulletin, January 2022

Dear member Welcome to the IGPS e-bulletin, January 2022 and a Happy New Year. So, without delay and thanks to the Leinster Committee, we will be starting the IGPS calendar of events, straight away with a zoom talk by; Adam Whitbourn Tuesday 11th January 2022. @8pm “Exploring Northern Vietnam and the Blarney Vietnamese woodland.” Adam Whitbourn, head […]

National Plant Collection Status – a note from the National Botanic Gardens.

National Botanic Gardens of Ireland Great news – a collection of 1,000 plants managed by the Irish Garden Plant Society has been awarded National Plant Collection status by Plant Heritage. Hundreds of these rare cultivars grow at the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland. Read more: https://botanicgardens.ie/…/irish-heritage-plants…/ Plant Heritage and the Irish Garden Plant Society both […]

IGPS E- Bulletin, Winter 2021

View this email in your browser Dear IGPS member We hope you have been enjoying the exceptionally mild autumn which seems to have extended to every corner of the country. Despite the unusually balmy temperatures, the days have grown shorter — it’s time to hang up the tools, cosy up indoors and get some inspiration […]

Ferns – Book Giveaway!

Ferns – Book Giveaway!  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  November 2, 2021 Ferns for a Cool Temperate Climate –by Martin Rickard Martin Rickard’s new book on ferns will be the one-stop volume for those with an interest in these very attractive garden plants and if your gardening interests are only now leaning towards ferns, you will find no better […]

PLANT HERITAGE PRESS RELEASE

  Irish heritage plant group awarded National Plant Collection status Over 1,000 types of plant held in 75 different locations in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have been recognised by leading UK horticultural charity   A group of over 1,000 plants that have either been bred, collected or named after Irish horticulturalists and/or […]

Newsletter, September 2021

Issue 153, September 2021, of the Newsletter is in the post and should be with members very soon. There was a slight delay so as to include a reminder that the Dublin Plant Sale has had to be cancelled because as the premises was not available due to concerns re Covid 19. Mary Forrest, Chairman, […]

The View from Federal Twist – A Review

The View from Federal Twist  Paddy Tobin  Book Review  September 29, 2021 This is the story of a gardener and a garden growing and developing together to create a modern American horticultural masterpiece. James Golden was approaching retirement when he purchased a property in western New Jersey, USA, because the house “suited its setting” and “had an intimate […]

E-Bulletin, September 2021

Dear member Welcome to a September edition of the ebulletin. This summer has provided plenty go good weather and, in comparison to last year, many welcome opportunities for us all to enjoy some garden visits. This issue of the ebulletin will share with you some reports, made by members, after enjoying some of the organised […]

CANCELLED – PLANT SALE CANCELLED

Unfortunately, the annual plant sale in Dublin has had to be cancelled as those who manage the venue felt it should not proceed in the present Covid situation. As this has come so unexpectedly there is no possibility of organising a different venue. We are very sorry that we will not meet so many of […]