The Society recently organised a very enjoyable visit to Jimi Blake’s garden, Huntingbrook, and we are most grateful to him for his kind gift of Geranium ‘Mount Venus’ for the Lismacloskey Rectory Garden at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. It was a perfect summer day when Barbara and Maureen arrived with the geranium for Lorna to plant.

Geranium ‘Mount Venus’

The morning’s work included lots of weeding and dead-heading but there was also time to watch the numerous bumble bees gathering nectar and to admire the dozen or so Painted Lady butterflies which were fluttering all over the garden and especially around the Irish cultivar Buddleja davidii ‘Glasnevin Hybrid’.

Another butterfly in evidence was a Green-veined White. Veronica ‘Ulster Dwarf Blue’ echoed the colour scheme of the Buddleja but sadly was not attracting the insects.

Photographs and text from Maeve Bell.