Fionnuala Fallon

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Fionnuala Fallon

Who doesn’t, I ask you, love a properly sumptuous, decadently lush display of summer containers, with all its fleeting, peacock-ish beauty and promises of long, lazy, sunny days. Few things we do in the garden can so quickly pack a powerful visual punch, as well as an emotional one, reconnecting us with childhood memories of sun-kissed terracotta pots filled with scarlet geraniums, and trailing lipstick-pink petunias spilling out of hanging baskets.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Fionnuala Fallon

In the world of gardening, plant collectors are something of a breed apart, with an endearingly boffinish passion for their chosen subject that can often border on the obsessive. In the case of Billy Alexander, owner of the otherworldly Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry, this genial, deeply knowledgeable horticulturist is what the Victorians would once have described as a “pteridomaniac”, a man whose decades-long, unwavering fascination with ferns has shaped his life in countless ways.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Fionnuala Fallon

I’ve very recently purchased a polytunnel for my garden that I plan to use for growing vegetables and maybe a little fruit. I already have some outdoor vegetable beds, so I’m not short of growing space. But I’d really appreciate some advice on what kinds of crops you’d recommend for growing under cover. – Mary Heffernan, Co DublinCongratulations on your new polytunnel.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Fionnuala Fallon

In the world of gardening, plant collectors are something of a breed apart, with an endearingly boffinish passion for their chosen subject that can often border on the obsessive. In the case of Billy Alexander, owner of the otherworldly Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry, this genial, deeply knowledgeable horticulturist is what the Victorians would once have described as a ‘pteridomaniac’, a man whose decades-long, unwavering fascination with ferns has shaped his life in countless ways.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Fionnuala Fallon

I was a young teenager when I first started wondering about the far-reaching effects of synthetic garden chemicals. Overwhelmed by the weeds that flourished in our family garden’s damp pebble paths, my mother (a woman already far ahead of her time when it came to strictly avoiding the use of those same chemicals on the soil and crops in her kitchen garden) reluctantly organised for them to be sprayed with a ‘non-residual’ weedkiller.