Dylan 2004 - 2018

On the 18th. December we said goodbye to our dear old dog Dylan. He was 14 years and 10 months old. He survived his brother Thomas by 10 months and 6 days. We will miss him dearly.
He is buried beside his brother in  our garden.

                                                           Photograph © Hans van den Bos 

Birds in Hortus Godotii -I-

Cyanistes caeruleus [Blue tit]

Parus major [Great tit]

Periparus ater [Coal tit]

Sturnus vulgarus [Starling]

Passer domesticus [House sparrow]

Kirengeshoma palmatum with its beautiful flowers

Family: Hydrangeaceae.

The genus name is Japanese, ki-rengeshōma (黄蓮華升麻); ki means ‘yellow’ and rengeshōma is a somewhat similar plant, the false anemone (Anemonopsis). 

A herbaceous perennial forming a clump to 1.2m, with palmately lobed leaves and dark maroon stems and nodding, fleshy, narrowly bell-shaped creamy-yellow flowers to 3.5cm in length in open panicles. Flowers from late summer to mid-autumn. Height 120 cm. Likes a sheltered site with acid, moist but well-drained soil in full - to partial shade.

October 2018

September 2018

July 2018

May 2018

                                                               Photographs © Hans van den Bos 

Six new clematis will climb coming spring in Godot's Garden

End of August we received four and yesterday two of the plants we had ordered by Thorncroft Clematis in Norfolk, U.K.. Here below you see the photos, which we took from the website of the grower.
For a free download version of the Thorncroft Care Guide click here: https://www.thorncroftclematis.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/Thorncroft-CareGuide-2017-02-A5-web01.pdf

Clematis 'Edith'

Clematis 'Fair Rosamund'

Clematis 'Fuji Musume'

Clematis 'Gojō-gawa'

Clematis 'Haku Ookan'

Clematis 'Mercury'

Delphinium flowers for the second time

Delphinium x elatum 

'Magic Fountain'

Flowers from 29th May to 14th July, 2018

and again

from 6th September, 2018 onwards

                                                     Photographs © Hans van den Bos 

Dicksonia antarctica

In the garden since 2009, it survived the frost of last winter and the heatwave of this summer.

Photographs © Hans van den Bos 

The Athyriums in 2018

A. angustata 'Lady in Red' - A. 'Branford rambler' - A. filix-femina
A. filix-femina 'Frizelliae' - A. filix-femina 'Minutissimum'
A. filix-femina 'Vernoniae cristatum' - A. 'Ghost'

A. nipponicum 'Burgundy Lace'  - A. nipponicum 'Pictum'
A. nipponicum 'Red Beauty' - A. otophorum 'Okanum'

Photographs & Design

Hans van den Bos 

Music 

Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy 

Lieder ohne Worte

Adagio in F major, Opus 53 No. 4

Piano 

Frank van der Laar

An uninvited, but welcome guest found its way into the garden

Polypodium cambricum

The southern polypody or Welsh polypody, is a species of fern in the family Polypodiaceae, native to southern and western Europe. It is a spreading, terrestrial fern growing to 60 cm tall, with pinnate fronds. The sori are yellow in winter.

The specific epithet cambricum means "Welsh", from the Latinized form of Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales.

Photographs © Hans van den Bos

The Hostas in 2018

H. 'Big Daddy' - H. 'Bressingham Blue' - H. 'Empress Wu' - H. 'Fortunei perperam intitulatum' - H. 'Hadspen Blue' - H. 'Invicible' - H. 'Minuteman' - H. 'Orange Marmalade' - H. 'Patriot' - H. sieboldiana 'Frances William' - H. 'Undulata'

Photographs & Design

Hans van den Bos 

Music 

Frédéric François Chopin 

- Waltz in A minor - 

Piano 

Hilary Reynolds

http://hilaryreynolds.net/

The Dahlias in 2018

Dahlia 'David Howard'

Dahlia 'Mignon G.F. Hemerik'

Dahlia 'Ice Crystal'

Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff'

The Eye of Hokusai

2014   documentary

about the life and work

of

the legendary 18th/19th century

Japanese painter and print-maker

Katsushika Hokusai

Going Bananas

Turdus m. merula - Junior
A little more than a week ago we saw Junior for the first time with its mother and father. It was fed by its mother with little pieces of pear and apple, that we had thrown out onto a raised  bed close to our breakfast table on the patio. The next day we saw in our kitchen that somebody had picked a hole in one of our bananas. We suspected our local robin, but came to the conclusion that the damage was too big for such a little one. We put the banana out on the favoured spot of the blackbird family and, shortly after, we witnessed the whole family devour it within an hour. This morning we saw Junior on its own looking around for food. We had one banana left which we put it out for our young adolescent, as you can see on the photograph below. 

Junior

Daddy

                                                  Photographs © Hans van den Bos

A birthday present

Xanthoceras sorbifolium

Photograph © Hans van den Bos

Xanthoceras sorbifolium (yellowhorn, shiny leaf yellowhorn, goldenhorn, Chinese flowering chestnut) is a woody perennial in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae, and the only species in the genus Xanthoceras. It is native to northern China in the provinces of Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Liaoning, Nei Monggol, Ningxia, Shaanxi, and Shandong. It is also cultivated in Russia, having been imported there since the 19th Century.

Photograph © Kiewscience - Plants of the world online

It is a large shrub or small tree growing to 8 m tall. The leaves are arranged alternately, 12–30 cm long, and are pinnate, with 9–17 leaflets, the leaflets 3–6 cm long, with a sharly serrated margin. The flowers are 2–3 cm diameter, with five white petals, and are produced in erect panicles 10–20 cm long in mid spring. The fruit is an oval leathery capsule 5–6 cm diameter, which splits into three sections at maturity to release the 6–18 seeds; the seeds are black, 1.5 cm diameter, resembling a small horse chestnut seed.

The genus (which translates as "yellow horn") is considered to be the most basal member of the family. The specific epithet refers to the leaves, similar to those of rowans (Sorbus). It was originally spelled as sorbifolia, but this is a grammatical error that was corrected to sorbifolium under the ICBN.

X. sorbifolium has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

The leaves, flowers, and seeds of yellowhorn are all edible.

--source Wikipedia--

Open Day in Hortus Godotii

on 23rd June 2018 for special guests

Gerald Lane - Mitchelstown

Jonathan Mathews - Rathcormack

Ithel McKenna - Blackwater Garden Centre, Kinsalebeg Youghal

and 

Peter Stam - Stam Bamboo, Lismore

Ithel with Hans, one of the owners
[photo by Peter Stam]

Botanical Art .2.

Phyllostachys aureosulcata var. aureocaulis

With Evening Clouds

by

Jean Dubois

Botanical Art .1.

Phyllostachys aureosulcata var. aureocaulis

In Black and Grey

by

Jean Dubois

The enemies of slugs and snails

Turdus v. viscivorus
photo: Hans van den Bos

The biggest problem in the fight against slugs and snails in the garden are cats
and dogs. They keep the enemies of slugs and snails far away from your garden. You will see, that the slug and snail population becomes smaller, when you can get neighbours' cats out of the garden and your own lovely one inside the house. Should your dog not be friendly to other creatures, also keep it inside and walk it 3 times  a day outside your garden.


Het grootste probleem in de strijd tegen slakken in de tuin zijn katten en honden. Zij houden de vijanden van de slakken ver van uw tuin. U zult merken, dat de slakken populatie kleiner wordt, als u de katten van de buren buiten de tuin kunt houden en uw eigen lieveling in huis houdt en als uw hond niet vriendelijk is voor andere diersoorten, houdt hem dan ook binnen en laat hem 3 keer per dag buiten uw tuin uit. 



Here is a list of slug and snail enemies:
Hier is een lijst met de vijanden van slakken:

Hedgehogs, rats, mice, shrews, squirrels, weasels, mollen, and ...humans.	Egels, ratten, muizen, spitsmuizen, eekhoorns, wezels, mollen, en ....mensen.
Song thrushes, blackbirds, grouse, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, starlings, fieldfares gulls, owls, robins, chickens and ducks.	Zanglijsters, merels, hazelhoen, roeken, kauwtjes, vlaamse gaaien, eksters, spreeuwen, kramsvogels, meeuwen, uilen, roodborstjes, kippen en eenden.
Toads, frogs, turtles, newts and slow worms.	Padden, kikkers, schildpadden, salamanders en hazelwormen.
Flies, mites, nematodes, millipedes, centipedes, some caterpillars and fireflies, leeches, beetles and their larvae.	Vliegen, mijten, nematoden, miljoenpoten, duizendpoten, enkele rupsen en vuurvliegen, bloedzuigers, kevers en hun larven.

The beauty of the Californian Lilac

Ceanothus thyrsiflorus 

var. 'Repens'

A small, but vigorous evergreen shrub of low, spreading habit, but much taller when grown against a wall. Leaves ovate, glossy dark green. Flowers light blue, in compact panicles in spring and early summer.

                             Photographs © Hans van den Bos, Ireland

Godot's Blue Period - May 2018

Photographs © Hans van den Bos, Ireland

Ajuga reptans	Anemone blanda
Aquilegia vulgaris ''Metamorphosis Blue''	Camassia leichtlinii ''Caerula''
Campanula poscharskyana	Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. ''Repens''
Hyacinthoides non-scripta	Iris hollandica ''Sapphire Beauty''
Lithodora diffusa ''Heavenly Blue''	Meconopsis grandis
Muscari botryoides	Rhododendron impeditum
Scabiosa columbaria ''Butterfly Blue''	Veronica umbrosa ''Georgia Blue''
Viola ''Etain''	Viola riviniana

Just arrived

Hosta ''Hadspen Blue''

Hosta ''Orange Marmalade''

Photographs © Hans van den Bos, Ireland

The 5 Japanese Maples of Hortus Godotii

Acer japonicum ''Green Cascade''

Acer palmatum ''Beni-maiko''

Acer palmatum ''Bloodgood''

Acer palmatum ''Chitose-yama''

Acer palmatum ''Dissectum Viridis''

                   Photographs © Hans van den Bos, Ireland