Nurseries Ireland, Nursery Plants, Trees, Shrubs, Garden Nurseries - MyPlant

Is Gardening again becoming a necessary life skill?

2011-09-06T04:18:00.000-07:00

Is Gardening again becoming a necessary life skill?

Plantarium 2011 and stuff

2011-08-31T13:57:00.000-07:00

Things have been hectic over the summer months, difficult to dicipline time aside to write any blog posts. We have just completed another Plantarium show in Netherlands.
Plantarium seemed a quieter show this year yet quality and quantity of serious enquires were up on last year. This years show again attracted a lot of visitors from USA and our business there continues to progress despite the general economic downturn and uncertain year this year. Of course if we were fortunate enough to live in better times I am sure we like everyone would be a lot happier but possibly slow growth will make us stronger.

We have been holding back a little from announcing some of our newest plants for 2012 but I assure you all that will change in the coming months and we will feature some of our new key plants for 2012 as we build towards IPM 2012 which takes place at the end of January and this will be our 6th year exhibiting at this great show. I have loaded some pictures from Plantarium 2011 to my facebook page.

Plantarium 2011 had a stronger focus this year on hardy woody plants and our Nandina got great attention. Our Carex range continues to attract great interest and our newest addition Carex Everillo is off to a fantastic start. Everillo amongst plenty of our other Carex was on two growers stands at Plantarium and they report great interest in this plant. While hardy and woody plants are making a resurgence Cordyline and spot colour is also forging ahead so long as its not too expensive the public hunger for colour is unstoppable. Sometimes we may forget we are not only growing plants but also providing colour in peoples environment and this is one important function of plants. If you look closely at peoples expressions when they look at plants you will son learn plants can be responsible for positive mood swings and this i s due in no small part to the influence of colour, at least I believe so. I did a post a while back on my blog on some plants that bring such colour. I need to update this urgently as so many additional colours are now coming in very hardy easy care plants.

http://fitzgeraldnurseries.blogspot.com/2009/08/plants-for-autumn-balcony-and-patio.html

In the meantime I hope you enjoy the fading light of summer and hopefully we can have one of those beautiful Septembers we sometimes get in this part of the world.

Is Gardening again becoming a necessary life skill?

2011-03-20T16:30:00.001-07:00

The co-incidence.

In this blog post I am re-posting a piece I first posted on http://www.myplant.ie/ back in May 2009. A few weeks after I first posted this the article was hacked and my website brought down by a virus planted on the site by hackers. My site hosting and maintenance guys said the attacks were targeted at this article possibly due to the mention of the White House. They fixed my website as luckily we got the attack early. Sometimes its very hard to get away from the feeling some things are predestined. As you will see on my last blog piece this week our primroses landed in the very place I was highlighting in the article below. http://fitzgeraldnurseries.blogspot.com/2011/03/gifting-of-kennedy-irish-primrose.html

Due to this amazing coincidence and the fact that the White House Garden project or the trend towards people growing their own vegetables wasn't just a passing fad I decided to re post this piece. I would also like your opinion on the questions posed at the end.

Is Gardening becoming a necessary life skill?

Original post.

This is probably not so hard to believe from some of us who have been around the block before. One of the silver linings for us as Horticulturists in somewhat depressing times like these is that people have more time to spend reassessing their interests, what is important and un-important. So far it looks like the signs so far are telling us that nature, growing your own and generally appreciating the garden, parks and the free or not so expensive things in life are coming out as important.

In the USA there has been a very encouraging and dedicated lobby since last November to have a vegetable garden planted in the grounds of the White House and from the picture here you can see this has been successful and has begun. Congratulations are due to the idea instigator to the people who worked on and supported this project and for achieving such success. Have a look at the official White House Farmer website WWW.WHITEHOUSEFARMER.COM .

With the eyes of the world on the new American first family this image on the White House farmer website has to be one of the most interesting garden images this month and many of us in the Horticulture world could not have imagined such an image emanating from such a prestigious and austere location until now.

A number of months ago I came across a saying from a contemporary American writer called Orson Scott Card which goes 'Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden'.

We have to hope that mass unemployment is not what it will take to get many of us to plant a garden. It's an unfortunate and interesting fact that sometimes it takes shocks of great magnitude to make some of us realize what's important and what's not. We can only hope now that when the world economy does eventually recover some lessons will have been learned and children will remember the folly of some of their elders in neglecting a few basic life skills and considerations that are the essence of our existence. Whether it be for food or for pleasure plant life is beneficial to mankind even the humblest apparently undesirable weed gives benefit to the planet and our immediate environment. For those of us who depend on gardening for a living let's hope that the many skills in the industry the great plants, fruit and vegetables that are produced by our sector will be valued and appreciated much more, by a greater amount of people and a new kind of consumer and gardener.

Lets hope our time in the sun has come.

Now almost two years on what do you think? Have we seen a change of mindset towards people in our profession or trade? Will the young people all over the world who have been exposed to the many projects like the White House Garden be better off for this new trend? Is it too early to say it has changed anything in the longer 25 year perspective when these children will be adults with children of their own?

The gifting of a Kennedy Irish Primrose

2011-03-18T12:57:00.001-07:00

It isnt often one of our plants gets such a wonderful first outing that they are given as a gift from our country to the first Lady of the United States of America. So I felt I must share this news with everyone.

I am honoured to announce that on 17th of March, St Patricks Day, a special basket of our new Kennedy Irish Primrose variety Drumcliff was chosen as a gift to Mrs Obama. The Primrose basket was given to Mrs Obama during the recent visit of An Taoiseach Mr Enda Kenny T.D and his wife Mrs Fionnuala Kenny to the White House, Washington D.C. This is the first time these Primroses have been seen in full flower in the USA and we at FitzGerald Nurseries are delighted that they were chosen for such an auspicious occasion. The Primroses were propagated in County Wexford, Ireland and grown to flowering size in County Kilkenny, Ireland. Plants were inspected and certified in accordance with United States Department of Agriculture import regulations and shipped to special facilities of Herronswood Nurseries in Pennsylvania USA where plants were acclimatized and prepared for the final presentation.

The Kennedy Irish Primroses were launched this January coinciding with the 50th Anniversary of the inauguration of John F Kennedy as President of United States of America. Primula Drumcliffe is named after the final resting place of the famous Irish poet W.B Yeats. The second variety released in 2011 is named Innisfree after the poem Lake Isle of Innisfree. Further varieties will be released over the coming years.

Pat FitzGerald.

Plants are now currently available to the public in Ireland from most good Garden Centres and in USA by mail orderhttp://www.heronswood.com/perennials_perennials-p-to-r_primula/ .

You can find more information on the Kennedy Irish Primroses by clicking here.

- FitzGerald Nurseries was founded in 1990. Ever since a child Pat has been involved in the growing of vegetable and garden plants. From the age of 17 Pat started studying Horticulture then proceeded after leaving college to work in the gardening industry. - Pat FitzGerald selects, breeds and cultivates new plant varieties and in his own right is responsible for many new garden plant varieties now available to gardeners worldwide. - Joseph Kennedy breeder of the Kennedy Irish Primroses has been breeding old Irish Primroses from old Irish cultivars dating back to the 1800’s. After retiring early from dentistry almost 30 years ago Joe took up his breeding passion full time but never released any of his work to the public until now. - About the same time as Pat was leaving his formal Horticulture studies Joe began his serious collecting of the old Irish Primrose varieties. Twenty five years later their paths crossed, they combined their mutual talents and the Kennedy Irish Primrose range was born. After five more years of selecting and propagation in Ireland the first two varieties of these plants are now available to the public. Much more to come so watch this space.

FitzGerald Nurseries wins Innovation Award

2011-03-04T15:28:00.001-08:00

Irish Times InterTradeIreland All-island Innovation Awards.

Leaders in their field, FitzGerald Nurseries Ltd have been nominated for their system, which have been designed to develop plants, marketing, micro-propagation production systems and routes to international markets for their plant ranges developed.

Mr Pat FitzGerald from FitzGerald Nurseries Ltd said: We were delighted to be even shortlisted originally but to win this award in the prescence of such fantastic high tech companies is indeed an honour. It is especially wonderful to be recognized and awarded for innovation. We work hard to be the best at what we do and to come up with new products for the our customers and the international marketplace.” In the field of Horticulture this is not an easy task where mainstream industrial support and thinking is not always supported in the same manner as in other industries. FitzGerald Nurseries Ltd can be proud of this achievement and look forward to developing increased exports and business development over the coming years.
“Our products have proven to be of world class standards and we have proven this through market entry success in 18 countries worldwide. You can see these products in more detail on http://www.fitzgerald-nurseries.com/ and http://www.myplant.ie/ and judge for yourself.”
Now in its second year, the Irish Times InterTradeIreland All-island Innovation Awards aim to recognise and promote the best service, product or operational innovations throughout the island. Over 120 companies entered the seven categories of the competition. Twenty one of these were then shortlisted for the awards by a judging panel, before the final winners were selected.

Commenting on the awards, Liam Nellis, Chief Executive of InterTradeIreland and Chair of the Innovation awards final judging panel said “Despite the economic situation, we have been extremely encouraged by the level and diversity of innovations represented by our finalists and winners. Not only do they have strong ideas and innovative processes, crucially, they are market-led and market-focused. I’m delighted that these awards have managed to achieve exactly what they set out to do, which is to showcase the best examples of innovation on the island.”

The final judging panel for the event included Colm Long, Facebook, Liam Nellis InterTradeIreland, Peter Callan, The Irish Times Group, Michael Carey, Jacob Fruitfield Food Group, Tim Cody, Accenture, Ivan Coulter, Sigmoid Pharma and Deirde Terrins, Crescent Capital.
Liam Kavanagh, Managing Director of the Irish Times added, “We sometimes get caught up in the finer points of policies and strategies at a national level without appreciating the people who are putting all the fine words into practice. That’s what this event tonight – and indeed our monthly Innovation magazine – is all about.
-ends-

- FitzGerald Nurseries was founded in 1990. The company set up Gadera Ltd its micro-propagation production facility in Enniscorthy Co Wexford in 2005. FitzGerald Nurseries employs 20 people and its sister company Gadera Ltd 15 people.
- Pat FitzGerald selects and breeds new plant varieties and is responsible for many new patent and breeders rights protected varieties worldwide. The company also offeres separate services to breeders around the world.
- For further information about the awards please visit www.irishtimes.com/innovationawards

National Innovation Award shortlisting

2011-01-31T03:56:00.000-08:00

FitzGerald Nurseries Ltd has been shortlisted for a National Innovation Award from a nationwide and Island wide group of small, medium and large multi-national companies.

This is great honour for us. Especially as small family farm based rural business to be included with mainstream high tech multi-national companies with specific dedicated R&D companies. I believe this shows that Ireland is now more serious about building its economy to include a second tier of indigenous and niche developed small export focused businesses. As a small enterprise owners operating in an international marketplace dependent on 90% of our sales from exports it is essential that we develop products specific to our company but profitable and fit for our customers purposes. Therefore we must have systems and strategies to ensure this happens at all levels of our economy not just for the large corporate. This is just as essential for a small rural business as it is for multi-national.

FitzGerald Nurseries are proud to be the recipient of this recognition if only to establish a basic principal that Ireland must develop enterprise brick by brick and not in large loose insecure towers of Babel. This innovation must come from the companies on the ground and cannot come from state services but can be supported by them through policy and reform of business categorization.. I would like to thank the Irish Times and Inter Trade Ireland Innovation Awards judging panel for looking deeper into what we do by way of product development.

I would like to thank all who have believed in and supported our efforts over the last few years to develop such a business model and hope this shortlisting gives some recognition to this trust in us.

End.

Kennedy Irish Primrose Collection

2011-01-03T15:23:00.000-08:00

Announcing the Kennedy Irish Primrose collection.

A unique collection of Primroses bred over 35 years from old Irish varieties.

I am pleased to reveal the hard work and dedication one of Ireland’s leading amateur primrose breeders, Joe Kennedy, has been acknowledged with the help of FitzGerald Nurseries. We will release several new varieties of “Kennedy Irish Primroses” over the coming three years starting in Spring 2011. In the meantime Joe continues to work on future exciting lines to add to this uniquely Irish range of varieties.

Our ancestors believed that the primrose deterred evil fairies and a scatter of primroses outside the door would keep witches away. My own first contact with primroses came as a child seeing drifts of them growing in the 2000 year old Rath (Celtic Ringfort) on our farm here in County Kilkenny.

Portrait painting of Primrose breeder Joseph Kennedy.

Since then I have had a soft spot for Primroses and now another reason for this is the wonderful work of Joe Kennedy, who hails from Carlow but now lives near Ballycastle, County Antrim. A modest man with exceptional ability as an amateur breeder, his professional training as a dentist has given him a precision and attention-to-detail perfectly suited to the finer points of breeding.

I first met Joe in 2006 having contacted him after reading an article he wrote in an Irish Garden Plant Society (IGPS) Newsletter. We got in touch over the phone and he was soon educating me on the history and breeding of this beautiful plant in Ireland going back to the late 1800's. From that moment on I was hooked on bringing these wonderful plants to the world. Since then I have selected some of Joes best work and we have developed micropropagation protocols so that we can produce sufficient numbers to launch to gardeners in USA and Euope.

A new creation from good stock

With this launch, I hope we can do Joes work some justice by bringing to a much wider audience these wonderful old-style “Kennedy Irish Primroses”. After 35 dedicated years of breeding, we hope it’s a proud moment for Joe also as it certainly is for us.

The first plant launch to start the program coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the inauguration of John F Kennedy as President of USA in January 1961. New additional varieties in this first series will be released through to the 50th Anniversary of his visit to Ireland and death in 1963. This collaboration between a Fitzgerald and a Kennedy to bring old Irish Primroses, all the way from County Wexford, near the old Kennedy homestead, is a typically Irish coincidence. All of the plants are being produced in Co Wexford. We are currently working on 36 more selections. Plants of the first two selections will be available this Spring. Innisfree is a vivid red with yellow eye on dark foliage and Drumcliff another dark foliage variety but this time with larger white flowers tinted with lilac hue when opening. More varieties will follow with yellow, white, peach and pink flowers all on the most intensely dark purple foliage ever seen on Primroses.

All this development will secure local employment in Co Wexford and Co Kilkenny only a stonesthrow from another Irish Kennedy story.

In addition to unique foliage characteristics we are working on other exciting traits all bred by Joe from the old Irish varieties dating back to the late 19th century. I hope gardeners will agree a new direction in the beauty of the Primrose has been born out of these old robust perrenial Irish selections. Many of the later varieties will introduce some of the old “Hose-in-Hose”, “Jack-in-the-Greens” and various matt-forming stoloniferous types. Unique characteristics , just like Joe himself.

Primula Innisfree release in March 2011, must be the darkest foliage Primrose ever!

Seedling selections of future lines

For release in 2012

The Lake Isle of Innisfree. By William Butler Yeats.

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Update on Sweet potato growing Trial in Ireland.

2010-07-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

Update

Novemeber 2010.

We harvested the Sweet Potato in late October and yield per plant averaged 1.5 kg but on the good rows we got up to 2 Kg on some plants. As we planted on the flat we reduced yield per plant so next seasons plants will definitely go into drills. this season we were not able to drill the particular site. Next years trial has already been decided on and ill be 3 times bigger with a total of 4 very different varieties three of which are totally new to cultivation. These are pictures from from this years harvesting.

Progress of our Sweet Potato Trial.

Planted on 17th of May the first to my knowledge serious scaled production of Sweet Potato here in Ireland is making great progress. The purpose of the trial is to establish what yield and commercial value this crop can have for organic greenhouse production. As you see in this picture the crop was planted as very small two leaf cuttings. See earlier blog post.

http://fitzgeraldnurseries.blogspot.com/2010/05/sweet-potato-planting-for-2010.html

By early June this is how the crop looked.

In mid June I then applied biological control for insects. All weeding was done by hand, flame burner and hoe until the crop fully covered the soil.

This is a picture taken of the crop on 23rd of July, well on the way to being a bumper crop. The strong performance of the crop leads me to believe it should be possible to grow a successful crop in Ireland using "Spanish Tunnels" until end of July. Then leave uncovered until harvest. Already I am planning to make this the subject of a 2011 trial.

More on this crop when we harvest in late September.

We are ahead of the trend curve on this Check out these articles.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119560675497599936.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704691304575254771704417714.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/series/recipes_for_health/sweet_potatoes/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/us/25sweet.html

Urban Oasis at Bloom in the Park 2010

2010-06-01T14:36:00.000-07:00

Urban Oasis Garden at Bloom in the Park 2010

http://www.myplant.ie/ http://bloominthepark.com/engagingspaces/

The Urban Oasis

Choice and theme of plants form an integral part of all gardens from the most minimalist Japanese designs to the riotous flower colour of the Victorian perennial border. This year at Bloom in the Park 2010 three professionals from the gardening world from Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland have come together to pool their years of gardening, artistic and architectural talent into an Urban Oasis which I hope you will agree brings a new outlook on plants in the urban living space.
The plants of Urban Oasis were selected by Designer Dawn Aston predominantly with foliage as a major and crucial consideration. Over the last 10 years I have travelled all over the world both physically and virtually in seek of sustainable foliage colour for the garden and garden containers. Out of this search and foliage lust we have developed a business at FitzGerald Nurseries and MyPlant® which focuses singularly on foliage but should the plant have great seasonal flowering this is of course an important bonus. For what seems forever flower has dominated the visual reporting and public ohh and ahhh of garden shows while foliage sits in the background very evident and giving perfect foil, contrast and sustenance to flower. As a nurseryman it has been a fantastic opportunity to work with Dawn Aston and Crawford Leitch who just like the foliage to the flower give talented and inspired environment for human and plant to interact. I had always wanted to participate in such a project and thanks to Dawn and Crawford for coming up with this wonderful environment giving MyPlant’s this wonderful Urban Garden environment.

The Plants of Urban Oasis.
In 2008 I launched MyPlant® as a brand to represent a range of easy to grow garden plants for small gardens, the concept of such a range was awarded Press Prize at one of the worlds most important professional nursery shows Plantarium. Plantarium is held in Boskoop Netherlands the heart of European garden plant production so this was a great honour. http://www.myplant.ie/news.php?n_id=33

Now in 2010 thanks to this opportunity with Urban Oasis the plants can speak for themselves and show their value in this style of environment I first envisaged the collection would be used in. I hope this information gives you some idea to the background and people behind the introduction of each key plant and its origin. Behind most good garden plants lays a story of search, discovery or breeding. In addition to this work production development must be undertaken to bring this new life form to the world at large. Breeders and selectors must ensure any new plant introduction has some uniquely distinguishable attribute that makes it worth all the fuss. I feel we have chosen plants for this wonderful Urban Oasis which are just that. The following paragraphs will try to give a brief history of these wonderful plants. For more detailed information on the plants you can see http://www.myplant.ie/ .

Key feature plants.

Carex oshimensis Evergreen is similar to the species form of the Oshima sedge from Japan with wonderful simple brown tipped abundances of flower in Spring. Later we will see more selections of the Oshima sedge which I have made over the last few years and are now FitzGerald Nurseries most popular exported plant. Almost 1 million Carex plants will be produced by us in 2010. Evergreen provides a simple natural and relaxing under planting or feature plant in containers and this from was selected for its more compact growth and depth of colour.

Libertia ixiodes Goldfinger selected at Naturally Native Nurseries in New Zealand and marketed in Europe by Plantipp Netherlands on behalf of New Zealand’s Lyndale Nurseries Kiwi Gold native New Zealand plant collection. When I first saw this new Libertia variety on a trip to New Zealand in 2003 I knew immediately it was a must have. Goldfinger sets the gold vein for Dawns artistic theme in Urban Oasis and Crawford in his design catches this with some well positioned gold and mineral finishes in the structure of the garden. Libertia Goldfinger is one of my favourite introductions and is ideal for containers in the colder regions and mass planting in coastal and milder parts. Goldfinger will tolerate temperatures of -5 C to -7 C but below these temperatures will need protection with heavy fleece covering. This fantastic plant has white flowers in May and the foliage colour changes from butter yellow to old gold as temperatures decrease through Autumn and Winter. There is no plant like Goldfinger and it lives up to its iconic name all plants of Goldfinger like all the other plants in Urban Oasis are produced here in Ireland, exported throughout Europe and many other countries worldwide. I am proud to be associated with this wonderful plant and deligted it gets pride of place in the garden

Carex trifida Rekohu Sunrise is Another representative from New Zealand’s native flora. This is the first introduction from the trifida species of Carex and in New Zealand is commonly known as Muttonbird Sedge due to the flowers resembling the feet of the native Muttonbird. Rekohu Sunrise was bred by Mr Terry Hatch of Joy Nurseries in New Zealand, During this harsh and prolonged cold spell of January 2010 I found this plant to be even hardier than first thought and is a wonderful addition to the urban landscape palette. Rekohu Sunrise can be cut right back to tidy it up in March / early April and will produce vigorous but compact shoots of wonderful bright foliage take a close look at the flower of this plant as you walk through the Urban Oasis its most unusual in detail.

Ophiopogon nigrascens and its other mondo grass relatives are some of hardiest, functionally attractive and most versatile dwarf ground cover plants available. Slow growing ground hugging and with wonderful detail in flower and berry what more can one ask from a plant but there is more. Ophiopogon nigrascens is drought tolerant, will grow in shade semi shade and full sun and is hardy to at least -15 C what more can I say? This Japanese native provides attractive ground cover in the garden but look closely and you will see the developing lilac coloured flower spikes which on mature plants set attractive black berries. Well I have a hidden treasure surprise for you! I can say more because three years ago I received an improved variety of this wonderful plant and its called Blackbeard. Since then we have been exclusively working to produce this plant in the MyPlant laboratory to distribute to nurseries worldwide and now I can tell you more! Ophiopogon nigrascens Blackbeard will be available to the gardening public for the first time ever in limited numbers as 9cm pots here at Bloom in the Floral Marquee! Blackbeard was bred by my friend and wonderful plants man Steve Yandell from Penzance (where else would a good pirate come from). Steve selected Blackbeard for its faster growth, longer leaves and more clumping habit. This is what plant breeders do and Steve has added immensely to the value of this the blackest foliage plant on earth suitable for garden use. Dawn has made appropriate and use of Ophiopogon nigrascens in her Urban Oasis.

Canna Tropicanna is a wonderful Tropical perennial plant introduced by Mr Keith Kirsten from South Africa named and marketed around the world by Anthony Tesselaar International. Tropicanna has led to two other varieties now introduced and featuring in Urban Oasis Tropicanna Black and Tropicanna Gold making a wonderful collection of this colourful and exotic plant. Like all of the plants in Urban Oasis you can read more about Tropicanna on http://www.myplant.ie/ Canna Generally has a reputation for being difficult to grow by some people. Over the last 5 years I have been involved in a project to make growing these Canna varieties much easier. I am pleased to say that from work done by our nursey and plant laboratory we now have young vigorous plants which are easy to grow. As Canna is a tropical plant one can easily be put off in cold damp Ireland but I assure you with the same care as you would give Dahlia, Tropicanna can be a wonderful addition to the small garden and should not be ignored for those of us with foliage colour lust. Tropicanna also has spectacular flowering.

Royal Hawaiian Colocasia Collection. You haven’t heard of this series before? This is because its another surprise in the Urban Oasis and another first. These Colocasia are again like Tropicanna tropical plants in the Urban Oasis garden and yet another first time display treat for Irish gardeners looking for something special. Royal Hawaiian Colocasia can be seen in more detail on this website http://www.royalhawaiiancolocasias.com/ and I am sure will decorate future gardens conservatories and patios. They go on sale in Europe generally in Spring early Summer 2011. In the mean time we have some baby plants available at the MyPlant® display in the Floral Marquee for you experienced gardeners who want to try them out in your conservatory or greenhouse and plant them out in 2011 to be ahead of the rest of Europe with this wonderful collection. The sensational collection comes from an internationally acclaimed breeder Dr John J Cho who has achieved outstanding success with his new line of ornamental Colocasias.

Cordyline australis Karo Kiri is a most unusual variety of the common Cordyline we see all over Ireland in our coastal towns and cites. Unlike its species form Karo Kiri is an easily maintained dwarf form which can be cut back to make what you see in The Urban Oasis at Bloom in the Park. Just try it yourself is my only way to describe this plant, you will either love it or leave it. For me it is an exciting option in Cordyline and is versatile in containers or small gardens. Now you can have what looks like a mature muti-branched New Zealand Cabbage Tree but perfectly at home on even a small balcony. Guess what, yes this is another first for the MyPlant Collection and comes from New Zealand breeder and selector Ross Baybliss and now finally after many years of production work we can bring this plant to the European garden plant scene.

Carex oshimensis Everest is another from my breeding work on the Oshima sedge. I have been growing Carex for 20 years now and having been bought stock of the well known Carex Evergold as a birthday present (another long story) the year I set up FitzGerald Nurseries. We are now possibly the largest producer of Carex oshimensis in the world and export many hundreds of thousands worldwide. Carex oshimensis just loves our Irish climate and is a versatile plant for the garden or containers. It is sometimes unfortunately misunderstood and misused leading to unsightly clumps in exposed and sodden landscapes but more about that another time. Everest is ideally suited to sheltered urban gardens, will thrive in semi shade situations and in containers giving the most wonderful white margins seen on any plant. Dawn uses Everest as a total blanket ground cover. Check it out for yourself and use in containers or small garden borders. Everest was picked as an entrant in the recent American Idols plant competition in USA and won a Silver medal at Plantarium in Boskoop Netherlands.

Carex oshimensis Everillo was first launched at the wonderful Hillsborough Show in Northern Ireland earlier in May. Everillo is a wonderfully cheerful addition to the garden only just discovered in 2008. We are now building up the numbers as limited availability launch in Ireland then full worldwide release Spring 2012. This is how long it takes even a relatively fast to produce plant such as Everillo. Take a look at Everillo in the head containers in Urban Oasis I think its a fantastic addition for shade and semi shade I hope you agree! Remember this plant is a Japanese native bred for its colour right here in Ireland and like many of the plants in Urban Oasis is not to be seen in any garden except Urban Oasis.

Phormium cookianum Black Adder is another selection from FitzGerald Nurseries and now sold internationally by us to as far away as Japan, Australia, its native New Zealand USA and most European countries. Black Adder selected by me over 6 years ago has been a wonderful success story and adopted by many nurseries including leading New Zealand Nursery Lyndale Nurseries as the number one black / purple Phormium. To be accepted in its homeland as such is accolade enough for me to be proud to present Black Adder in an Urban Oasis. You can find plenty of information on how Black Adder is spreading across the world if you Google Phormium Black Adder. Its amazing how this plant has spread around the world with almost all the production coming from Ireland as tiny baby plants to be grown in local markets to planting maturity. Black Adder won best container plant award for FitzGerald Nurseries at the worlds largest professional Horticulture Show IPM Essen Germany in 2008.

Yucca gloriosa Bright Star is another winner for FitzGerald Nurseries at IPM Essen 2009 and first prize for best patio container plant was presented to FitzGerald Nurseries by Germany’s Federal Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner. Bright Star was discovered at Walberton Nursery West Sussex England by Mr Tim Crowther, promoted by Plants For Europe and introduced into production in Europe by FitzGerald Nurseries. Bright Star is an outstanding colour selection of the hardy and drought tolerant Yucca gloriosa. This plant is a wonderful foliage and flower addition to the Urban Oasis garden or any garden looking for that glow of colour during the dull winter months. A wonderful additional feature of Bright Star is its pink colouring which comes during drought or cold weather conditions.

Cordyline fruticosa Caruba Black is a tropical Cordyline from Anthony Tesselaar and produced exclusively in Europe by FitzGerald Nurseries. Unlike its more hardy cousin C. australis Caruba Black needs temperatures over 3 C to maintain its attractive appearance and colour so must only be used as a Summer dot plant to give a tropical exotic look to borders or containers. During the Winter months Caruba Black makes a fantastic addition to conservatory containers and can even be cut back the following spring to encourage multiple stems.

I hope you get time to see all these and more in Urban Oasis at Bloom 2010. Visit Stand N13 in the Floral Marquee to take home some of our plants to begin your own personal Oasis.

Pat FitzGerald
MyPlant
by
FitzGerald Nurseries.

Twelve months of Social media

2010-05-19T16:35:00.000-07:00

I have been trying for weeks to get a short post done to give my experience of using social media. The purpose of me looking at social media was for information gathering, promotion of my business and to learn how people around the world are using plants. I hoped also to generally understand trends and broaden my knowlege of day to day horticulture in other countries. This at least was my original motivation. So here is my post its not professionally written , its just my ramblings and in no way meant to be a tutorial so feel free to tell me where I am wrong please.

Gone are the days when the phone is your fastest and only sales tool.

Background

Over the last ten years I have worked to develop our business from predominantly a Ireland UK sales based business to now selling our plants in 18 countries.
During these years I have been developing selecting and breeding some great plants to bring into our nursery business. In addition to these plants I am lucky enough to have some fantastic friends and colleagues in the industry around the world. Having great plants growing them well bulding all the resources we have built in the business has taken a lot of stress time energy and cost. As we all know working ones butt off doing ones best and what one feels is the right thing doesnt always feel good while observing the mayhem and ridiculous behavoir of established wiseguys and so called establishment over the last number of years. All of us in the horticulture world who try to make a living from it must compete with these pretty slick industries selling profitible non perisable products giving sometimes short lived instant but obvious gratification. Of course ours is not the only industry producing great products and not all products with very big marketing budgets are bad. So we have serious competiton for that dollar or euro. Year by year over the decades the bar has risen higher and its become more difficult for small businesses to access publicity and advertizing as good advertizing became more and more expensive.

So how on earth is some guy in the middle of nowhere Ireland going to tell people about these great plants. Now that we have done all the work getting them into production and physically out to far flung places such as Fresno and Watsonville California Angers in France various places in UK Germany Holland Japan Australia etc to be produced locally. Well the short answer is that we just had to hope it happened that people liked the plants and found out about them thorough some of the great people we deal with. Like our nursery these nurseries have to grow lots of varieties these days to stay in business and provide variety for the customer. Its not fair to expect our customers to be thinking of our plants every day. Advertizing isnt a possibility we simply right now dont have the budget for this but its chicken and egg, if we dont make the sales we will never have the budget. We have already spent money in our established markets on advertizing but no way can we do it in countries where we have no sales already as our industry does not give us that much profit that quickly and plants for some reason are not valued for longevity. Ahem maybe a pay by view system? In additon to these issues how do we know we are offereing what people in these countries like or want without a big budget to do market surveys using professional firms. For a small business like ours we just have to do our trade shows, try to put budgets aside for advertizing and hope for the best. In 2008 I travelled from San Diego to Bellingham Washington doing 2008 Pack trials on the way. I learned a lot but I didnt meet any of the retailers, landscape designers or got to chew over what they like or dislike with the very people who might use my plants. Well I guess this is why big companies get bigger and small companies take a lot of time unless they get some lucky breaks noting wrong with that we just got to work harder at it.

While reading the Sunday Business Post newspaper in January 2009 I saw an article about Social media. It described Twitter, Facebook, blogging and a few other platforms. I logged online took a look and reckoned yep it's for people with plenty of time on their hands who like to talk about what they ate for breakfast and liked to say 'yay' a lot. However being a nosey git I still signed up for Twitter account 'cos its free' I cant remember exact date but around the end of January 2009. Over the following weeks and months I checked in on it regularly looked at what was going on used it to post up pictures after a while. The main thing was information and seeing what others were doing. I found Facebook and did the same, started a blog connected them all together as its very simple and no course needed but in hindsight a course probably would have saved a lot of time. I already had http://www.fitzgerald-nurseries.com/ and our brand website http://www.myplant.ie/ so at least there was some window people could look into to see what we do.
I have to say without intent to portray it as a virtue, Horticulture is more than a business to me, to put it simply, I like what I do when I am working and that is not nescessarily a virtue. This is an important point when interacting with people in horticulture as I believe most other people in the horticulture business are the same. Myself my wife Noirin and all our nursery and laboratory staff do really good work and thats what I tweet about and put up on Facebook. Its real its honest and its good so why hide it and its not as if millions are interested anyway but some like what we do and like our plants. As owner of the business I have responsiblility to the 35 staff we have and if I dont promote our plants every day then who will! So it was not so much a optional choice but a responsibility to use this medium where the alternatives were not an option.

So what is this stuff about. Two heads are better than one or do we need five?

Not having had marketing training i know one thing is certain. I am making hundreds of mistakes and possibly wasting a lot of time doing things on the cheap and the hard way. For me social media is about being 'sociable' like the local pub or golf course where you get to chat sometimes sort out problems or tell someone youre looking for a second hand forklift, or I need to find someone to landscape the garden or that guy I got the second hand forklift wouldnt know a donkeys tail from a Toyota so dont go near him or other such gems of wisdom. There is no point in trying to manipulate or be selfish with our actions just the same as it isnt good to use your friends without being available to give back if needed or if you see the opportunity without any obligation! If I do do that its by accident so I apologise in advance if thats not believed then I am doing something very wrong. Most of us dont expect anything back when we do a favour and like all giving it can feel better for the giver than the receiver. There are life long givers who simply love doing good are superhuman and are impossible to return kindness to in kind. I dont like to dwell on this part of the whole social media thing as it should be simply common sense to us all and its not measureable in any case as to some a small gesture is gold. I feel its just right to be concious and prepared to share, if you cant invest the time in interacting in this spirit then think about another way of telling people about your work or products.

Keeping up to date with all the tweets, posts and updates is not always easy brrrrrrrrr it makes me dizzy a lot of the time and in fact its impossible. This time of year for me its especially very hard to spend time checking out trends, whats happening and telling people about our business, pushing out other peoples information, shouting out what we are doing and what plants are going out now. This is where the iPhone came in it is in my opinion revoloutionary, some times on Sundays I take pictures of articles in the newspaper Tweet them or email them. This picture below from the farmers journal was just fun didnt take but a click and a tweet. Once I started using the IPhone in July 09 it became so easy to share stuff and thats simply what I do on Twtitter and facebook. Using IPhone I can upload visideso so go to here if tou want to know what I do there. http://www.facebook.com/patrickjosephfitzgerald?ref=profile Its not rocket science.

Over the months that followed using Twitter, Blogger and Facebook, things started happening. There are some amazing people on my Twitter followers list and they know who they are. Without singling out anyone I can assure you there are some very generous and good spirited people with genuine good will. This is my Twitter profile http://twitter.com/PatFitzGerald I want to take this opportunity to thank them all for the last 12 months education. I am a bit hit and miss at times right now but the gardening, designer and nursery community on Twitter and Facebook are exceptional and know no borders in the continent of Social Media. You can see some of their generous posts here.

http://thelivengoodway.blogspot.com/2009/08/ballad-of-patrick-fitzgerald.html
http://gossipinthegarden.com/2009/09/07/the-adventures-of-black-adder-tuxedo/
http://lifeonthebalcony.com/gardening-in-the-internet-era/
http://www.soenyun.com/Blog/2009/05/04/some-garden-ceanothus/
http://spreadfarthefame.com/2009/09/17/the-many-faces-of-pat-fitzgerald-2/
http://www.anniesannuals.com/plants/plant_display.asp?prodid=3184
http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/blogs/graham_rice/archive/2010/02/28/ceanothus-tuxedo-the-first-black-leaved-ceanothus.aspx
http://westsoundgardener.pattisplants.com/2010/03/04/the-beautiful-black-leaved-tuxedo%C2%AE-ceanothus/

Summary.

Can I tell you what has been acheived to date for the business from my social media efforts. I cannot tell. Yet! I do know many hundreds of good horticulture people know more about our plants and our business than could ever have been possible.

Has this added to our bottom line? I havent a clue, right now we are having a very good sales season but cant tell if this would have been the case anyhow and has more to do with the hard work of staff and the things that have to be in a business with or without social media. I have not figured out a way for people to pay us just for a picture, tweet of our plants or talking about them :-).

Am I glad I use social medai as a buiness tool? Yes.

Do I feel it is a worthwhile investment in time? Yes but I probably should have done more formal training and analysis and maybe I will.

What advice would I give to someone new to social media trying to use it for their business? Keep the day job! Dont listen to me talk to a professional! The product must be the key and unless youre some real Einstien nobody is probably going to pay you for your opinions, most of the old rules apply. At least thats what I think.

Its a whole new area, I am not sure even the gurus know what they are talking about but I suspect its not such a new phenomenon just more public. The Sandwich board man or the guy holding the arrow to a shop down a back street or the blimp may be just simplified versions of social media.

Maybe if you just make a good product people will seek you out. However these days there are lots of people making products just as good as yours or on the high street making lesser products but much more accessible or better known and trusted. Tune in next year and if I am around I might know more.

End

Sweet Potato Planting 2010

2010-05-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sweet Potato Planting 2010.

Kildalton College of Horticulture, Piltown Co, Kilkenny.

After our successful trial of Sweet Potato at Kildalton College in 2009 organised by Mr Jim Kelliher Senior Nursery Advisor with Teagasc we have gone back for a much larger trial this year. Unfortunately this time Jim was not with us to do the planting. I am very sure however Jim will be with us to harvest the resulting crop and myself and Dermot Callaghan on left in the picture here look forward to this event. Without the input and drive of Jim the 2010 trials on sweet potato growing would not have gone ahead. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Jim for getting the trials to this stage.

Today we planted 5 rows at 1 metre centres with 30 cm between plants so 400 plants in total have gone into the trial. This trial will give us a fair indication of the value and return from Sweet potato growing in greenhouse conditions in Ireland. The purpose of this further trial is to asses the viability of this crop commercially and promote this wonderful healthy vegetable as an alternative commercial crop for organic and amateur gardeners. This crop will be grown using organic methods therefore no fungicides, insecticides or herbicides will be used in the production. The trial will continue until September / October 2010 at which point we hope to harvest a wonderful crop of sweet potato. In addition to my last blog piece please see here information on our trial in 2009 http://fitzgeraldnurseries.blogspot.com/2009/10/sweet-success.html
During the planting I overheard a student in the greenhouse next door say something about the first time he came into the greenhouse. This sparked my memory back to when I came into the greenhouse as a student at Kildalton. I suddenly realized to my shock, it had been almost exactly 30 years since I first set foot in this greenhouse. Michael Minihan RIP and Michael Conlon RIP were part of the lecurer team there at the time, both wonderful guys but both sadly passed away before their time. The glasshouse where so many hundreds of students have learned their first lessons in Horticulture took on a slightly different meaning bringing memories and echos of past afternoons into the mix of humans and plants. Myself and Dermot "perspried" in the heat of the greenhouse on a wonderful May day. I couldnt help remebering 30 yr old trickling beads of sweat on Michael Minihans red complexion as he tried to explain some salient Chrysanthemum growing tip. During that period in the early eighties it seems to me there was more experimentation hope and expectation from horticulture even though the economy was even worse than it is today. Hopefully the powers that fund Horticulture in Ireland can take a step back and ask should we have drifted away. Maybe we can go some way back to those times and invest more in the real skills of Horticulture and plant science which have serious economic and social values that may have been forgottten for a while. I do believe we have lost some of our hunger and drive from those times and we need to direct resources back towards skills like Horticulture before it becomes more difficult to do so.
Finally back to the sweet potato. Just as myself and Dermot had finished planting the very last cutting Mr Jim Mahoney Head of Horticulture with Teagasc dropped in. Jim on left with Mr Brian Lyons Glasshouse section Manager at Kildalton as you can imagine was dissapointed having missed helping with the planting. We however were delighted to assure Jim that we will not forget him when the spuds need to be harvested in the Autumn. We expect to have plenty of help on hand for that occasion when the proof of the pudding will be in the eating!

Nurserymans Tip to Growing Sweet Potato

2010-02-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

Nurseryman's Tip

Sweet Potato.

Full Name: Ipomoea batatas ‘Beauregard’
Leaf: Heart shaped, green
Preferred Location: In the soil/big growing containers
Likes: Well drained, sandy soil/Full sun
Dislikes: Over watering and temperatures below 5°C

Sweet potatoes are becoming increasingly popular as part of a healthy diet in Europe. Home
production of Sweet potato can be done in big plastic containers, on the patio and therefore
makes the crop available for a wider range of gardeners. This crop is especially interesting for
younger people or those without a large garden who want to grow something special. Anyone who has traveled to countries like USA, Australia, Middle East and many of the Pacific Islands where Sweet potato is a common vegetable. The dietary and health advantages of Sweet potato are now well recognised and Sweet Potato is commonly recommended by dieticians for very young babies beginning their solid food diets.

In 2009 I posted this blog piece showing ourtrials on Sweet Potato. You can see this post here http://fitzgeraldnurseries.blogspot.com/2009/10/sweet-success.html

I have put together the following detailed tips for your information in growing and storing your own SweetPotato this year.

Growing instructions
- Optimum of 4 - 5 months of continuous growing between 10°C night and 30°C day required
- ‘tuber’ growth starts during the shortening days
- Well draining, sandy soils, pH 6 to 6.5, minimum 20 to 30 cm deep
- Planting of the rooted cuttings in rows 1 m apart, 30 cm within the
rows or in individual growing containers
- Water in when planting the rooted cuttings, but overwatering during
the growing period can cause root damage
- Requires less fertilizer than most vegetable crops so do not overfeed
- Keep weed free during growing
- Relatively free of pest and disease problems, but can have root rots caused
by cold and wet soil conditions
- Harvest in dry weather where possible
- Harvest before the first frost and with care as sweet potatoes are sensitive to bruising
- Store the roots by over 25 °C and a minimum relative humidity of 90% for 2 weeks to heal
the wounds, reduce weight loss and convert the starches into sugars
- Savour the Sweet potatoes boiled, mashed or fried accompanied by a nice glass of chilled white wine

Nutrition information
Sweet potatoes are :
- fat-free and cholesterol-free
- have only 130 calories per serving (one medium
potato)
- are a good source of fibre – 3.9 grams
- are an excellent source of:
Vitamin A – 7860 IU/serving
Vitamin C – 29.51 mg/serving
Potassium – 265.2 mg/serving
Calcium – 28.6 mg/serving
Iron – 0.79 mg/serving
Folate – 18.2 mcg/serving

Special notes on harvesting & storage of sweet potato.

It is desireable to leave your crop of Sweet Potato for as long as possible before digging out. The top growth will not die back like the normal potato unless it is hit by frost. I recommend you target to harvest some time end of September if growing out door and mid October if growing in a greenhouse. It is important that they be harvested befroe grond temperatures go too low and certainly before any early frosts.
When harvesting Sweet Potato it is desireable to have dry soil conditions. If this isnt possible take special care to lay the roots out in a dry warm location. Sweet Potato have a very thin skin so care should be taken not to bruise or cut the skin surface as this can lead to rots during storage or curing the potatoes.

Curing.

For best it is desireable to cure sweet potato after harvest. Curing brings out the best in flavour. Proper curing has been shown to increase the sensation of moistness and sweetness, enhance the aroma, and decrease starch content while increasing sugars. Curing also drys up any skin damage and prevents rots in storage. Curing also helps harden or set the skin which helps prolong storage. An idea temperature for curing is between 25 C and 29 C with humidity of 85% which helps avoid weight loss.

Storage.

Ideally cure the tubers for at least a week you can then store the tubers between 10 Celcius to 13 Celcius for over 6 months. Ensure the tubers are stored at a reasonable humidity 80% to 85% is perfect but good air circulation should be maintained by storing in layers. Do not the potatoes storage environment to become excessively dry or weight loss can occur. It is also important not to allow storage temperatures rise too high as sprouting will begin at about 15 Celcius or 16 Celcius.

Honest Scrap

2010-02-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

So this is a most unusual post for me it is a challenge or a passing of the gauntlet from Rebecca Sweet who is an amazing garden blogger in California with her Gossip in The Garden blog site. Rebecca has put some interesting facts about herself in this blog piece and thats the general idea so when you

get to number 2 on my piece I will wake you up by conveniently giving you a link to Rebeccas blog piece.

Nothing outstanding or startling included in the following just simple frivilous facts.

Here goes.....

1. Ok this is going to be a big admission, I was never interested in nursery production when I went to Horticulture college. Whats more I couldnt see the point in producing ornamental plants when it was so obvious they cant be eaten and people will always need fruit and vegetables. That was the logic of an 18yr old. This didnt change during my hort studies and ahemmm it was my worst subject even though I won two student of year awards for Fruit and Vegetable production and did my main project on the storage of Onions and the growing of Japanese onions :) .

2. When I was about 11 I tried to get a stand in role in the movie Barry Lyndon as it was being shot nearby they rejected me :( but my sister got a part in the crowd. My movie career cut off so young. rejection was so painful. SO you never hear of the movie Barry Lyndon starring Ryan O Neal? Aha well now you know why!

3. Before going to hort college I went to school at St Kierans College where in first year class I sat behind Ralph Fiennes the actor I cannot say anything remarkable other than he did use the term piss off Fitz more than once or twice as for some reason he didn't like being poked in the back during class. odd thing about some people. Ralph left St Kierans after one year hmmm now I hadnt thought about that and why he may have left :). He just didnt come back, whaaaattt I didnt poke him that hard. He wasn't the Dali Lama though so here is where you can go to http://gossipinthegarden.com/2010/02/02/honest-scrap-award-gulp-here-goes/honestscrap12/

4. After college I worked on a vegetable farm for a year then a hop farm for a year before finally spending 6 years working with and managing a Horticultural Workshop for people with special needs and this was my first entry into nursery production. My friend Patrick Murphy began the workshop / nursery and I took over from him when he left to be a landscape designer in USA and now operates a successful Landscape business in New Jersey. Pat actually picked up an application form I was after getting from the American Embassy as I was considering going to USA on an Agricultural working Visa. I managed the workshop and nursery until 1990 when I left to set up FitzGerald Nurseries and it was the most fulfilling work I can imagine we had about 35 trainees all with varying forms of special needs and all very special people. There were too many funny, interesting and good times to recount from Special Olympics outing to various other events with the lads.

5. This one I probably will be sorry for bringing out but its fact. As you know Carex is a big thing for the nursery and we have our own varieties now all coming from my work on Carex Evergold. In 1989 having bought me beautiful Omega watch (yes which I still have) for my birthday Noirín my then girlfriend now my wife asked me what I would like for my 26th birthday. So this guy who didn't study nursery production too well at school but now working in it and had decided that year to set up my own nursery. So I said ummm how about buying me some Carex Evergold plants so I could start producing some. I thought it was a pretty simple and very attractive evergreen so I couldn't go wrong. So Noirin bought them for me :).

6. FitzGerald Nurseries produced over 500,000 Carex oshimensis Evergold last year has introduced 3 other varieties from using mutated selections of Carex Evergold. In 2010 we expect to sell close to 1,000,000 Carex oshimensis in 4 varieties all coming from plants received as a birthday present back in 1989.

7. No matter how I try I can never remember the jokes properly I love listening to them but when I go repeat them they re gone. Very annoying.

8. During by first year at college while making my first cold frame I cut my knee badly with a chain saw, that same summer I was passenger in a serious car accident and missed a summer job in Netherlands. I am a terrible carpenter and totally useless at DIY jobs so dont ask me to fix your shelves!

9. When I worked for people with special needs I sometimes used to just blend in with them when people from outside wandered into the nursery. I would let them assume I was one of the lads so they wouldn't ask stupid questions about plants which took up our time from what we were really meant to be doing. OK there I have admitted it :) .

10. These are two among my favourite songs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Khy9A1mT4 my favourite group is Meatloaf this is another one of my favourite songs corny as it may be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-2mxuj_ttQ&feature=related My favourite month is September and colour blue.

Nurseryman's Tip

2010-01-22T01:37:00.000-08:00

Coming out of winter in this part of the world we can start to get the garden back in shape. Sorting your container plants can be a task tackled even on wet days in the dry comfort of your garden shed or greenhouse.

Like the rest of the population us gardeners are watching the pennies or cents to make ends meet while still maintaining comfortable and attractive surroundings. However we want pleasant surroundings and love to garden, that should not change and indeed it should get even stronger as the garden becomes our refuge. So for many of us thrifty is the new nifty.

FitzGerald Nurseries are producers of container plants that you can see at http://www.myplant.ie/ . I guess one might assume we like it when people have to replace plants? not necessarily so! Like any good professional we want to give value and help your plants mature into a feature in your garden. We want to be as proud of your plants as you are. You may or may not buy less but you will recommend our plants to your friends and family and hey we dont need to sell millions as we are not some big mass producer of disposable products. I personally like it when our plants give you value and you are interested enough to keep them alive, we all need a bit of maintenance now and then. Besides large container plants can be expensive to replace with like sized specimens so I want to give some tips I have learned as a nurseryman when I want to save that plant that's special to me. Over the years I have seen the behavior of plants and their fight to survive far outweighs our comprehension. Plants like humans vary in their resilience but give them a chance and they are survivors. Remember the basis to a healthy plant is similar to the basis of a healthy human nutrition, water, shelter and suitable climate environment so choose your care plan to match your plant. Choose your plants to match your realistic care limitations.

My first tip of 2010 is in relation to containerized Cordyline which is one of the most popular temperate region container plants, and one of our best sellers. Cordyline is used now even in colder regions of the world for its exotic looks. Compared even to 10 years ago there is an amzing range of shapes and colours available. I have often used the following trick this time of year as root growth begins again. This trick is ideal for larger Cordyline that have become unstable or had root rot over winter. I come across a lot of one off attractive mutations in my work which cannot be replaced easily and this little trick has saved many of these special Cordyline over the years.

Here is how you do it.

Take your plant out of the container and using a sharp knife cut off about 40% to 50% of those damaged roots shaping a tidy root ball. A bit more may be necessary if roots have badly rotted but ensure a sufficient core remains that will keep the plant anchored stably in the container. Plunge at least 6 to 8 inches of stem into a pot of moist well drained potting compost. Fill the container the rest of the way to the top. Ensure you use a good quality compost, I use a compost with 30% well composted pine bark but other good quality materials can be used. Firm the compost gently against the stem to help minimise movement as you fill the pot to the brim with the compost. Keep your Cordyline patient in a very sheltered spot or designate some sheltered hospital recovery area in your yard, garden or ideally a greenhouse. After a few weeks new roots will appear and begin to sustain the plant. During this period I must stress again it is essential to keep the plant stable in the container. Cordyline roots very easily from a trunk as old as 3 to 5 years once given the chance. I have even re-rooted a completely rootless plant with a 3 ft stem by burying in good garden soil in March and tieing to a strong iron rod for stability.

If the top growth on your Cordyline has also been damaged you can peel off some of the damaged leaves but be careful not to take off functionally sound leaves even if unattractive for for a time. Some removal of leaves will prevent the plant catching the wind if kept outdoors and reduce rocking in the wind as the plant establishes. You need your foliage to help your root recovery by allowing photosynthesis to occur. Keep the compost moist as Cordyline does like moisture but does not like cold waterlogged conditions. My experience has been that Cordyline treated this way given a little care for the rest of the season will go on for many more productive years in larger containers.

I hope this helps and if any questions just make a comment below.

Plant Climate Protection System

2009-12-23T09:37:00.001-08:00

PlantInPod

How many of you have lost that precious plant you should have kept in the greenhouse during cold spells?. Or if you have no greenhouse and intended moving your tender container plant to the garage but forgot and one nights frost was one too many. Maybe the container was too large to move, was forgotten or you were away that weekend.

Together with Swedish company, Living Plant, MyPlant® has been working on this problem for a few years . To cut a long story short, after years of research, visits to the testing centre at the University of Agriculture Alnarp, Sweden with more on site testing here in Ireland, a solution for a number of levels of cold tolerances has been developed. Out of this work has come our PlantinPod strategy. The advantages of the shared knowledge of such a wide temperature range and how such temperatures affect various plant species has been invaluable. This cold protection system for plants is not just a product its a group of different elements and knowledge brought together to deliver the PlantInPod system. This simple system is for people who love gardening on the edge of their climate zone or for home owners with a flair for the best plants the world has to offer. PlantInPod brings more opportunity to maintain those plants which you always want to have but fear your climate zone will kill. Now you can stylishly and professionally create the climate zone your plants need in their own safety pod for those periods they will be at risk. With the decorative finish and an light we have also created a night time garden feature giving a magical glow through the frost laden environment.

All plants are sensitive to cold of a certain extreme or other. Some plants immediately die at a temperature below -1 to -3 degrees Celsius while others can tolerate a few short spells of cold. With our PlantInPod system such plants can survive temperatures down to -20 degrees C. The system has a built in control which ensures that the warming starts before the critical damage temperature is reached. This creates a "micro climate" which can give the plant a comfortable temperature of around plus 5 degrees Celcius for the entire cold period. Also with our customisable root insulation material plant roots are protected from over heating against the direct drying and burning summer heat of clay pots. The protection system is efficient for plants permanently in your garden border as well as your container plants.

As we container plant enthusiasts know plants have two main parts that need protection, roots and shoots. No roots no shoots, you can protect the shoots all you like but if those roots get killed its curtains for the shoots. Many perennial plants can survive dessication of the top growth and re-grow but for most plants survival from year to year depends on maintaining the stems, branches and foliage through the winter.
The new PlantInPod system consists of three different parts which can be used independently of each other. In the most severe weather conditions all three parts used together will protect a very wide range of plants in the most extreme weather conditions. As I write this blog piece I know all you experienced plants people out there might be of immense help to give some initial critique. Am I crazy? Is this system going to be of use to you in a meaningful and practical way? Has anyone been looking for this kind of one stop system? Any comments help or advice will be welcome! I am hopeful that this system will also be useful to botanic gardens and other specialist institutions so please feel free to spread the word about this work we have done.

In the first weeks of 2010 I will be doing a follow up blog article before the launch of the PlantInPod system. I am working on some alternative uses I am testing for the soil and air heater. I will post data from our final pre-launch winter testing. The first public and trade viewing of the system will be at IPM Essen 2010 http://www.messe-essen.de/ Our stand number at IPM is Hall 2 Stand 509.

I look forward to any comments you might have or even seeing you at IPM 2010. If you would like to buy a system from us they areavailable in limited numbers fo European delivery. You can Contact me through our FitzGerald nurseries website www.fitzgerald-nurseries.com

Industry Promotion idea

2009-12-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

Most of us are all involved in the promotion of the great pastime of gardening and make a living from the endeavours of gardeners and consumers who buy plants.

A possibly nutty, naive or optimistic idea came to me this time last year and instead of compiling a newsletter as I had intended I thought I would focus a January mail shot on this one idea, not much else is happening in plant retail sales this time of year in this part of the world and it's time to prepare rather than promote. Instead of burying this idea I thought I would use this opportunity to share it.
Maybe it has been done already, maybe it's a standard in some industries or maybe there isn't any appetite to try it. Many of us come up with seemingly Eureka ideas in the middle of the night but we don't act on them or beat ourselves down thinking if I think or say this out loud others will laugh or simple smile understandingly. Now that we have many well proven commercial craziness in the world there are far better more infamously accomplished people to laugh at so it's safe to be a little bit risqué. The idea I am trying to push is quite simple. Thursday I was sitting in the dentist's waiting room aware that she was having a problem with her current patient that meant my time for the chair was 15 minutes away. I started shuffling through the magazines to see if there was anything interesting. I realized there was no gardening magazine but there was a golf , fashion and tourism magazine (our competitors) and guess what? Some daffodils! When I got over the disappointment that such a simple thing such as a garden magazine was not available it occurred to me the reason there was no magazine there was that my dentist isn't a gardener. The tourism magazine actually helped relax me a bit. On the way home I thought someone better sort this out but I admit I had forgotten to mention it to my dentist or her receptionist when my turn came for the chair. As you all know professionals charge a professional fee and they are business people like us. I am sure when I go back with my idea it will not be taken as negative suggestion from one business person to another such quid pro quo is the lubrication of commercial life in small towns.
Based on this gap in reading material, I am making the following proposition to anyone with the same ‘vested interest' in increasing awareness of gardening. This includes our service providers both personal and company suppliers. I am proposing we collect last years good condition gardening magazines and make some beneficial use of them instead of hoarding them. Why not distribute these magazines into as many hair dressers, doctors, chiropodists, dentists, nail bars, beauty salon waiting rooms as will be agreeable to accept them. It's a win, win situation. Maybe this has been done already but think of the cost of printing these publications, how fantastically crammed with pictures and information they can be and we just read them and stick them somewhere or dump them. We can surely make further positive promotion usage of garden magazines by increasing their circulation figures 5 or even 10 fold to many people who probably would not have been exposed to them already. You can pick up a 12 month old gardening magazine and its as valid as one printed yesterday. If in time this proves to be increasing awareness maybe industry organisations can even prepare custom made information publications for giving away in a similar manner.
To go one better we intend to slip the MyPlant leaflet into the ones we distribute as if it were originally part of the magazine. Ok it is a bit sneaky but its our business and we have to tell people about it and our budget isn't big because we are pressed on prices. You're welcome to download one of our leaflets also and pop one in your magazines . Ok nice try I guess!! www.myplant.ie/downloads/brochure08.pdf
I see a lot of magazines collecting dust in this office so I am getting rid of them in this manner, recycling the well presented information as well as clearing up clutter. This can be do-it-yourself that doesn't require major industry conferences or meetings to get going its simple and up to each of us to find ways to promote our industry even if this isn't the idea for everyone. I am not sure to what extent this particular idea will work towards increasing awareness of plants and gardening benefits but we here will be sure we worked the idea to find out. I don't see how it can hurt unless it increases the levels of paper cuts reported in doctors surgeries, now that could hurt but not much.
Maybe all of us in the industry need to be more inventive in times like this this idea above is no more than that, an idea, however we all keep depending on the weather a bit too much and we have no idea for changing that.. We can change attitude however.

Black or Dark Foliaged Plants

2009-11-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

Black or Dark foliaged and flowering plants seem to attract some understandable curiosity and experimentation. When you think of it black does not seem to be a natural colour for a plant and it’s not for there are very few that I would consider really black but we, rightly I feel, take poetic license.

The attraction to anything black is understandable when one thinks of the position the colour black holds in all strata of fashion and visual appreciation. I once posted this quote on my Facebook page “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black” ..... “Henry Ford”. No argument from me there Mr Ford my Volvo is metallic black thank you, oops its not a Ford oh well there is free choice for you. For me the same holds true for Phormium but the choice is the customers I just can hope they pick my choice Phormium Black Adder on some occasions.

In fashion we have the veritable institution of the little Black Dress. I know nothing of ladies fashion wear and that wont change I fear but you can read more here. http://www.fashion-schools.org/littleblackdressarticle.htm . In rock music we had ACDC’s Back in Black, Ozzy Ozbournes infamous group Black Sabbath, the whole Goth cult thing, it goes on and on Black is stuck in our genetic makeup no matter what the art or creative activity one looks at. Don’t be surprised when this love of black transfers to plants as our American cousin Gen Y’s might say duhhhh. Anyone claiming to lead this trend would be as well lay claim our pre programmed fascination with the colour black itself. It’s going to happen that now and then as the worlds appreciation of plants grows so too does the sub genre of the plant world “black plants”. Us humans have a preoccupation with the colour black and there are chartreuse, pink, red, blue etc but two colours in our psyche stand out. Black and Red and guess what there is the Red Rose Tatoo, Simply Red, Lady in Red, Red Red Wine and so on and so on. There are colours that inspire us and black is top of the heap for many and combine that with its suitability mixing with other colours I rest my case. I have no more to say about the subject of black plants as a general trend as for me the trend is a simple as the above explanation. I can be wrong on this but I hold this opinion as my understanding on the general root cause.

Horticultural involvement and curiosity about black plants for me developed in 1998 when I made my first black plant discovery on the nursery. This discovery came in the form of what is now known as Ceanothus Tuxedo. Let me tell you first I was genuinely shocked, out of a batch of about 6,000 young plants of Ceanothus Autumnal Blue here was this one plant that definitely was not green. However there is more to the story which adds to my curiosity and made me shake my head in wonderment. That year for the first time ever we lost over 60% of the plants in that batch of Autumnal Blue this plant arose in the middle of the worst affected area of the bed. I am lost as to how we managed to kill them as we rarely had difficulty rooting Ceanothus and at the time it was a very large production item for us. In any event there it was a survivor out of what was a bit of a fiasco for our production of Ceanothus Autumnal blue for that year of 1998 and my first discovery of a very dark foliage plant.
I was not finished yet, Tuxedo proved quite difficult to propagate thereafter and it took a lot of work to save the original plant. Eventually I learned it likes sunlight and lots of it probably due to the darkness of the foliage. Eventually we produced enough and the rest is our own little piece of Hort history. I managed to grow the first 3 stable plants from this one plant and from there bulked it up in numbers year by year. Ceanothus Tuxedo is now getting lots of attention as far away as California USA and Tokyo Japan and places in between. In USA you can get Tuxedo from brokers of Pacific Plug and Liner Watsonville California. www.ppandl.net For Europe go to www.fitzgerald-nurseries.com

The second Black plant developed from a mutation of Phormium Platts Black which we were trying to propagate through micropropagation but went horribly wrong. I ended up making various selections which were not true to type. This sometimes happens in micro-propagation. Eventually when I re-selected the best looking form and put it back into propagation it was stable and hey presto the best selection we brought to the world as Phormium Black Adder and look what itself and Tuxedo has been getting up to lately. http://gossipinthegarden.com/2009/09/07/the-adventures-of-black-adder-tuxedo/ Black Adder Phormium is now planted all over the world, Japan, Europe, New Zealand, Australia and USA, this last 12 months we sold 120,000 Black Adder so somebody really likes our black Phormium. If there is any need for evidence that there is a trned towards black plants I think Tuxedo and Black Adder has proven it for me.
So they are my babies I can safely say and my only claim to fame in the black plant world. Black Adder won best patio and balcony plant at IPM Essen in 2008.

In USA you can get Black adder from Pacific Plug and Liner Watsonville California. www.ppandl.net In Europe from www.fitzgerald-nurseries.com

My third horticultural involvement with a new black plant is from a friend in Cornwall called Steve Yandell. Steve is one of the nicest guys in this plant world and an amazingly enthusiastic plants man and breeder. I have been growing Ophiopgon nigrascens for 20 years now and when Steve rang me and told me he has a special form of Black Mondo Grass I thought yeah yeah ok I guess its variegated that kinda blows the black thing? Steve told me no its got longer leaves it suckers more, it grows faster it makes your coffee and bakes scones. Well I did tell you he is enthusiastic! Seriously I was cautious but I happened to be going down for a meeting at the Eden Project a few months later and I made a date to see this black plant in of all places right on the highest point one could imagine overlooking one of the most southerly parts of England Penzance. The picture below is what I saw and took home with me, he was right its all of the above but it didn’t make the tea, coffee or bake. However it did all the other things Steve said it would. So three years later its on the market and of course as it comes from Penzance its called after a famous pirate “Blackbeard”. For me so far if we are to be purist Ophiopgon Blackbeard is the little black dress of black foliage plants. Its black, its sleek, its simple unassuming and Black as I dare any plant foliage to be! That plant in the picture has a bizarre story of piracy of its own however. We are the propagators of this plant in Europe for Steve and have sent plants to USA also. TO promote the plant and get customer feed back I brought it to IPM Essen in Germany which is one of the biggest horticultural industry shows in the world. I was proud to show Blackbeard off on our stand for the first time and after the show we packed it up with some other wonderful plants and left it waiting for our transport agent. You may have guessed what next, it was stolen from our stand and never seen by us again. However thousands are now out in California and in Europe as well as Japan luckily we had begum propagation but somebody out there stooped so low as to steal our very first plant! Fact, believe it or not, an act of piracy and treachery maybe old Blackbeard himself came back from his watery grave, who knows. If it was not Blackbeard the pirate then whoever you are I am taking this opportunity to tell you, I would like it back please!
So to summarize my thoughts on black plants as a genre they must be first of all a “good plant” to be a good black plant to be the colour black just doesn’t cut it for me. On colour depth I am happy to use poetic license. So long as the plants attribute whether foliage or flower is not stretching the colour spectrum to plainly not blackish. If the plant can have berry like Blackbeard or flower like Tuxedo or pure brazen leaf shine like Black Adder it’s making my list.

If the plant pirate is reading this. Black is Black I want my baby back........ (my baby being Blackbeard! I want it back it was my plant! I got it from a friend! Thats his boot in the picture!)

Sweet Success!!

2009-10-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

In Spring 2008 we brought our first Sweet Potato plants into our laboratory with the very kind help of the people at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge USA. We have never ventrued into the production of Sweet Potato (Ipomea batatas) before. It was a new area for our nursery and we found some very helpful people in the form of Don LaBonte of Louisiana State University Louisiana USA. Don gave me some valuable advice and helped me along my way in sourcing true to type virus clean plants of Ipomea batatas Beauregard. Beauregard was the exact variety my book research had shown to be most suitable for our climate. In my book research the variety Georgia Jet was also highly recommended but Beauregard seemed to be a better quality variety for storage and skin colour. Funnily enough in our cooking we found Beauregard also to be a better taste than the shop bought ones which are most likely Georgia Jet.
Having secured clean material we propagated mother plants at our laboratory in 2008 and proceeded to see if it was viable to make plug plants from this stock and we found this to be successful. In 2009 we went into limited propagation and produced over 10,000 plants whihc were sold into UK mail order and we planted our own trials at Kildalton College of Horticulture under supervision of Mr Jim Kelleher Senior Horticulture Advisor.

So where to from now with our development of Sweet Potato as an allotment crop in Ireland?

Year 1 Conclusions
The results of the first years commercial propagation trial and crop trial has been very positive. It is conclusive that at the very least this sweet potato variety will give a sufficient yield maturity, excellent quality and flavour under protected growing environment.

Year 2 trial proposal
Having established that Sweet Potato is without doubt a viable crop for the amateur gardener. In 2010 we will undertake a wider trial to assess the merits of Sweet potato as a commercial crop in protected and outdoor conditions. Organic growing techniques will be used and the project will seek collaboration from interested organic growers to participate in a wider trial.

See the short PowerPoint presentation here. http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=d6kvdxk_0z3m827dk

See this article on growing of Sweet Potato in your garden from RHS http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Grow-Your-Own/Grow-Your-Own-Veg/Veg-A-to-Z/Sweet-potato

Credits.
I would like to thank Jim Kelleher of Teagasc who organised and supervised the growing trial at Kildalton College. Special thanks goes also to Professor Don LaBonte and Lori Buckley at Louisiana State University research facility. Special thanks also to Dr Stanley J Kays of University of Georgia and to Dr Alan Amitage who introduced me to the initial contact that made all this happen.

The Famine Garden at Newmarket Co, Kilkenny

2009-10-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was yet another one of those wonderful Autumn days that shorten the winter in this part of the world. On my way from our local Horticultural College I dropped into a project we had donated some Irish yew to many years ago. This was a wonderful concept executed with dilegence and dedication by the local community in Newmarket led by Mr Christy Twomey the local schoool principal of many years.

In the decade 1841 to 1851 Ireland changed dramatically. Two million people disappeared, one million died and one million emigrated. 1851 marked the end of the potato blight, however, disease and destitution remained. Emigration peaked in 1854 and thereafter remained a fact of life in the 19th century. Community spirit is a defining characteristic of pre-famine Ireland. Communities worked together sharing food, skills and labour. This system of communal sharing without the use of money was called Meitheal or Comhar. The spirit of community pervaded through the rich culture of musicmaking, poetry and storytelling. Irish society before the famine was rich in artistic expression and social values.

This wonderful garden is well worth visiting yourself as words can not describe the journey through the garden. The poignant design features and story uncovered as you walk through the garden brings the visitor down to earth. The garden is truly a garden of rememberance and a reminder that despite current economic difficulties there were and will be bigger and more traumatic times than these in all our countries. Every turn one makes in this garden has meaning and at the end of your visit there is hope. The eternal spirit and ability of mankind to recover from disaster through community spirit is highlighted by Gáirdín an Dochas agus na Síochána (Garden of Hope and Rememberance).

"Gáirdín an Ghorta This is the garden of remembrance. The path through the garden is a metaphor for Irish history. The journey along the path is synonymous with the journey of the Irish people from pre-famine era to the future.

For anyone wanting to know how to get there or a little more about the garden there is a website. http://faminegarden.com/ Gaírdín an Ghorta website shows the garden shortly after planting but the matured article has to be seen for yourself. The garden has matured beautifully and the Irish yews we donated are looking fantastic and were in berry when I visited. Maintenance of the Garden is meticulous. Its very easy to see that Gaírdín an Ghorta is a valued part of the community and shows great respect to the design and commitment that went into the concept from the start. Gáirdín an Ghorta (The Famine Garden) was opened on the 15th of October 1999. I visited by coincidence 10 years later to the day. It has matured into a tiny national treasure giving testament to a momentues and history changing event for many people around the world whose ansectors fled a God foresaken land. This all hidden away in a small country village in County Kilkenny.

You can find a video tour posted here. http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/?id=1817283211

Biological control of plant pests

2009-09-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

Biological Control measures at FitzGerald Nurseries

At FitzGerald Nurseries we have a strong commitment to achieve pest control through biological methods. Strict hygiene and close observation of crops is necessary to prevent pests establishing in the first place. Staff are being trained to identify pests, biological predators and they are familiar with Integrated Pest Management methods.

The following are pests successfully controlled at our nursery using Biological controls:

Vine Weevil (Otiorhynchus sulcatus):
We treat all our crops with a nematode (Steinerema) in April when general temperatures are above ten degrees centigrade and again in September by drenching with Nemasys L. The timing is very important to catch the Weevil larvae before they pupate. These treatments have given us practically 100% control on all our crops whether indoors or outdoors. It also means that we don’t use harmful chemicals in our composts or as sprays and have no subsequent handling problems with staff and customers.

Scarid Fly( Bradysia):
Up until 2007 scarid fly were causing problems in our young plant propagation areas. We introduced Nemasys F, a nematode formulation that achieves very good control and changed our cultural and watering practices. Nematodes are applied as a drench through the irrigation lines every two weeks all year round. This has the effect of never giving the Scarid a chance to build up their population to any great level. It also helps to control Thrips that occasionally occur. We find that it is cost effective (especially when done using the irrigation lines) compared to hazardous chemicals that did not always work well. There are no problems with re-entry periods for staff working and no effect on other biological controls we have in the plant propagation areas.

Spider Mites (Tetanychus):
In previous years two spotted Red Spider Mite have been a serious problem to contain and was a major problem to control with chemicals. Last year as a test we introduced predator mites (Phytoseiulus persimilis and Amblyseius californicus) in a contained area that was infected with Red spider mites on Clematis. We found that it not only contained the infection but eradicated it within one month and kept the plants ‘clean’ for the rest of the year. The mites were introduced at a rate of 10 per M2 every two weeks until control was achieved and then they were introduced at 5 mites per M2 after that until September.
After that initial success we then decided to go nursery wide and treated all covered growing areas since last April at a low rate(5 mites per M2) until the end of May and then at a higher rate in the months of July and August(10 mites per M2). During the one hot spell in June we used the Amblyseius as they cope better with warmer extremes in temperature than Phytoseiulus. We will again lower the introduction rate for September as the chances of infection reduces again. So far there are massive improvements in the health of our crops this year and we believe that next year there will be even less Red Spider Mite because we have broken the potential of eggs being laid over winter. Apart from the joy of not having to use chemicals, there where no upsets to deliveries or staff by having to apply chemicals.

Thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis):
We have occasional break outs of Thrips mainly on plants brought in to the nursery. We find that the application of Nemasys F reduces their numbers but we also introduced this year Amblyseius cucumeris to our arsenal of predatory mites. They quickly brought a problem area back under control and have kept it virtually free of Thrips since then. They also have the ability to survive on flower pollen etc, when there are no other forms of food for them available so they are always ready should another Thrip come along.

Summary:
Apart from the introduced predators we have noticed that other naturally occurring predators have made their presence felt since we have hung the sprayers up. Mainly Aphid are being much reduced by a parasitic wasp and some lacewing are noticeable too. Spray deposits are not a problem any more on our shiny leaved plants and so the crops look healthier as well.
This we hope is just the beginning of our long term plan to eliminate insecticides and fungicides from our production but already we are glad to report our main aim to eliminate insecticides is becoming a reality. We are working on a range of activities including use of recycled composted waste for our potting substrate, water recycling and rain harvesting. It is satisfying to be making progress on this ongoing commitment to sound modern environmentally friendly practices.

MyPlant Team.

http://www.myplant.ie/

International Plant Propagators Conference visits Ireland

2009-09-11T13:47:00.001-07:00

International Plant Propagators Society World Conference.

For the first time in the organisations history Ireland hosts the International Plant Propagators World conference. This conference will not return to Ireland within the next 30 years so its a great privilege to be honoured with so many prestigious plant propagators and growers from all over the globe. Visitors from New Zealand, Australia, USA, South Africa, UK, Scandanavia and a number of other countries will be converging on Kilkenny from the 15th of September to 18th of September at Lyrath Estate Hotel convention centre.
On Wednesday 16th approximately 100 delegates will visit FitzGerald Nurseries and trials field where the official tree planting ceremony will take place beside our 2000 year old Celtic ring fort where the first farmers in this area would have settled. Its fitting that this planting takes place adjacent to where the first Celtic agricultural activities occurred in this immediate vicinity. Visits to local nurseries in Kilkenny, Waterford and Tipperary are planned and full schedule of events can be found here. http://www.ipps.org.uk/conference.html
The International Plant Propagators Society was founded in 1951 and is now organised into eight Regions world wide. Each Region is run by its own local committee chaired by its own President, Bernard Brennan is the President of the GB&I region for 2009. Each IPPS region manages its own financesThe IPPS Region of Great Britain and Ireland, includes members not only from the UK and the Republic of Ireland but from most other member states of the European Union as well as many countries in Eastern Europe. In fact more than 20% of the 450-strong membership is based in ‘continental’ Europe.The Region organises a series of area meetings on an annual basis where leading nurseries, research locations, outstanding gardens and centres of horticultural excellence are visited and ideas and expertise are openly shared. Workshops are offered to help transfer and share current best practice within the plant production industry.Annual Conference brings together leading experts from the industry who share their well researched and accumulated wisdom with members. This technical expertise and knowledge is shared with the industry at large through the IPPS Proceedings.

Follow this Blog and watch out for further blog reports and pictures on on Twitter @PatFitzGerald during the conference over the coming week.

Plants for the Autumn Balcony and Patio

2009-08-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

August can give us the best attributes in many plants as they celebrate their prime but we know deep behind this last celebration of summer lies the inevitable story of passing time. We should however be aware that many plants celebrate their full flush of beauty through Autumn and winter months. Colour and form is not exclusive to Summer months no more than enjoyment of life is the exclusive domain of youth.

As the cooler and shorter days of Autumn draw close, leaf and flower colours begin to fade, the inevitable march towards winter continues. Each year Autumn seems to catch us by surprise as if we wish so hard winter would not come we manage to forget it does sooner rather than later with Autumn acting as it crier. This year is no different but there is perhaps a natural ease in forgetting and just enjoying what we have in the here and now.

There are so many plants available to us these days that only commence their swagger as the Autumn bells begin to toll for their less hardy neighbours. As light begins to fade the days draw shorter and the coolness of the night changes the appearance of the world our options for colour also shorten. However plants such as Libertia ixiodes Goldfinger, Carex trifida Rekohu Sunrise, Fascicularia bicolor the various genera of sedges such as Carex and Uncinia striking plants like Phormium cookianum Black Adder, the brash and bold Fatzia japonica variegata and many other such foliage plants come to their own. Evergreen shrubs and foliage plants give us options to colour our lives during this period. In colder climates that suffer from freezing temperatures some of these plants will require some protection or greenhouse / conservatory protection during the worst of the freeze ups. Its always a good idea to experiment with other more traditional plants such as clipped Buxus, Ilex and Privets mixed in association with these colour wonders.
Before the summer colour totally fades now is a great time to begin to window shop. Take a look at what suggestions are in magazines and the various garden blogs then be ready for the change. When those summer containers have finally sang their last verse you are ready to change the music. See some suggestions on our http://www.myplant.ie/ website and do your own web searches for other ideas.

Todays Babylon

2009-07-06T02:16:00.000-07:00

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon also known as Hanging Gardens of Semiramis and the walls of Babylon (near present-day Al Hillah in Iraq) are considered one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. They were built by Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and beautiful plants of her homeland. The gardens are reputed to have been destroyed in an earthquake after the 1st century BC. However this desire to have such a place and this longing for beautiful spaces has not changed through the passing of time.

As Landscape design businesses, Magazines, Nurseries or Garden Centres we have developed a strategy to highlight and respond to this real need. Is there currently an increased trend towards people using their living spaces as places of refuge and comfort? Are people longing for the once familiar safe feeling provided by natures cocoon? No matter how streetwise, world hardened and sophisticated we have become for most is that longing still in our genetic makeup. If the answers to these questions are yes then the time may be right more than ever before to give people what they want and explain more clearly we are providing a unique service more than just the obivous physical goods. The collaboration between nurseries, architects, designers and landscape contractors come together to provide that place whether it be on the scale of Babylon or your own tiny urban / rural garden cocoon.

Have governments understood this human need fully? This need is greater during times of trauma be they economically induced or simialr to the needs of Amytis of Media all those centuries ago.

We have been reading stories from all over the world where our wise leaders have been cutting back on spending on parks and public gardens. With tighter budgets large and small businesses may also underestimate or ignore the need for these spaces for staff to unwind before, during or after their working day.

Isn't there some economic formula which says supply should be dictated by demand and or need? There is enough research to show that investment in nature and creating natural spaces are always wise investments financially. Investment in the manufacture of buildings, cars, planes and other products such as financial packages have historically taken priority and I guess that is how the world is. Or was! It didnt work fully to our favour and maybe now is a good time to tweak towards natural solutions to old problems.

Can we ever look forward to a time when policy dictates the planted environment must be financed and planned to show buildings and steets can be accomodated within the plan rather than making nature fit our buldings and streets.

The environmental age has arrived, people want nature more part of the sustainability solution when they go home, or indeed go to work. Nature does not just provide us with a means to energy we use to power our appliances it also gives us the energy provided by well being. The good news for mankind is that there is an ample supply of skilled businesses that can supply such a services that will be able to harness renewable resources to provide both forms of energy.

Our business is to simply and effectively provide a diversity plants that will fit in your immediate environment and we take it seriously.

http://www.myplant.ie/

MyPlant Art Exhibition Painting

2009-07-04T03:27:00.000-07:00

Festival Grass
You can soon buy one of these and a few other MyPlant Limited Edition Prints from us just email info@myplant.ie if interested.

Astelia Silver Spear

Libertia Goldfinger

German Nursery Bruns Pflanzen

2009-06-28T15:20:00.001-07:00

During the last few weeks I have been travelling through Sweden, Denmark, Germany and UK one of my visits was to Bruns Pflanzen near Oldenberg Northern Germany. Bruns Pflanzen is a long established in fact almost 140 years and still run by the Bruns family. The company produces a wide assortment of plants for both landscape and Garden Centre market and has developed a wonderful visitor centre just beside the nursery with its own arboretum. See more about Bruns here. http://www.bruns.de/

Herr Gerhard Hopfner and Mr Pat FitzGerald

Wonderful looking specimen Bonsai plants at Bruns

The new visitor centre at Bruns Pflanzen which will open this summer for visitor groups to their Arboretum.

Ensete and Musa

2009-06-14T02:06:00.000-07:00

Ornamental Banana make a fantastic and dramatic statement to your garden. Planted in a secluded sheltered part of your garden, balcony or patio, these outstanding plants can give ambience and tropical feel to your garden. Once established and growing Ensete and Musa are easy care resilient plants giving invaluable effect to your living space. There are many tropical plants such as Canna, Ensete, Musa, Colocasia whihc are esy care once instructions are followed and can give you the topical feeling right at your own doorstep. You can now try them out for very little cost and establish some great plants of your own, a small investment for years of pleasure. Between 11am and 1pm today Sunday June 14th tune into Ideal Shopping channe here Ideal World TV – channel 644 on SKY and 22 on freeview or on the web http://www.idealworld.tv/dealworld.tv

Our New Ceanothus Tuxedo

2009-06-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to be able to say Ceanothus Tuxedo discovered here by myself on our nursery in Ireland is attracting increasing amount of attention on West Coast USA in trade press and enthusiast blogs. The plant is well received here in Ireland, UK and France. Ceanothus Tuxedo looks like becoming a mainstay variety in more than a few countries. See some of the following Blogs and Websites that have picked up on our introduction. Watch out for our Phormium Black Adder which is also now released on West Coast USA, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

http://gossipinthegarden.com/2009/09/07/the-adventures-of-black-adder-tuxedo/

http://www.twitpic.com/jabgg

http://www.soenyun.com/Blog/2009/05/04/some-garden-ceanothus/nyun.com/Blog/2009/05/04/some-garden-ceano thus/
http://perennialblogger.blogspot.com/2009/01/ceanothus-tuxedo.html
http://www.ppandl.net/features.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fross/3366969678/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fross/sets/72157615504019283/
http://www.anniesannuals.com/plants/plant_display.asp?prodid=3184&account=none
http://www.tesselaar.com/plants/ceanothustuxedo/
http://www.landscapemanagement.net/landscape/Ornamentals/Western-Ornamental-Ceaonothus-Tuxedo/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/593283 eSta ndard/Article/detail/593283
http://www.gardennewsbreak.com/releases/tuxedo/index.html newsbreak.co m/releases/tuxedo/index.html

Bloom 2009

2009-06-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

Bloom is now well over and it was a fantastic success for visitors designers and exhibitors generally. With amazing weather clear blue skies and a record attendance of 55,000 people one could be forgiven for banishing the economic R word from all utterances during the show and thats exactly what most people did. any mention of the R word was treated with the distain of a grrrr word so the weekend was purely about enjoyment of all that is great about Horticulture!

The popular plants on our stand this year were Cordyline Charlie Boy, now sold out until 2010. Dierama or Angels Fishing Rods were an outstanding hit and Dierama Blue Belle, Dierama Merlin, Dierama Guinevere, Dierama Lancelot, Libertia Goldfinger. Popular also wast the most unusual yellow Dhalia called Knockout,. All of these can be bought in Garden Centres all over Ireland and UK. www.myplant.ie

Our Raymond Evison Clematis varieties were displayed in limited numbers at Bloom and now are released to Garden Centres nationwide so watch out for there they include the newly released variety Oh lala whch was shown to the public for the first time at Chelsea 2009 and of course 2008 Gold Medal Clematis Rebacca with its stunnind vivid red flowers is now released nationwide to our Garden Centre stockists in Ireland.

The show gardens this year were fantastic and more information can be seen on these at www.bloominthepark.ie . FitzGerald Nurseries collaborated on a number of gardens at Bloom 2009 so we will be highlighting these in a later blog.

Bloom in the Park Dublin

2009-05-27T14:25:00.001-07:00

Not much time for putting up new posts as we have just finished our "Lawnless & Orderly" display at Bloom RHS judging takes place this evening so fingers crossed we might get a medal.

Here are some preview pictures just before the gardens were finished and judges doing their rounds. The standards are very high and gardens finised well on time.

Dominick Cullinanes Aubergine Garden where he uses our Cordyline Festival Grass, Agapanthus Bluestorm and Carex Everest

Bord Bia Whitehouse Garden replica before completion

Picture preview of a few other Bloom 2009 Gardens.

MyPlant Staff Allotments

2009-05-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

MyPlant staff Allotments
Have any companies out there organized allotments for their staff? At FitzGerald Nurseries we have and hopefully later in the year we will be able to share our experience with other companies who might be interested in this type of initiative.
Ok so it might be a bit easier for us as some of us are trained horticulturists but we are a bit rusty on growing our own veggies. Like many farmers or others who were brought up when the vegetable plot was a common sight we too have lost the plot (no pun intended) for a while so now we are trying to catch up. This was something we wanted to do for many years and now the catalyst to begin again has arrived.
This year we set up our company allotments beside the nursery. Five staff are actively getting their plots up and running. This pilot scheme looks like its going to bear rewards with a good harvest later this year. After a slightly late start things are now beginning to pop out of the earth. And some interesting varieties of vegetables will be on show later in the year. Vaida and Akvile who are from Lithuania have brought their own seeds from Lithuania with varieties of Cauliflower, Cabbage, Beans and other veg that I have not heard of before so this should be fun to see how these varieties do in our Irish Climate. Ann was off to a good start with her potato seed she brought up from her West Cork home surfacing now and lots of other veg now well established in Anns plot. I have tried out again this year some French potato varieties specially suitable for sauté and salads. We exhibit at a French Horticultural show each year and the last two years I have purchased some varieties commonly used in the Loire Valle area of France so more about these later in the year when we will see how they have performed. I have picked out some French beetroot, onion and carrot varieties to see how flavour and texture compare to home grown varieties.

Sweet Potato (Ipomea batatas)
Sweet potato is one of those healthy and beneficial foods which has been introduced to the Irish diet and supermarket shelves more noticeably in recent years. Normally quite expensive to buy compared to other vegetables so I reckon very well worth trying to grow.
After 12 months research into the possibilities of growing this root vegetable in Irish conditions I have selected the variety Beauregard Improved as the most likely to succeed in our climatic conditions. With fantastic co-operation from some colleagues in USA I managed to get certified stock from Louisiana. Ideally Sweet Potato will require growing in protected greenhouse but we suspect some reasonable yield can be achieved out doors with this variety. Sweet potato can also be grown in patio containers and once our trials are finalized we will post instructions on how to do this in 2010. Testing on how this plant grows in the Irish climate has begun. Already we have fantastic reaction and demand in UK so this plant looks like its could be a success story for 2010 allotment gardeners.

Watch out for future posts about the MyPlant staff allotments and our results on trying some new things just as we do for our garden plant varieties. If you would like to comment on this post please feel free to do so.

Setting up Stand at Bloom

2009-05-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

www.myplant.ie

Our set up for Bloom in te Park started Saturday we delivered the grasses to Rebecca Thorn for her inspiringly simple Amongst the Grasses personal retreat design http://www.designedbyrebecca.com/. It looks like Rebeccas garden will come together for the big event.

Delivered plants to Dominick Cullinanes Aubergine Garden which looks fantastic already, well planned, professionally executed and bang on schedule. What more can you ask for from a professional like Dominick. See more here http://www.dominickcullinanelandscapes.com/main.html

Met up with Peter Donegan who will not be at Bloom this year. Peter constructed imaginative gardens at Bloom in 2007 and 2008 and has been great help to first timer Rebecca Thorn in making sure her concept gets completed on time. Well done Peter good to see such fantastic selfless co-operation. See more about Peters other energetic passions http://blog.doneganlandscaping.com/

The Bloom team under direction of Gary Graham are doing a fantastic job again his year despite challenging budgets they have stuck to their vison of presnting a top class internatinal Garden Festival righ her ein the heart of Dublin. They deserve a serious support for this dedication and resolve. http://bloominthepark.com/

One of the first and most encouraging signs of change in public service dedication to changing the awareness of children and aults to vegetable and fruit gardening has been the walled fruit flower and vegetable garden run by the office of public works. This should not be missed when visiting Bloom!! I visited it yesterdan and the qualityof work, presentation, content, range and scale has increased again this year. This is an important piece of work and deserves recognition. See more on Park activities here http://www.phoenixparkbook.com/whatson.htm . Together with the An Bord Bia Food Dudes program this garden at the Phoenix Park marks positive chage in the perception of Horticulture as a "Nescessary Life Skill" see our MyPlant Article from March 2009. http://www.myplant.ie/news.php?n_id=36

More reports and pictures from Bloom next week.

Two Tickets for Bloom

2009-05-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

Win two tickets to Bloom!! www.bloominthepark.com

The first person to identify and tweet @PatFitzGerald this plant variety correctly gets two tickets to Bloom for Thursday or Friday next week. Take a look at the picture closely. One hint check out http://www.myplant.ie/

@doneganland will be assisting me in judging, he is an expert in competition judging! Judges of course are disqualified from entering the competition.

A Thought

2009-05-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

A thought for current times! This quotation below is something I read about 12 months ago and wrote down on my desk. It is very relevant and possibly should be considered in troubleshooting more often.

“In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists”

Philosopher Eric Hoffer

So can we depend on the current bunch of learned, certainly there are many learned people around but just as certainly we should question their credentials.

MyPlant Water Collection

2009-05-18T16:48:00.000-07:00

New Water Collection initiative

We can now report our new water butt is up and running and the first phase of our plan to collect all roof water for recycling to irrigation on the nursery is well under way with this not so little water butt fully operational.

Ok so its a little bit more than a water butt !!! Thats a 3.5 metre high tank and 65,000 imp gallons thats almost 300,000 litres.

More later in the year as this water conservation program develops.

2009-05-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

Dont miss out on making some savings on your tickets to Bloom this year.

Drought tolerant plant for containers

2009-05-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

A tough drought tolerant plant for Balcony and Patio gardens.

Fasciularia bicolor

Scarlett Pineapple. For the small balcony or patio space we have plants such as the hardy Bromelia Fascicularia bicolor from mountainous cliff faces of Chile which can resist the most difficult of conditions including drought, cold and exposure to wind. Commonly known as Scarlett Pineapple this plant looks fantastic all year round in a container and then once mature in September will give you a wonderful treat with its bright red foliage bract and metallic blue flower. Better again Scarlett Pineapple is extremely drought tolerant so requires little care once potted correctly in Shamrock MyPlant container compost mixed 2 parts Shamrock to 1 part MyPlant vermiculite. Scarlett PineApple has been grown by knowledgeable plants people since the late 80’s in UK and now can adorn even the most novice gardeners patio, balcony or garden a touch of exotica from South America yet thoroughly adaptable to your garden or outdoor living space a must for your collection and it will stay with you for years with little care. See http://www.myplant.ie/ for more information.

Easy Care Container Plants

2009-05-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

Easy care Plants to liven up small gardens, balconies and patios all year round.
Put some life and colour into your home surroundings Summer, Autumn and Winter. In today’s topsy-turvy world the one place we can have some refuge and surround ourselves with beautiful things of our choosing is our home and garden. Whether you have a small garden a balcony garden, a large garden or something in between, the plants you choose to surround your home with are an important part of the ambience you create. At MyPlant we have been thinking of your changing plant needs as we develop the MyPlant range. One of the basic considerations in our plant testing for the MyPlant range has been what garden and living spaces are going to be like in the future and how much energy do we need to grow these plants for you.
A number of years ago I developed a presentation called ‘New Plants New Spaces’ for a nursery conference and since then I presented this paper on a few occasions. This concept has become part of the MyPlant philosophy for testing different plants from microclimates around the world to use in applications which in some ways mimic the plants natural environment.
If we look at the modern garden plant container or patio border as possibly more like a crevice in a high altitude rock face in Chile, a shaded woodland a dry hill slope in Japan or a sandy free draining seaside dune in New Zealand we can begin to get more of an idea what type plants we need and how adaptable they can be for urban living spaces. Together with this idea of what we need in this changed environment we combine the skills of plant breeders. These breeders with a lot of help from nature come up with numerous attractive varieties which give us longer lasting and more easily maintained plants for the small garden or balcony container and our long term enjoyment. Today we have a much wider choice of plants for these close to house spaces than ever before and through the MyPlant selection process we now bring many of these exciting plants from our own breeding and our international breeder colleagues for everyone to enjoy and decorate the new ‘outdoor room’.
If you live in North West Europe the thought of anywhere being sun baked and dry may seem ludicrous in past summers but try sitting against a white or light coloured wall on a sheltered balcony or patio even on a normal summer day for hour after hour without protection then maybe you can sense the drying heat your plants must tolerate. If you try the same test in winter then a sense of how strong a plant must be can be appreciated. In such situations and especially without optimum care the choice of plant is crucial so that you get the best value for your money.
In selecting plants for the MyPlant range we want to explore all possibilities and boundaries to conventional patio and balcony gardening and take the complication out of gardening to leave more time for the enjoyment which is ultimately what the garden, balcony or patio is for.
Over the coming months we will highlight some of our MyPlant introductions to give a seasonal attraction to your living space no matter how large or small. Hopefully you will come prepared into 2009 for more adventurous container and small space gardening. We want you to consider plant shape, form and foliage more as a year round exciting solution for your outdoor home. In the long term we want you the customer to get a good feeling about your plants but more importantly your living space. Like many things in life it is not what we sell to you that is appreciated the most, it is how our plants help make you feel which is the longer lasting gift. In difficult times more than anytime we like to be surrounded by some special things. We believe our plants are such special living things that give all the natural green benefits of nature year round.

You don’t need to own a garden to enjoy a plant and you don’t have to be an expert to enjoy MyPlant™.

MyPlant Trials Garden tests new plants from UK Breeders

2009-04-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

MyPlant trials Garden has received the first plants from PROVAR Plants in UK in co-operation with PROVAR we will test, trial and display these fantastic garden plants in Irish weather conditions to check suitability to our unique Irish climatic conditions.

Check out the PROVAR website to see many of these new and exciting plants. http://www.provarplants.co.uk/

We are looking forward to this co-operation bringing a greater choice of tried and tested plants to Irish Gardeners over the coming years.

MyPlant Team

MyPlant Garden Project

2009-03-28T14:25:00.001-07:00

The first trees are being planted in our new display gardens which we hope to complete over the coming year.
MyPlant has begun work on our new gardens. With the assistance of well known garden designer Mr Martin Brady we are creating the first phase of a 5 acre trials and display gardens. The site is adjacent to our nursery and near the 2000 year old Rath (celtic ringfort) on our farm.
We hope to complete tree planting in the next few weeks.We are planing 365 trees to form the canopy and shelter framework for the parkland theme garden which is the first phase of 4 distinctively different planting schemes. Once the trees are planted we will continue with the planting program with potted ground shrubs, perennials and grasses throughout the summer. These gardens will provide a fantastic show case in the coming years and once matured MyPlant will run opendays to showcase our plants in real garden settings.
We will be posting updates with pictures of the work in progress as the year goes on. The opening ceremony for the gardens will be in September 2009 when we host a visit from the International Plant Propagtors Society who hold their World Conference here in Kilkenny September 2009. This is a prestigeous event and will attract over 200 professional horticulturists from all over the world. See more about the conference here http://www.ipps.org/events/09/Ireland09.pdf 9.pdf
In the meantime enjoy the great Spring weather and take advantage of it to get an early start on your garden. With some simple plant choices, a little professional advice from your local garden centre or landscaper you can bit by bit turn your garden into your own retreat and plant paradise at home. Remember you can garden and plant right through the summer as almost all plants now are sold in pots whihc makes gardening easy for you andthe plants continue to grow and flourish even when in the garden centres waiting to be taken home by you and planted or put into patio or balcony pots & containers.
For some good advice and tips see the following links
http://www.garden.ie/
http://www.bordbia.ie/Pages/IGT-Home.aspx
http://www.bloominthepark.com/

MyPlant Team.