International Plant Propagators Conference visits Ireland

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

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.

MyPlant Art Exhibition Painting

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

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

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

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-ceanothus/
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/593283eStandard/Article/detail/593283
http://www.gardennewsbreak.com/releases/tuxedo/index.htmlnewsbreak.com/releases/tuxedo/index.html

Bloom 2009

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.