Secret Vices

If I let you into a secret, will you promise not to tell?
I have a vice.
In fact I think I have several, but let's forget about the others.
This particular addiction is for miniature things.
I don't know where it started, because I didn't have a doll's house when I was little, but I think Elizabeth Goudge and 'the little things' were partly responsible - how I longed for Queen Mab's coach! And then there were tray gardens.

What could be more perfect than a tray garden, with a small mirror as a pond, and paths wherever you wanted them, and tiny flowers and trees - and - and - and...
Welcome to a different world.

I suggested that we do a tray garden workshop with the kids at Beltra Country Market, and on the back of it, we've also introduced tray gardens as a new class at Beltra Show which takes place on the first Saturday of September.
Oh what fun, what happiness!


Obviously it required a serious practice run at home beforehand!
What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon? And who better to help me than my lovely wwoofers, the Chico Cavalry!
They have - sadly - now sped over the hill whence they came, blowing their trumpets triumphantly to mark the wonderful things they achieved during their stay! A little moon garden has now replaced a rather sad and weedy section of the flower garden, with the guts of a pergola at one end, for which I am enormously grateful and will always remember them, but I hope they will remember their last Sunday with us when we spent a blissful afternoon making a tray garden as a centrepiece for the workshop.

I love it so much, I want to move in.

I hope you like it too.
You might want to take a bite of Alice's mushroom first.

This was before the fairy and solar lights were added.

The lily pond and sculpture. The goldfish is hiding under the lily pad.

Tea on the terrace

The dovecote amidst the blossom trees

On reflection, we could have made the toolshed a tad higher!. But who cares? It is properly constructed from stone and slate!

Surprise, surprise, the deckchair in the flower garden has already been bagged! No doubt its occupant is keeping a beady eye on the dovecote.

A dove's eye view of the kitchen garden and its little central pond. The cabbages are coming on well and there's a bumper crop of carrots.

The vegetable garden after the installation of the solar and fairy lights. There's a garden fork in the cabbage patch, if you feel like doing any weeding.

Looking towards the conservatory from the sculpture and the lily pond.

Fancy a drink on the terrace after a long hard day?
There's a bouquet of roses on the table for you, and please help yourself to the Licorice Allsorts.

Looking towards the flower garden from the stream. This was before the stream ponds were planted with water lilies, and before the solar lights were installed along all the paths.

As my friend DodoWoman said: 'You'll know you're addicted when you find yourself at 2am, brushing sand off your paths with a sable-haired paintbrush.'
When that happens, there is no hope of recovery.

Secret Gardens

Early in 2010, some friends approached me with an idea they had hatched.
'We are going to open our gardens to the public,' they said. 'To raise money for charity. Will you join us?'
I was a bit wary, to be honest. We do have a nice garden, but it isn't exactly Powerscourt, or Mount Stewart, or Kew.
There are a lot of weeds, and chaos, and things shouting 'I need to be done FIRST!'
'The thing is,' my friends said, 'it doesn't need to be perfect. Think how nice it is to look round someone else's garden.You don't notice all the things that need doing, you just enjoy the garden for what it is.'
How very true. 

So, after discussing it with the In-Charge, we decided to go ahead, and another friend, DodoWoman (whose garden was also to be part of the scheme) and I put together leaflets and posters and other publicity material.
I suggested the name 'Secret Gardens of Sligo' and thus a new Irish Garden Trail was born.

It has been hugely successful and although not all the original gardens are still 'in', every year a few new ones join and the visitor numbers increase.
There is no entrance fee, but people are asked to make a donation instead, and all the money given is passed on to charity. Last year over €4000 was raised - a considerable sum from 11 private gardens.
The nicest thing of all, I think, is that each garden owner chooses the charity closest to their hearts, and all they money they raise goes directly to that organisation. Last year, these ranged from the local Hospice to St Vincent de Paul, and RNLI to Rape Crisis, and from Motorneurone Disease to Animal Rescue Centres locally and in Co Mayo.

As well as doing the publicity for the Gardens, I am PRO for Beltra Country Market and late last summer, while chatting to someone I know at RTE, trying to persuade them that Nationwide would LOVE to visit Beltra, the Secret Gardens crept into the conversation. I thought no more about it until the phone rang a few months ago and I was told that actually, what Nationwide would like to do was visit a few of the gardens!

They came, they filmed, they edited and on Wednesday 1st August, the programme will be broadcast on RTE at 7pm.

So if you like gardens, don't forget to turn the telly on! 
Maybe you'll feel inspired to visit the gardens on your own local trail, or possibly even join it!
And if you haven't got a garden trail - well, why not start one? 

Should you wish to do so, you can follow Secret Gardens of Sligo on Facebook by clicking here!