April 2026

Bird and bees, flowers and trees!

Apr 30, 2026

What a wonderful month, full of flowers, and lots of bumblebees, ladybirds and butterflies spotted feeding and frolicking. The trees have been budding and leafing. There are flowers aplenty from the white thorn lining the roads and the ditches, to the more exotic ranunculus bursting into bloom in my tunnel.

Arrangement made and photographed in Mullingar Library.

In addition to all of this wonderful life beginning, I have had a busy month of workshops and events. Weather wise it’s been very mixed - torrential rain, hailstones, vicious winds that have scorched baby plants, and then finishing up with some glorious sunny days.

My hellstrip and front garden is having a moment - a lovely man stopped his truck to get out and admire it, and compliment me on it. The naturalised tulips and the dandelions look marvellous together.

The ground has gone from sodden to very dry, and the weeds are going mad with the bit of warmth - I have one of my more cooperative hens doing a bit of weeding in the more out of control areas - she’s enjoying the fresh grass and laying regularly in return.

This month I have a giveaway - this ceramic roaster/steamer - good for baking bread - I picked it up in the charity shop, but I’ve never used it - it still has the price sticker! Leave me a comment if you’d like it! I’ll pick someone at random after the weekend - you’ll need to be able to collect it in Mullingar.

In non growing related activities, I has my first cold water dip in a long time at the start of the month, it was painfully cold, and I didn’t manage to fully immerse - I’ll be trying again soon at the water heats up. And hoping to get on on the water in our kayaks also. We also had an overnight stay at the tree farm, enjoying the warm weather and the moon. Brian did a bit of scything, and Rusty enjoyed a snooze in the sun.

Coole Meadow

It’s all go at the meadow - with the global oil crisis in full swing, we are taking precautions and have several rows of potatoes planted. We are also doing some potato cage experiments - using the old hay mown last year and composted over winter, along with some locally produced donkey manure, we are hoping for a good crop that is eelworm free, out of those cages. And it’s something to do with the wire until we need it again later this year for composting again. And a great use of the old hay. Any composted hay not used for potatoes is used to mulch the trees, and maybe even to earth up the spuds planted in the ground.

The garlic planted last year is doing very well.

The daffodil and tulip planting under the apple tree was splendid as always, and the bulbs that we dumped under other tree also grew successfully, so there will be lots of naturalised flowers in years to come. I had a good run at my flower beds, and have cleared some new space for planting the annuals that I have been starting since March.

We have also seen lots of wildlife - in particular loads of ladybirds - particularly on the nettles. Here's a pair that Brian captured being very energetic - this is just a brief snippet of their amorous interaction.

I have started lots of courgettes and pumpkins - we will be heaping some of that lovely donkey manure onto the hugelbed, and hoping for warm weather to bring them on. I’ll also be planting a lot of beans - I just need to have a secure supporting structure - once the beans grow up and get heavy, any bit of wind can take them down. There’s a metal mesh that Americans call cattle panels that people use, but I’m not sure what that’s called in Ireland - if you know, please leave me a comment! For now, I’ll be making teepees with sturdy hazel posts.

Workshops

I hosted 6 workshops this month as part of my residency in the Westmeath libraries. I scheduled 3 in the first week, and that was probably too many - I needed to sleep for a day afterwards. Those were all on the same topic - growing from seed - and participants went home with seeds, and plants, and hopefully learned at least one new thing. All were very well attended, which isn’t always the case with free workshops - so thanks to all of you who booked and showed up!

This paper potter has been the star of the show, allowing me to send people home with plants that they have pricked out and planted up.

I also ran a window box workshop at the Women’s Community Project in Mullingar . We focussed on herbs and edible flowers - it was very well received, and I was able to grow most of the plants myself. Looking forward to another session with that group in May.

Flower Farming

The broom in Coole is just starting to blossom, and many of the biennials planted last year are on the verge of bursting into bloom. It’s an exciting time of the year - although the ranunculus are almost finished, sadly. It’s getting a bit too warm for them, and some have succumbed to greenfly also. The corms planted in February in crates don’t seem to be doing much - I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I get a second flush from them.

Lots of seeds germinating, getting planted out, coming on well. I have larkspur, snapdragon, cosmos, ammi, statice and strawflower pricked out into modules, and nearly ready for planting out.

The (volunteer) sweet pea in the tunnel is growing vigorously, I’m excited for some lovely scented sweet pea flowers to bring inside. Speaking of scents - April has seen the wallflowers doing extremely well - and there’s quite a variety of colours these days - some lovely purples and pinks. They are scenting the front of the house beautifully, even my odour-impaired husband has commented positively.

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Learning

The Bioregioning event in Borris was a great success. People had some difficulty getting there with the fuel protests, and panic buying of fuel, but it felt very much like the right place to be while the turmoil ensued. Lots of great discussion, meeting new people, having the craic with old friends, and working together. As you’d expect, the food was local, sustainable and delicious! I may have overindulged in the pastries from Seagull bakery, but it’s difficult not to. As the event was on a Friday, and in Borris, it would have been criminal not to have shopped at the farmers market there, and at Plur Bakery. Although my picky (discerning?) son reckoned that he preferred my sourdough….

Brian and I are both participating in a training course run by IKC3 that started this month. It’s mostly online with monthly in person events, and run in conjunction with Westmeath County Council. We had our first in-person seminar this week, and I have to say I’m really energised by the discussion, and the potential for collaboration with the Westmeath cohort!

Upcoming events

A few more Residency events coming up:

Booking links will be found here.

The month of May also includes Biodiversity week - I’m doing a seed saving workshop in Athlone Library at 6pm on May 19th. No booking link for that yet, but if you’re keen, phone the Library and book your place - (090) 644 2157.

I’m also in the Family Resource centre in Ballynacargy that morning (19th) doing a jam jar posy workshop - free, open to all. To Book: phone 0871341478 or email outreach@caraphortfrc.ie . I’m also in the Family Resource centre in Athlone on Wednesday 20th May at 10am, another jam jar posy workshop - also free , open to all - email Projectworker@afrc.ie to book your place.

There’s a May festival in Castlepollard - some free workshops run by friends of this publication on May 2nd.