My daughter Jennie and I took a trip to the Botanic Gardens in the last week of August. The place was a mass of colour, with all of the annuals at their best. The dahlia garden was stunning, with such a beautiful show of every size and colour – a great place to take note of some varieties, so that when buying new bulbs it will be easier to choose.

We also liked the water lilies. The pond stretches for about 70m, with plenty of room to spread. Our own pond is tiny and we have only pink and white lilies, but they gave a great show of flowers this year. Still, we were tempted to buy even more as there were several colours in their pond.

We have some nice dahlias, but they need plenty of room. We have a pink tree dahlia that grows to about 1.5m tall and produces a mass of flowers from June until the first frost comes. I did not see this type there.

Their vegetable garden looked very well with a mix of veg, plenty of apple and pear trees as well as exotic fruit growing in glasshouses. It’s a lovely place to visit on a nice summer’s day and the lily pond is a perfect place for a picnic. Here in the garden all of the vegetables are still thriving. However, the last lot of peas we sowed got some mildew on them. I thought they were safe from it, as they were sown in mid-June, but it came early this year. I treated them with garlic wash. That helped a bit, but we also had a thundery downpour that gave them a great washing and it did not harm the peas, as the pods filled perfectly. All our peas cropped very heavily this year, and we had to freeze a lot of them. There’s nothing as nice as the taste of the fresh garden pea.

There’s still plenty of time to plant bulbs and it is a good idea to get your hands on an autumn catalogue or two. There’s so much to choose from and it’s money well spent, as bulbs will give joy in the drab old days of winter.

Snowdrops are one of our favourites, as they start to show just after Christmas. We like to buy a new variety of bulb every year, as it is exciting to see what they will turn out like. Once sown each of these will produce for years.

Keep on sowing seeds when the weather is good. ‘Tadget asters’ and Lavatera mallows are in no short supply in the garden at the moment. Both give a great show of colour with several different tadgets that bloom all summer right up to early frosts. Red and white lavateras grow great when the seeds are kept dry before sowing in spring.

Well, it’s that time of the year again when almost everyone is planning a trip to the Ploughing. I hope the weather is kind, as a bit of good weather makes all the difference. Hope to see you there for a gardening chat at the Irish Farmers Journal stand. CL