Grace Dieu Hedgerow Walk

hedgerow walk grace dieu (22)

Yesterday I went walking with The Hedgerow Society through the lands of Grace Dieu, Ballyboughal.

The Hedgerow Walks are I find what keeps me very much on my toes. It is at this time of year knowing trees in the distance by their silhouette and it is plant identification in its finest format on the move, without books and straight from the brain. It is that that I have to know, being a horticulturist.

Grace Dieu Hedgerow Walk (mp3)

More than that, it is knowledge sharing and an understanding of why everything that should be in the great outdoors, sometimes is not. Nothing could be reason more than the local knowledge of the lands at Grace Dieu, Ballyboughal where once lay a Nunnery dating back to 1190 and its small village settlement. Although some stone work  is visible above ground, a lot of it resides now below and is the main sole reason why on a dry day foundation outlines are clearly visible and a fine explanation as to why crops would falter. In short, information no book could ever explain.

Many thanks to all of those who I met on the day. It was, yet again and as always an absolute honour.

Next Event:
  • Date and Time: Saturday 3rd December, 10.00 am
  • Meet Point: Cafe in Ardgillan
  • Details: Walk around Ardgillan grounds on a field trip with Declan to find out what happens to nature around us in winter.
By |November 28th, 2011|All Posts, Courses, Classes, Events|2 Comments
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Fingal Independent – November 22nd

This article appeared in The Fingal Independent Tuesday 22nd November 2011:

Garden podcast puts Peter up for award

By JOHN MANNING

Tuesday November 22 2011

A BALLYBOUGHAL man is up for a national award for his Podcast that introduces the listener to the joys of gardening. Ace landscape gardner and community stalwart down Ballyboughal way is Peter Donegan and his popular podcast called The Sodshow is up for a national web award this year. Peter is the man behind Ballyboughal.net and a great champion of life in Ballyboughal as well as an enthusiastic promoter of all things green-fingered. He is an award winning landscape gardener and designer with Peter Donegan Landscaping and has had several eye-catching exhibits at the Bloom festival. Apart from imparting his gardening wisdom on the Podcast, Peter has had more face-to-face encounters with budding horticulturalists in Fingal classrooms over the last few weeks. Fingal Libraries in conjunction with Peter Donegan are hosting a series of classes with primary school children to teach them the real facts of nature through October and November. The sessions cover topics such as gardening, water, the great outdoors, how plants make their own food and how we grow ours, fruit and vegetables, trees and flowers, making a living edible garden and staying green at home. The classes give the children the opportunity to get their hands dirty and do some planting themselves and at the same time have fun while exploring the natural world and biodiversity. The garden classes entitled, Adventures in Green Gardening, started Tuesday 16th October and run for six weeks. Even if you missed the classes, a list of books has been compiled by Peter Donegan and Fingal Libraries for children to read themselves and also a list of more detailed books for parents. All of the books are available from Fingal Libraries.

- JOHN MANNING

By |November 28th, 2011|All Posts, Media|0 Comments
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The #SodShow Friday 25th November. Dublin Garden Radio Podcast

The #SodShow Friday 25th November. Dublin Garden Radio Podcast (mp3)

The SodShow – with Peter Donegan & Brian Greene – Every Friday 3pm – Live

Listen to The SodShow Live @ 3pm:

  • Tune in: 103.2fm on your radio dial if you are in the Dublin area
  • Listen live online: every Friday 3pm via TuneIn.com – on your phone or desktop

With thanks To This Weeks Guests:

Lucy Bell of Grow Network and Rob of The Loft Bookshop

lucy bell

Listen Later:

Making Contact:

About The SodShow:

The SodShow, Dublin City’s Garden Radio Show with landscape gardener Peter Donegan and armchair gardener Brian Greene airs on Dublin City FM Friday’s at 3PM.

Join Peter & Brian for an alternative view of all things outdoors with studio guests, field recordings, educational talks in a fun and unique garden radio style. With tools, plants & garden work for the week and trip to Dublin’s famous and well hidden parks & gardens the SodShow is fast growing to be a permanent fixture on Dublin’s radio dial since its launch in March 2011.

The SodShow is quite unique in that it started life as a popular podcast crossing over to live radio due to its growing demand.

Forget those Botanical Latin names (the presenters do as a rule) and roll up your sleeves. From gardening with a window box in an apartment to camping at oxegen, from chitting potatoes to making elderflower champagne you get it all on Dublin’s zaniest radio show.

The Sodshow is podcasted, blogged, streamed and live tweeted to the world via its internet site: http://blog.DoneganLandscaping.com/category/podcast

the sodshow

By |November 25th, 2011|All Posts, The SodShow|1 Comment
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Real [Irish] Flowers For Coffee Shops, Please ?

This is what happened me today…..

Real Flowers for Coffee Shops, Please ? (mp3)

I pondered it over the day and after asking the following on twitter….

real flowers for coffee shops

Which in short is explained in the following text

What is the opposite of plastic flowers on a table in a coffee shop ?

As my brain continued to ramble I wondered, if there were a most beautiful landscaped coffee shop ? Or for those who continually do what some may consider the simplicities, why didn’t they save themselves the money, time, bother, the cost and everything else that goes with it ?

What if you knew someone with that shop, that made that little effort and they might come on the radio show and maybe tell us why ? A good, nice all round not your usual happy news story that just might encourage others to up the ante and make me and others want to revisit your homely shop that little bit more often ?

Negative into a positive and all that jazz.  I’ll do a blog post on you and then invite you on the radio show/ podcast for a chat.

It’s relation to landscaping ? Flowers. Plants. Ireland. Gardens. And making other people happy-er.

These are those flowers on the tables in Killians of the Naul…

By |November 24th, 2011|All Posts, People, Business|0 Comments
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#Movember Update – Day 24

Find out more over at: Mobro.co/PeterDonegan

What Movember say:

The Movember Effect: Awareness & Education, Survivorship, Research
The funds raised in Ireland support the number one male cancer, prostate cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partner, Action Prostate Cancer an initiative of the Irish Cancer Society. Together, the two channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

For more information on the programmes we are funding please visit the following:
Action Prostate Cancer
Awareness & Education
Global Action Plan

Also – you might enjoy this courtesy of Movember Ireland on FB ;)

By |November 24th, 2011|All Posts, Smile|0 Comments
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