Peter Donegan Garden Design & LandscapingPeter Donegan is the series garden designer for RTE television’s DIY SOS The Big Build Ireland.
In 2001 aged 24, Peter Donegan Garden Design was borne and swiftly won a host of awards for 17th & 18th century gardens & show gardens at national competition,
April 2019 Peter designed at RHS Flower Show Cardiff winning Silver & in 2020 was accepted to design at RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.
Selected to represent Ireland to design & realise the Irish WW1 Centenary Peace Garden at Chateau de Peronne (2018). He returns to design there again in 2022.
http://DoneganLandscaping.com
If garden making and the design of was only considered business, I’d never be inspired…. sometimes i think we simply need to stop [a little more…] and take a look around. Isn’t this a wonderfully beautiful country we live in….
This is Enniscorthy in Wexford.
not long to go now. This pic courtesy of ‘C’. Appreciated. See you at the picnic folks! Of course it all started on the rick show… As long as I’m not confused with the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand [great band by the way]… Darren [the legend.. with odd music tastes!] thinks I look like him… ?!
for all pink boat stuff – click here
biodiversity: n the existence of a wide variety of plants and animals in their natural environments [collins dictionary]
I came home one night [a little the worse!] and saw this fella at my front door. So I took a photo. I thought it was a bat? It’s not. It looks like one. It’s not. But in my research I found Bats are good. Necessary; for plants, for humans – for life. They have a role to play.
I tried to check it out on the Bat Conservation Ireland website, but I found their web information so technical, for me anyway, as an apprentice novice of bats.
What I did find was [yet again & well done] by Dubln City Council. So I telephoned the number and got Mairead Stack [we’d met before], well her voice mail. So I emailed. [Mairead is the biodiversity officer for DCC]. I wanted to find out if it was a bat and what on earth were they good for!
The website pdf says:
The main value is insect control. The common pippistrell can catch up to 3,500 midgets in a night. Bats also serve as indicators of the health of the ecosystem.
God, if we didn’t have bats. Imagine what outside that spotlight would really look like…?!! Mairead also responded [thank you] to my email and informed me that:
It certainly isn’t a bat…. It’s a lepidopteran of some kind (moth).If you go to Bat Conservation Ireland’s website you will find lots of helpful advice and guidance on bats. Also, the DCC Biodiversity Action Plan on www.dublincity.ie lists the 8 species we have in Dublin (there are 10 in Ireland). The main thing re gardens and bats is to grow lots of insect attracting flowers so nectar producing, sweet smelling (especially in evening/night time). Also to have some water feature, again to attract insects on which bats feed, have a mature tree which is forked in which they can roost and put up bat box in the apex of the eaves of your house.
Full credit to DCC and Mairéad. Bulaibh bós in fact. It’s amazing the varying [and most welcome] calls that come in to a landscape & design office [partly the reason why I blog]. But I now know in writing that people shouldn’t be afraid of these chappies – we need them. Now all I need is a picture of a moth bat…
The grass title maybe misleading. Need advice? [click here]. I may have constructed unusual lawns, [topographically] but never seen anything like this. Thanks to Will who got it from brandflakesforbreakfast who got it from this guy.
Lawn care enthusiasts take note — it’ll take more than a riding mower and a thrice-daily waterings (for shame) to outshine artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey this summer.
The pair have perfected their talent for manipulating the light sensitivity of ordinary grass. Black and white negatives are projected onto the grass, 12 hours per day, for over a week as the grass grows in a dark room. Different blades get different exposure and the results are photographs, like the recent Wimbledon portraits shown above.
Find more of their grassy experiments at this gallery at Arts Admin.
There are so many ‘organic’ books on the market at the moment. Most of them in my opinion perfectly ripe for the compost heap. This one however is an exception and Sheherazade Goldsmith does a great job here.
Its not very indepth which has its pros [and cons]; But it is aptly titled as ‘a slice’ and that is exactly what it gives you. If you were thinking of going a little environmentally/ eco/ greener friendly – this is a great place to get a little tester of what is for you.
If agriculture and horticulture were never your gig – this is your calling for sure and it is indepth enough not to turn you off.
Entertaining, fun and worthwhile even at €25.40 from Hughes & Hughes. You can see mine already has a coffee stain on the front – a sure sign it’s being used!