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Peter Donegan – Upcoming Garden Talks

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peter donegan, garden talks

Clontarf District and Gardening Society – Soils and Aspect

Balbriggan Educate Together School – Green Gardening Certificate

  • Tuesday 29th November 9.45am
  • Final session and Presentation of Adventures in Green Gardening Certificates [6 week course] to 5th class with The Lord Mayor of Fingal at Balbriggan Library.

Fingal Libraries – Wintery Gardens

More information:

– or – Contact Peter Donegan

Gardening Demonstrations & Talks

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Although I did teach horticulture some years ago now, my first public gardening demonstration took place about five years ago in Dublin City Centre at an event was hosted by dublin City Council.

With a little encouragement from yours truly to brighten up their little space, unusual objects were planted up by the attending public with some information on their plant of choice and all some tips on the aftercare of their creation.

Since then I have worked with Fingal Libraries, DTE Events and the OPW to name but a few.

One off talks, a series of informative garden on a specific subject and public demonstrations to varying groups and ages have all taken place. From those younger than and including primary school age  to those a little taller, all have genres it seems have been covered.

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Gardening For Your Event…

  • public demonstrations and talks for events/ public or other can be done. Probably best you phone me on this one or drop by for that mug of coffee.
  • got a suggestion or query – just give me a call
  • some inquiries have been made recently as to sponsoring products and/ or a course/ class. You’ll probably want to have a mug of coffee or call me first – but I’m open to suggestions.
  • Anything else just ask

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Recent Examples of Garden Talks and Gardening Demonstartions

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Contact Peter Donegan

  • email info@doneganlandscaping.com
  • use the contact form
  • call 087-6594688 or 01-8078712 – if you don’t get an answer please do leave a message and I will call you back as soon as is possible. I am possibly up a tree and it may be dangerous to take your call at that time.

also you can find Peter Donegan:

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Oldbridge Country Fair 2011 and The Garden Talks

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The Oldbridge Country Fair took place over the May Bank Holiday Weekend.

On the Saturday, I and some fellow great outdoor enthusiasts gave two sessions of what were titled short garden talks that I had put together with the organisers of Oldbridge Fair. The talks [I prefer chats] on a particular subject involving in some form or other gardening had changed ever so mildly from the original intended and covered the following topics:

  • growing your own to suit your lifestyle
  • community gardening
  • urban city gardening
  • the 3 metre squared gardener
  • a short history on bee keeping
  • the great outdoors
  • elder flower champagne making
  • bee keeping for beginners

To the garden talks, the audio was recorded for The SodShow, Dublin’s garden radio show on 103.2 Dublin City Fm and will be aired over the coming weeks for you to enjoy. And because of the fact that I won’t be including audio in this post, I felt it better to make this post a bit bulkier [?] and include some information about the entire weekend. With that in mind I did return again on the Monday.

What I was really looking forward to seeing was the hot air balloons but alas it was far too windy. Due to family reasons I also missed the sheep dog trials…. I did however catch the talk from the balloon experts. I loved the crafts that were on sale throughout the day [In particular the Big Red Kitchen Chutneys which I bought some of – yummy!]. All local and hand made I should add. The reenactments were brilliant, suffice to say I caught these on both days. I simply loved the coin minting. The dog show was great craic and watching an attempt at a world record piggy back attempt was simply smiles all round. It was also my first time to see a fly fishing demonstration… on a lawned area. Love it!

It’s a little windy in this video… but well worth a look

More than that, Oldbridge House/ The battle of the Boyne visitor centre looked spectacular. The weather was glorious and my regret was that I didn’t bring a picnic as I had intended to do so. The fair was very much a local af-fair but that was good. There were good crowds, yet it wasn’t crowded. I loved it. I enjoyed it. I brought the Donegan Clann with me when I returned on the Monday, on my day off. They loved it. And believe me if they didn’t they’d tell me 😉

My very special thanks to the very kind people who spent the day with me on Saturday:

Jason Robards, Philip Murtagh, Tricia Sheehy Skeffington, Jennifer Farly, Dee Sewell, Brian Greene. The wonderful staff of Oldbridge House and in particular my point of contact Aisling Mcmahon.

Fingal Libraries Public Gardening Talks

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I did a sesssion of gardening talks with Fingal Libraries for some of Fingals primary schools about two weeks ago.

Taking place once again in Fingal’s Libraries, I will be doing a second series of gardening talks for anyone who would like to attend. Whilst the talks are as such free to attend, I am told that booking is essential and you can do this through your local library. As I said before, I’m more familiar with the mobile library so I’m unsure of what is the easiest way to do the actual booking. Also places are limited.

update: To book any event just contact or drop into the relevant library

The following talks are so far confirmed:

  • Malahide Library – Monday 18th April @ 3pm
  • Baldoyle library – Monday 18th April @ 7pm
  • Swords Library – Tuesday 19th April @7pm
  • Blanchardstown Library – Wednesday 20th April @ 7pm
  • Balbriggan Library – Thursday 21st april @ 7pm

More details on fingal libraries and the garden classes/ talks contact:

Siobhan Walshe
Development & PR Department
Fingal County Libraries
County Hall
Swords
01 8905532
www.fingalcoco.ie/Library

For more information on garden talks & demonstrations you can also contact me in the following ways:

Fingal Libraries Schools Gardening Talks

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I mentioned last week that I was doing some gardening talks with Fingal County Council Libraries. The classses were for 4 primary school classes and took place over a two day period.

To deviate mildly, because of where I live, the mobile library is there should I need it and to that it has been a while since I was in a library building. I was so impressed. Blown away, is most probably a more apt description.

If you thought libraries are dull, boring and dreary places reticent of ’80’s Ireland, you are miles nee kilometres off the mark. Childrens areas, wifi, bright and bustling – with areas of quiet – is what they are; all complete with modern meeting rooms – which is were my talks were held.

I centred my talks, in [extremely] short, around a plant starting as a seed, maturing into a plant in order to produce a flower which in turn produces a seed, basically it’s life cycle, only for it to start all over again. Examples and samples of my apples trees in bud, actual apples, bananas, carrots, onions, onion plants and sets [i threw in a leek and a flowerless daffodil for the craic], as well as potato seeds and potatoes, to name but a few.

To the staff in all I extend a massive thank you for being so amazing and so very kind. Also to Siobhan Walshe who was my point of contact for the week and such a pleasure to chat with.

As a by the way, Rush library, [pictured above] formerly an old church building if for nothing else is well worth a visit for sake of the architecture, the interior and the way in which modern technology has interacted with it. The compliment can be extended, albeit in a varying light, to Baldoyle library semi wrapped in glass and overlooking the waters leading to Irelands eye; Malahide library get my applause for their front garden which I love dearly and Balbriggan library I actually got lost in it.

More details on fingal libraries and the garden classes/ talks contact:

Siobhan Walshe
Development & PR Department
Fingal County Libraries
County Hall
Swords
01 8905532
www.fingalcoco.ie/Library

More information on garden talks & demonstrations:

You can also contact me in the following ways: