A STROLL IN THE GARDEN - THERESA CROSSAN

Theresa Crossan from Buncrana is a very keen gardener. This year her hard work has been rewarded. Theresa received first prize for the Best Garden in the Swilly Gardening Club competition. Because of careful planning and wind protection the garden looks fantastic at any time of year.


How long have you been working on the garden?
I have been in this house for twenty-seven years and tending to the garden for twenty-five years. I started it from scratch. It has been a gradual process with a lot of changes.

Why is the rear garden in two sections?
I tried to grow tender plants but they just got totally ruined with the wind from the Swilly. The bottom end of the garden is now a windbreak, divided by a large Escallonia hedge. I have planted olearia and senicio as well, as these plants are ideal for the coast. These give us the protection we need to grow tender annuals.


What is your favourite plant?
I really like the hedging plants. We tried leylandii when the garden was young but all but two of them died in the wind. My favourite hedging that we have is the griselinia littoralis with its apple coloured leaves.

What is your favourite feature in the garden?
The water feature is very relaxing. I enjoy its soothing properties.

What is your favourite season and why?
I am at my most enthusiastic in the time just coming into summer.

What work gives you the most pleasure in the garden?
It certainly isn’t the weeding! I have put plants very close together in my garden to stop the weeds coming up. My greatest pleasure is planting up the summer bedding.

Any irritations in the garden. How do you cope?
My children used to be the biggest problem with their footballs. The only problem I have now is our dog; he has a tendency to make a nest in the foliage.

What is your best gardening tool?
The hoe to keep the small weeds down, before they become a nuisance.

Top Tip for spring?
Use the hoe regularly especially early on in the season.
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Any plans for the future?
I add bits every year and next year I would like white climbing roses to grow over the trellis feature.

Horticultural.

MORE CORK IMAGES

CORK IMAGES

HALLOWEEN PICTURE

2-3rd class at Scoil Colmcille Newtowncunningham

NOELINE AT HOME

CHECK OUT THE MAYO ANIMAL WELFARE SITE

FANCY DONATING A BIT OF TIME OR MONEY?

Noeline Haylett from Newport County Mayo runs the animal welfare centre, works full time for the health board and is currently doing great work in Ghana helping orphans. Her tireless fund raising and support is greatly appreciated. She was recently in hospital with a fractured leg but still managed to get the hospital to donate and old ambulance!

Noeline is currently looking for storage space in Westport County Mayo for her donated goods.

WEBSITE

Do you know the world of computers? I have offered to set up a website for Noeline but I am finding the process a bit daunting.

Do you know of an easy to use system that I could ust to set it up please?

WORK OVERSEAS

There will be an opportunity to help by either travelling directly to the villages that she works in or you can sposor a child for 70 euro a year so they are fed, housed and educated.

You can also help by donating money,clothes and anything esle that would benefit.

If you require more information contact me and I will forward your details.

Thanks

Ian

TRY TO KEEP UP

KEEPING UP

Environmental issues are moving on at a phenomenal rate. I find that even articles that were written a short while ago on this blog sound dated.

I did some work on the bio fuels recently and it seemed like a great idea. Now we find that to make it a viable energy proposition, the amount needed to keep us going would mean that the whole landmass of earth will have to be set aside for growing the stuff! To help us keep intough with what's happening here are some sites of interest.

These will do a far better job of keeping my finger on the environmental pulse.

www.est.org.uk

Cut fuel bills by up to 30%

www.freecycle.org

Give your stuff away to people that need it.

www.planetary.org

The power of photography.

www.climate.org

Offset your emissions.

www.recyclezone.co.uk

Learn the 3 R’s.

www.wow-wow.co.uk

Gadgets galore

www.treehugger.com

Go sustainable.



There are so many more, have a browse and let me know what's good.

Environmental.

PARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

Over zealous line marking outside the old fire station in Buncrana makes it unclear if the pavement is a road or the road is a pavement.

It looks as though even pedestrians cannot avoid the new proposed parking charges in Buncrana. In the enthusiasm to turn the town into a Pay and Display zone, we now have double yellow lines on the pavement at the junction outside of the old fire station. No loitering you pesky pedestrians and cough up with some money!

PAY AND DISPLAY PART 2

So maybe we could brush up on the Highway Code. Try this simple quiz loosely based on the Rules of the Road booklet that was recently pushed through our letterboxes.

Parking Quiz

Q1. When you park up your car with infants on board do you:
Leave them alone and unattended whilst you shop.
Think it’s all right to leave them as long as the engine is running.
You must never leave youngsters unattended in a car.

Q2. When pulling away from a parking space do you:
Just pull out and hope for the best.
Ensure that you intimidate pedestrians crossing the road as you pull away.
Always look in the mirror and give way to other traffic and pedestrians.

Q3. When faced with a yellow box junction do you:
Sit in the middle of it to stop all other traffic from moving.
Get annoyed because other people adhere to the rules of the road.
Do not enter a box junction unless your exit is clear or turning right.

Q4. When parking to collect your children from school do you:
Think its great to find an empty disabled parking space, even though you do not have a disabled badge.
Park anywhere you like, even on double yellow lines as it only obstructs the flow of traffic for a few minutes.
Find a suitable parking space that is considerate to other vehicle users and doesn’t obstruct the flow of traffic.

Q5. Do you think that paying for parking in Buncrana when the meters are introduced will encourage shoppers into the high street and speed up the flow of traffic?

1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Don’t care because I’m a pedestrian.

PAY AND DISPLAY IN BUNCRANA

Cars in Cork have a hard time when their tickets run out

Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to collect their child from school or go shopping in Buncrana on foot. For those who do the parking charges probably wont be much of an issue. The rest of us who have to take our cars in to town the introduction of the traffic management system being planned will be a major (and costly) inconvenience.

The motorists parking in Buncrana will have the added cost of being charged not only to supply the town with extra car parking facilities but also to fund a highly motivated and driven team of employers working for a successful multinational company. Eurocarparks the proposed company coming in to manage the system have, (as their website claims), a fantastic bonus system in place for the workforce. This sounds a bit worrying for anyone daring to flaunt the rules knowing that the wardens are on a productivity scheme.

If the money for the pay and display is going back to the council then where is the money to pay the annual charges for Eurocarparks coming from?

A car park in Tyneside owned by Eurocarparks had to change their policy recently when disabled drivers complained about how they were being treated. The drivers didn’t object to being charged. What they objected to was the fact that after parking in a zone outside their library they had to purchase their ticket from the machine, which was a long way from the building. They then had to return to the car and then go to the Library. This obviously defeats the object of having the parking bays close to where you need to go.

There are drivers that cause major tailbacks down the main street in the town. Double parking or people who have no idea how to park a vehicle and taking ten minutes to reverse into a parking spot can cause tailbacks right down the Cockhill road. So can lorries delivering to shops. But isn’t this why the town is getting an outer and inner ring road, to take the traffic passing through to avoid these hold ups?

The Pay and Display is being introduced to raise the funds to buy more car parks and to deter shop workers and office staff from parking up all day and depriving the shopper of a space. All well and good but has it been thought through? The workers in the town will still need to park somewhere . There is talk of the decentralisation of the town with new developments planned at the shore from and on the main Derry road. Surely this is a bigger threat to the high street?

Environmental.