Gardening is more popular than ever, with many of us spending our free time planting, weeding and mowing. Ahead of this weekend’s Spring House and Garden Show at Belfast’s King’s Hall, Chrissie Russell and Grainne McCarry asked some very keen green-fingered folk just how their gardens grow

Jill Russell (68) is married to George and lives in Belfast. Her daughter is local artist Nicola Russell and she has two other children, Gail and Richard. She is a retired office worker for the Irish Times and George is a retired vet. For the last three years, Jill has worked one day a week as a volunteer gardener at the National Trust’s Mount Stewart. She says

I have the pleasure of working in two very different gardens - the expansive one at Mount Stewart and my own, smaller one.

Although my garden is quite long - about 16 metres - I’ve broken the rules. People say that a long garden needs nice curves, but I don’t have any. I love looking at the long lawn and getting a real impression of it’s length.

Because I live in the Belmont area of the city, my garden surprises people. When we moved in 35 years ago half of it was a rose garden, which wasn’t my scene at all, so I turned a lot of it into a vegetable patch. But that became too much for me to manage when I was at work, so we made it into larger lawn space for the children. As time went on, I became interested in different plants, and made a big flower bed along the right hand side. To cut down on maintenance I have a lot of shrubs.

I’ve many happy memories of sitting in the garden with friends and family. I’m the only one who works in the garden, apart from someone who cuts the grass.

I feel I’m always saying to people ‘you should have seen it two weeks ago’ because it’s hard to ensure there is something in bloom throughout the year. The azaleas and magnolia are out now - one of my favourite times since everything comes to life from April into June. I particularly love the herbaceous border - throughout winter there’s nothing there and then suddenly things start to happen.

Gardening is never a chore. Some days I’m out from 10am to 5pm. When I’m dragged inside to make dinner, I’ll suddenly realise I haven’t even had lunch.

I had my first taste of gardening when I was eight. My mother gave me a patch of ground, six feet by six feet, and I planted radishes, hollyhocks, purple sprouting broccoli and a redcurrant bush. Amazingly, they all grew. Mum and dad were great gardeners and since I got married at 18, I’ve been fortunate to always have a lovely garden.

I’ve been a volunteer gardener at Mount Stewart once a week for the last three years. It’s a fantastic place. If I were to start over I’d love to have worked as a gardener. I’m one of the oldest volunteers, and I’ve met some great people - gardeners are very happy people. I’ve even learned to drive a tractor. It’s great to learn from the full time gardeners and I’ve found the experience has definitely changed my approach to planting in my own garden. It’s made me braver - in the past I’d have left plants where they were even if I wasn’t happy with them. Now, if something isn’t right I’ll take it out - I enjoy the excitement and potential of an empty space. I do a volunteer diary at Mount Stewart, but I don’t consider myself at all knowledgeable in the way other people are. I’m not a gardener, I’m just someone who loves gardening.

My daughter Nicola comes and paints in the garden sometimes. She also has her own garden, and because she has a great eye for colour, she’s very good at saying ‘that needs a two foot wide magenta plant’ or ‘that bed needs a spot of white’. I’m sure they roll their eyes when I come to the gardening centre because I’m always looking for something very specific.

When my children were younger they weren’t that interested in gardening, but they are now. I used to have a rockery, but took it out because it was endless work. But I discovered my son Richard has one in his garden in America … because it had been his favourite part of our garden.

I try not to go on holiday during April and May as that’s when so much work needs to be done, but I don’t let the garden boss me - there’s no point letting it stop you from going to America for a month.

I eat my breakfast walking around the garden, looking at what everything’s doing. When mum died she left me some money, which went towards some plants and a pergola at the bottom of the garden - my favourite area because it reminds me of her.

My only big problem is that I’m always trying to keep my husband George out of the trees.

Despite being in his 70s he’s still keen to go climbing. I found him up the chestnut tree not long ago. He claimed to be trimming the ivy, but I definitely felt he looked a bit guilty! The family has made him promise to stop.”

Cherrie McIlwaine, who is in her 50s and lives in Comber, is a presenter on BBC Ulster’s Gardener’s Corner and a member of the team on BBC1’s Greenmount Garden. She says

I live in the middle of Comber in an old terraced house with an old terraced garden behind it. It’s not huge, but because it is terraced it feels like more than one garden. There are raised beds and I’ve a shared path with my neighbour. One area is given over to a patio although that is swiftly becoming invaded by an alchemilla mollis that was given to me at the end of a garden show - it’s beautiful but an absolute thug and is taking over my crazy paving.

I’ve been here over 20 years - it was the garden I fell in love with. There’s an old church at the top of the garden and a lot of very old planting. I love to create a sense of place and I think I have quite a ‘Co Down’ garden that sits well in the rolling countryside around here.

I don’t get as much time in the garden as I’d like - usually just on Sundays. I had no set plan for the garden when I moved in; it has evolved over time. I have a great belief in the right plant for the right place so I’m always buying something I think will give me a leap of delight when it blooms. I’m not a gardener who sets out to find something unusual that will present a challenge to grow.

At the moment, I’m creating more of a woodland area and a dry stone wall because I think the old mixed hedge on one side is a bit gappy. I also have a rose arch about to go in and I’m waiting for the clematis to bloom. I’ve set myself the challenge this year of giving more structure to the garden and have put in more shrubs and evergreens. I find myself falling in love with flowering plants and have to force myself to focus more on planting that will give the garden definition.

Making a garden work involves artistry and knowledge.

Gardening is good for getting you out and about, but it’s not that relaxing - often I find myself standing scratching my head, trying to think where I should put something. But you get more back than you put into it.

When I was younger I spent whole summers in Ward Park in Bangor and I used to help my parents in the garden. When you’re small, being involved puts the idea for gardening into your mind.

In my own garden I love spring into early summer, but from working on Gardener’s Corner I find it fascinating that there is always something happening in people’s gardens - through the show I’ve often discovered new plants that look fantastic.

Maybe it’s something to do with working with the earth, but gardeners are always very grounded people.

I like to have a daily walk round the garden just to check what’s in bloom. I don’t have any real trouble spots, although up at the top seems to have been used as a bit of a dumping ground in the past and every time I dig, I dig up pieces of crockery. It’s actually quite interesting - sometimes there is a bit of willow pattern - and I’m collecting all the pieces. I might make a mural with them.

Because I can see the whole garden from any angle, I love all of it. I have a seat on the terrace that I love and I hope to get a stone bench for the woodland area. I think everybody needs an outside place to retreat to.”

Award-winning landscape gardener Paul Martin (41) lives in Dundalk with his retired parents, Brendan and Geraldine. He transformed their back garden into an outdoors living room. He says

When I was growing up our garden would have been quite a traditional one with a lawn with mature trees and a vegetable patch. The house itself was built in the 1900s and the garden used to back onto fields before the developers came along.

The inspiration behind it was of an outdoors living room, an extension of the house itself. It is a summer-style garden with herbaceous planting that you can sit outside in, relax and enjoy when you come in from your work in the evening.

I started work on it about three years ago as an ongoing project that I did in my spare time, and I had some of the men that I employ working with me, too. It was a present to my parents to keep them happy!

The idea is that in the good weather you can dine outside and in the winter you can look out on it through the window. However, my problem is that when the good weather comes along I work longer hours. I get up earlier and finish later and I don’t really have the time to spend in the garden! My parents would spend a great deal of time in the garden though.

There’s a nice little pool with a waterfall which I particularly like. The problem with water features is that they can easily go wrong - if you are going to add one to your garden you need to do it right.

I have a modern contemporary sculpture in the garden by a sculptor called Sandra Bell from Dundalk and I’d love to have a few more pieces in it. The garden side slopes so I terraced it off and added planting in green, cream and blue to create the illusion of more space.”

source : www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

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