On a bleak winter’s day in the garden, it can be a pleasant surprise to turn a corner and experience a sweet scent wafting in the cold air. An inconspicuous shrub called Sarcococca confusa or Sweet box could be the provenance of the unusual fragrance hanging in the air. This evergreen shrub with glossy green ovate…
Heralds of spring; heralds of hope. The Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) or Plúirín sneachta in Irish appears in January and blooms until March (1). It is one of the first flowers of the year to appear in gardens, semi-shaded places, old graveyards and hedgerows (2). Its drooping white flowers are a cheerful sight in a time…
Common Yew (Taxus baccata) or Iúr/Eo in Irish is an evergreen conifer which like another conifer, the Scot’s pine, is native to Ireland (1a). A mutant, upright, fastigate form of the yew is the Irish yew (Taxus baccata ‘Fastiagata’) the original of which was discovered in Florencecourt, Co. Fermanagh in 1767 (1b). The man who…
Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) or Giúis in Irish is an evergreen conifer which is native to Ireland. It colonised the country about 12,000 years ago but was thought to have become extinct because of wetter climatic conditions about 1500 years ago (1a:1b). This theory, however, was never proven and occasional mention of this tree occurs…
