Cherrie Notes
We were off to the soft green wilds of Fermanagh during the week to make this week鈥檚 programme.
Not much wildness to see of course, just the lovely romantic mist-drenched landscape waiting to welcome us as we drove down from Belfast. Sometimes it鈥檚 a journey which feels longer than it should, but not thankfully on Tuesday as we made our way to the famous Ballygawley roundabout and on through Augher, Clogher and Fivemiletown to meet Brendan Little and the rest of the team in the atmospheric and historic town of Enniskillen.
Averil Milligan our other gardening guru, travelled down with us and was really pleased to have the chance to visit Fermanagh, one of her favourite places on the planet. In usual roadshow fashion we met up before the recording to grab a bite to eat and to make sure that all our arrangements were in place. We ate in Franco鈥檚 restaurant which was lovely and even in the dark the waterside location was pretty as a picture as car lights and street lights twinkled in the rain and the trees and fountains in the water sparkled in sympathy.
Our venue was St Macartin鈥檚 Cathedral and our hosts the Enniskillen and District Club of Soroptimist International, an organisation whose members are made up of business and professional women. This year they will be celebrating their 50th anniversary so it was lovely to feature as the first item the birthday agenda. With members of Fermanagh Gardening Society invited along too, the hall was packed and buzzing and before we began Brendan and Averil kept everyone entertained and informed as Julie and I slipped outside to record a short interview with the current President, Hope Kerr.
Brendan had recently been down to visit his Mum in Co Meath and had brought back with him some lovely sprigs of spring gathered up from the family garden, the very garden which inspired him to become a gardener, so on the table before him throughout the recording were the bright lemons and cool greens of Mahonia, the bruised purples of Hellebore flowers, a highly scented twig of Viburnum and a charming pot of snowdrops which drew all eyes to them and focused our thoughts on the subject in hand ... plants.
Our thanks to everyone who submitted and asked questions and among them
* the care and pruning of orchids
* how to help a much loved but ailing Tibouchina
* how to move a glorious climbing rose from one house to another
* how often to sterilise the soil in a greenhouse
* why some clumps of daffodils produce buds which turn brown and wither
* what annual seeds might thrive in cool wet weather(like last summer)
* and to Brendan and Averil specifically, what favourite plants made them think of relatives or friends.
The answers duly proffered and another Gardeners' Corner Roadshow in the bag and ready for editing, it was time, in the best of traditions, to break for tea, so we did.
You can hear all the answers to the questions above and a few more besides anytime over the next seven days or you can download the entire programme as a podcast and listen at your leisure. Just go to the 成人快手 Radio Ulster homepage and follow the links.
