31/07/2020
...." I was in the Blind School in Dublin from the age of 9 to 18 years of age...
..went up in September and didn't get home again till Christmas...it was tough going...
..it was tough, very tough...tough on my parents too...no one knew why I had the problem...
..I've 2/ 60 vision...so yours'd be 30 times better than mine....I might see a car passing but a dog could be driving for all I'd know....
....I learned brail in the Blind School and I used to spent time in their garden...they had a good garden....I had middlinggood eyesight for picking spuds....
..we had no money but my mother was a marvellous cook and was never tired...she was kept going....I'm the 4th eldest of 12....six lads in one room, four in an other but sure wehad a roof over our heads....I remember when we changed from a thatched roof....we took away 2 horse carts loads of thatch....and then the rain came and fell on the felt ... sure I thought we were in paradise....
..my great granny and my granny were interested in plants and my father used to sell cabbage plants..we always had flowers..it was a bit unusual back then to be intereested in horticulture....later my brother Jim and myself started a nursery at home....that'd be Rosemount, Westmeath..
..was never afraid of work..worked in the Polio Fellowship in Stillorgan...pulling weeds a lot of the time...worked too in Lusk in a garden centre..there were 6,000 roses to be delafed..Con Ryan was the main gardener and I kept asking him the names of plants....
.for four years I worked with Michael Slavin in the Horseleap Garden Centre....it was one of the first in the midlands and extremely busy....we sold 600 apple trees one year...
..one day Daddy said there was a cottage with an acre for sale in Abbeylara....Abbeylara Lad was the name of a famous greyhound and that was the only thing I knew about Abbeylara back then......
..but anyway I managed to buy it.. I wanted to be independent ..no running water..no electricity....that was 40 years ago....a bit of a grant helped and I got a lot of plants from home...Hugh Masterson had a great Hardware shop locally and Mrs Crawford got me the phone very quickly..a wind up one. once I had the phone I was flying....one year there was massive drought and Vincent Quinn left a tanker at the gate....John Kiernan helped me get water from the lake....soon I had every square inch planted...
..I got a few gosuns helping me and some stayed on...now it'd be hard to get enough to ring a sow....
.at the start it was a bit lonely but I'd meet people at mass and have the odd bottle of stout and then there was ceili ing...visiting neighbours and sure neighbours grew into friends....met Susan Connell my wife that way....she used to come from Greenwich, Connecticut on holidays...we married on May 15th, 1998....
..Susan is just brilliant..where would I be without Susan ?...
. a young .Paul Williams was with the Longford News and he gave me a good write up which Marian Finnucane RTE saw and used it and then Jim Sherwin had me on his radio programme " Listen and See "...so all that helped get me a lot of publicity and clients....and Jim my brother was always a huge help too...
..I start some mornings at 6...am always able to sleep...once you can sleep, you're flying....
..gardening has become very popular....it was very difficult to get plants during the start of Covid ..some people did extra garden work during the lockdown....
.Hydrangea is very popular...so are apple trees and roses...plants come in and out of fashion but everyone loves the scented lavender.....
....if you could only grow one plant ?....well, you can't beat a good fragrant rose....
...I'm 40 years here now among the great and generous people of Abbeylara...who'd have thought it !.....only for my Susan and family, my friends the neighbours, Jim my brother and plenty of lovely,loyal customers....
..I suppose the love of plants and flowers is deeply rooted in the family....
...and I intend to be around for an other good few blooming years yet !!......"
Larry Boland.
