Back during the August bank holiday weekend, we arranged to visit some old friends near in County Waterford. Heading down the motorway, our GPS tells us to turn off the motorway prematurely, but as I was unfamiliar with the area we were going to I did what I was told and left the motorway. By doing this, we were taken through the recently bypassed town of Durrow. But this was not the same Durrow I remembered form the times before the bypass where it was constantly chocked up

You may be forgiven for thinking that this is a scene from a remake of the Flintstones by Tim Burton., but believe it or not, it is a real house in the rural settings of the Fafe mountains in northern Portugal. A Casa do Penedo, or “the House of Stone,” was built between four large boulders found on the site. The house was built in 1974 as a family’s rural retreat, but in recent years it has attracted the attention of tourists and architecture enthusiasts alike. Some come to 

A few months back while researching for my post The Shell House at Ballymaloe Cookery School, I came across this very different and quite literal Shell House. This story may not be really garden related, but it’s so wacky and fun, I’m gonna post about it anyway. This amazing house, the ‘Nautilus House’ was built in 2006 by Arquitectura Orgánica, for a young couple with two children from Mexico City who after living in a conventional home wanted to change to one integrated to

So the sun is finally shining here in Ireland and the plant growth, more than a month behind is finally bursting into life. All this good weather means I have very little time for my blog at the moment, so this weeks post is a quick one. Here is some strange looking fruit I came across on the internet recently. These Buddha shaped pears are the creation of Gao Xianzhang. Gao has been working on his pear-growing technique for six years and this season he managed to grow 10,000