TESTIMONIALS

Dublin Garden Trail

August 2024

"We just really wanted to say a very big Thank You to all of the lovely people we met on our very short weekend in Ireland. All of your wonderful gardens were truly inspirational although I'm sure I would never be able to achieve such a high standard as they really were absolutely beautiful, the colours were exquisite and the ambiance of the gardens was magical.

 We would also like to thank you for the welcome we had from you all which was exceptional, and we really enjoyed the whole experience and who knows perhaps one day we will meet again.

We found your gardens on the Dublin Garden Trail leaflet in our hotel, we had no knowledge about some of the gardens, but others we had been following for some time on social media.

Wishing you all the very best

Karin & Adrian xx (the Welsh couple)"

The Dower House

14 August 2017

"The Wicklow Hospice is very grateful to Patricia Butler owner of Dower House and Gardens who raised a wonderful amount of €1,200 by opening up her beautiful gardens to the public. Her grand-daughter Lydia Cogan who is pictured with Evanne Cahill Chairperson of fundraising, Mark McKenna Wicklow Hospice and Lydia's mum Vanessa Cogan. Lydia was a wonderful help to Patricia during the two months. Patricia will open her gardens again next year, this is a wonderful day not to be missed. Thank you all so much."

Wicklow Hospice Foundation

Mount Usher

"Hurricane and storm delayed our annual autumn visit to Mount Usher Garden in Co. Wicklow and we feared we had left it too late this year and that the recent violent winds would have left the trees stripped of their foliage and deny us the pleasure of the display of autumn colour we have come to love.

Spring at Mount Usher has the magic of fabulous drifts of spring bulbs – Scilla biflora, erythroniums, wood anemones, crocus and little pockets of snowdrops but fiery autumn colour reflected on the surface of the River Vartry which flows through the garden create one of the most magical of pictures.

Fortune smiled on us; the gales had obviously spared the foliage and, although some trees had been brought down by the storms, there was a display to delight us."

Paddy Tobin
Irish Garden Plant Society

Tale of two beautiful Dublin gardens

By stevewhysall
See original blog post on Steve Whysall's website.
May 2017

We came to Ireland to see gardens and to experience Irish hospitality and culture.

And today we did all of these things when we visited two of Dublin’s loveliest private gardens, one owned by Mark and Olive Wilkinson and the other by Patricia and Michael Maguire.

We arrived at the Wilkinson’s garden at Tyrrelstown first thing in the morning and met Mark at the front door of his Boston ivy-covered mansion that dates back to the 1900s.

He guided us first into the rose garden at the side of the house where the roses were yet to open but where we found a superb wisteria and pleasant patio spot, which Mark said was one of his favourite places in summer.

From the rose courtyard, we walked around into the main walled garden at the back of the house, which turned out to be a beautiful and complex assortment of connecting garden areas all linked by a perimeter stroll path.

The first thing we saw was a lovely blue border full of bluebells with a variety of blue containers of various shapes and size scattered among them. The adjacent brick wall was also planted with aubrietia and campanula plugging holes.

Here, we enjoyed passing under graceful arches and wandering past exciting plants such as the two superb, full-flowering Chilean fire tree (Embothrium)  and magnificent billowing abutilons.

The perennial borders were wide and densely planted and contained a rich selection of choice plants, all very healthy and looking exceptionally beautiful.

The Wilkinson’s garden exudes the spirit of family and friendship with all sorts of inviting sitting and socializing places plus lovely play area for grandchildren including a charming swing strung from the branch of a tree.

Scent from deciduous azaleas filled the air when we were there and we found some exciting examples of trees, such as the wedding cake tree, Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’, so named because of its exquisite layered branching structure, a dove tree a.k.a the handkerchief tree and one of the first Dawn redwood trees planted in Ireland.

Bridge over stream filled with candelabra primula.

In the centre of the garden, Mark has built a gentle water rill and stream that drains into a circular basin that is another place where the grandchildren love to play and hang out in summer.

Along the gently gurgling stream, we found an impressive planting of candelabra primula.

Pergola walk in Wilkinson garden.

We also enjoyed seeing an orange ball tree, globe buddleia (B. globosa) and a beautiful Judas tree in full bloom.

Mark explained how he is working to establish a meadow garden and is happy to see how well his yellow rattle is doing – a plant he feels is essential for success if you want other meadow wild flowers to establish themselves.

View inside Wilkinson garden

But we were particularly touched by the gentle and gracious welcome we received from Mark and Olive and how relaxed and happy they were to chat with everyone and tell stories and answer questions about the garden and their life on the estate which today includes 60 acres.

Patricia and Michael Maguire in their garden, Lambs Cross

After a pleasant pub lunch, we headed to Lambs Cross, the garden of Patricia and Michael Maguire.

We were stopped in our tracks at the front door by an impressive collection of alpine plants, all displayed in a small gravel raised bed. It was an appetizer for what was to come and a clear indication of Patricia’s gifted planting ideas and her love for alpine plants, in particular.

Birch grove in the MaGuires’s garden

Michael willingly accepts that Patricia is the brains and main driving force behind the planting and that his role is mainly to support and help and take care of clipping hedges and shrubs.

In the main garden, we found a greenhouse containing some super fragrant Nemesia Wisley Vanilla which filled the space with a heavenly scent.

Jean Kromm and Cathy Henderson in Lambs Cross garden

 

Tale of two beautiful Dublin gardens (Part Two)

By stevewhysall
See original blog post on Steve Whysall's website.

Great gardens are not just beautiful but have other special qualities, such as the ability to relax and heal and rejuvenate. Others have the ability to transport you to another place and time and give a powerful sense of transcendence and other-worldliness.

We travelled to the outskirts of Dublin today to visit two unique, beautiful and much loved gardens that exemplify this truth.

The first was Knockrose, a hidden, protected garden, located on a centuries-old estate and today owned by Tom and Trish Farrell.

Trish and Tom Farrell and Lulu at the entrance to their garden, Knockrose.

The property has been in Trish’s family for four generations and the garden was started by her mother when Trish was a child.

A wall on the property is edge of “the pale” the traditional border of Dublin and Wicklow that gave meaning to the term “beyond the pale.”

Crinodendron, Chilean lantern bush, outside Knockrose house.

Tom greeted my group at the entrance off the main road and walked with us up a long curving lane to the house. On the way, he explained how the garden was a deep, source of spiritual Ley lines and had a history of being a healing place and a spiritually uplifting place for many visitors.

Tom Farrell explaining the significance of the granite mushrooms at Knockrose

Mushroom shaped granite objects, made by Cistercian monks in the 11th century and used as baffles to protect grain from mice and rats, were gathered on the property and grouped together to create a mystic centrepiece in the centre of the garden.

Gate made from wheel of a milk-churn cart at Knockrose.

We started out visit by walking through beautiful iron gates made from the wheels of an old milk-churn cart.

Close up of the mystical mushroom stones at Knockrose.

To the right, we found a huge Chilean lantern tree (Crinodendron) covered in masses of red dangling lantern-like flowers.

The small stone house was covered with Clematis montana that swept down and also covered the top of a low stone wall.

Kirti Patel enjoying a quiet moment in Knockrose garden.

Ethereal, wire-sculptural art-pieces by local artist Susan Cuffe have been dotted around the garden and add a ghostly-spirit presence to the landscape.

Knockrock house outside Dublin

Once inside the garden, we started our journey up a slope, first passing a small enclosed courtyard with beautiful mix of ceanothus, clematis and helianthemum and a giant mound of white flowered potentilla.

Cute hedgehog sculpture in the Knockrose garden.

We continued to circle around the garden, passing a lower lawn with two bright yellow metal chairs on it next to a lovely water course.

Steps took us up and into a small side, walled garden where we found the poignant metal tripod structure used to support a “famine pot” at the time of the potato famine. The large pot, used to cook soups and stews to feed the poor, has been sunk into the ground and turned into a pretty water feature.

Beautiful bark of myrtle trees in Knockrose garden.

Climbing the hillside, we past clumps of false Solomon seal and wallflowers and eventually came to the ring of granite mushroom-shaped objects that were used by monks to protect crops in the Middle Ages.

Inside Knockrose garden.

Here we found a beautiful Prunus serrulata with its magnificent shiny mahogany-like bark and beyond the mushroom objects a tall laburnum tree and in another corner a lovely weeping willow-leaf pear tree in front of a towering Crinodendron fighting for its life against a sprawling and smothering clematis.

Salvaged blue Victorian benches have been placed in a few spots around the garden to create inviting sitting spots. Once people get settled, Tom says they often feel like sitting for hours.

Victorian bench painted blue and placed in front of a Tasmanian tree fern.

On our way back down through the garden, we were amazed by the colourful bark of myrtle trees and impressed by the giant stands of purple phormium and the scent of deciduous azaleas.

Cute hedgehog sculptural works have been tucked into borders, under the flowers of dwarf rhododendrons and low perennials.

200 year old cork tree at Corke House.

All the time we were in the garden, the wind wipped wildly around the outside, roaring in the tree tops and makes a big show of itself. But inside the garden, there was perfect calm and tranquility – not a leaf was stirred. The contrast was quite striking.

Feeling rested and revived by the beauty and charm and peace of the garden, we said our farewells to the Farrells and head off to see our next garden at Corke House, which was built in the 1820s as an Italianate villa where a cork tree was planted because at the time olives and more exotic plants were not available.

Today the cork is a massive tree that collapsed many years ago and now lays, huge and impressive on the ground with massive branches reaching out in all directions.

One of the main views in Corke House garden.

The house was once part of the estate owned by Miss Augusta Elizabeth Magan, one of the richest women in Ireland, who was left standing at the alter by her fiancé when she was 19.

Traumatized by the betrayal, she locked herself up in a house on St. Stephen’s Green but kept the wedding banquet table set and continued to wear her wedding dress. 

One of the main views in Corke House garden.

Apparently, Charles Dickens was in Dublin in 1858 and heard the story of Miss Megan and used her as the basis for his character Miss Haversham in Great Expectations, published in 1861.

Today, Corke House is owned by architect Alfred Cochrane, who lives most of the time in Rome and speaks perfect Italian.

Framed view at Corke House garden.

He decided to add to the pronounced Mediterranean style of the garden by adding lush stands of bamboo, cordylines, tree ferns and phormiums as well as dense drifts of silver leafed senecio.

Cochrane also salvaged architectural remnants from Glendalough House, an 1830s Tudor manor, when it was being demolished and added the bits to his garden to create a picture of crumbling ruins from another age.

Recycled remnants of Glendalough House.

But Cochrane’s greatest contribution was to use his considerable architectural skills to create two well-defined lines of view that give the garden its strong definition with paths and buildings elegantly framed by the unambiguously structural plant material.

“I like to think of the garden as a kind of architectural theatre set that has slowly become overgrown, “ Cochrane told us.

Exotic cordylines at Corke House garden.

In the garden, we also enjoyed seeing large examples of Nothofagus (southern beech) and the Oriental plane (Plantanus orientalist),  and lovely myrtle trees, beautiful Atlantic blue spruce and soaring katsura trees.

From Corke House, we headed back into Dublin to explore more of the delights of the Irish capital.

swhysall@hotmail.com

View at Corke House garden.

'The Irish gardens were most impressive and we saw such variety and met so many wonderful people along the way.  Meeting passionate people who garden their own gardens was a real highlight as anyone can achieve amazing results if they have a team of gardeners!'
Group Organiser of The Perennial Poppies Group, Australia, September 2014.

'We all had a wonderful time visiting your beautiful gardens, you were all so hospitable and friendly. We all have great memories of the tour.'
Group Organiser of The Chiltern AGS Group, U.K., November 2014

'We have just returned to Shropshire having spent a few wonderful days visiting many of the Dublin gardening group Thank you so much. The gardens were so different & the hospitality just a delight .We look forward to returning. Thank you all.'
A member of the Merton gardening group.

' We all thought your Dublin gardens were delightful. You were all so nice and very hospitable and knowledgeable. Thank you. Please pass on our thanks when you have the opportunity to all the other garden owners.'
A member of the Sussex Garden Group.