Mount Congreve Today in Pictures

Writing a second time today about Mount Congreve Gardens might seem excessive but we did visit and enjoy the gardens again today. My account of the gardens will be through my photographs. I have arranged the photographs into the sequence of our walk. Click to enlarge and to begin a slideshow: Magnolia x veitchii Magnolia …

Magical March Magnolias

March and magnolias is a combination balanced on a very fine knife edge for there are years when they flourish and perform with a brilliance that can justifiably be described as awesome and others when the blossoms are reduced to a disappointing dirty brown having been hit by a hard March frost. This year has …

Altamont Gardens

There is an inclination to pay less attention to those gardens we visit most often; they become almost everyday and lack the surprises which might otherwise prompt one to finger the keyboard. However, when I consider that we have visited Altamont Gardens several times each year for the past forty years it would be remiss …

Coolaught Gardens

We dropped into Coolaught Gardens and Garden Centre (Caroline and Harry Deacon) in Clonroche, Co. Wexford, during the week, always a good port of call when you want something special, a tasty plant. As expected, Caroline told us to feel free to take a walk around the garden and I had brought my camera with …

The Scarlet Pimpernel – at Altamont Gardens.

I sought her here; I sought her there; I sought her everywhere; Is she in heaven? I hope not in hell; Oh, that elusive Pimpernel! Baroness Emmuska Orczy may have worded the origin lines differently and, indeed, to express the annoyance of the French rather than the disappointment it was for me. This is what …

Primrose Hill Snowdrops

Our galavanting to see snowdrops and snowdrop gardens and snowdrop people brought us to Primrose Hill in Lucan, Co. Dublin, last Saturday. I could have said that we "eventually" got to visit for if I were asked to draw up a list of snowdrop gardens that one might wish to visit, Primrose Hill would be …

RHSI Bellefield

This will be a new name to many even here in Ireland though the "Bellefield" will certainly ring a bell as it was the garden of the late Angela Jupe. Angela was an architect, a garden designer and an enthusiastic gardener with a great love of plants especially roses, irises, paeonias and snowdrops. It was …

Let’s be Charitable!

Sunday brought us to a garden to the west of Cork City which was opened in aid of Cancer Research at Cork University Hospital. It was a "Snowdrop Open Day" and it was that which prompted the almost two hour journey. However it was meeting with gardening friends that made the day. These are "the …

Huntingbrook Snowdrops

Huntingbrook Garden is the home, workplace and love of Jimi Blake. Now, I could have introduced him as "plantperson Jimi Blake" or with such words as "plantaholic" or "plant geek" but such terms have a slightly pejorative tinge to them and I prefer to think of Jimi as a person with an extraordinary enthusiasm for …

Burtown Kindness.

Kindness is what I associate with Burtown House and this adds greatly to my enjoyment of each visit. It is an 18th century house and, something quite uncommon, it is still lived in by the family which built it and is presently in the care of James and Joanna Fennell. James and Joanna are to …