Paddy Tobin, An Irish Gardener
Our garden, gardens visited, occasional thoughts and book reviews
Mount Congreve Gardens are on the outskirts of Waterford City and are one of the great treasures of Irish gardening. They were developed by the owner, the late Mr. Ambrose Congreve, with the ground work, design and planting in the hands of the wonderful Mr. Herman Dool, a Dutch landscape architect and gardener. Facebook threw … Continue reading Mount Congreve Gardens
The photo counter on the camera is often a good indicator of an enjoyed garden visit; the higher the count the more I found I considered beautiful, worth photographing, worth looking back on again at home. But, then, there are the occasions when the count is high because I have made such an effort to … Continue reading Delete, Delete, Delete!
WOODSTOCK A garden can fill me with emotions; an old garden with, perhaps, tired emotions for it is replete with history, remnants of days past, days lost, efforts at revival, some successes and some dreadful failures. A view to Inistioge from Mount Sanford Castle, along the woodland walk. The bridge in Inistioge, crossing the River … Continue reading Woodstock
In ancient Rome, a genius loci was the spirit which protected a place, a territorial guardian angel of sorts. Nowadays, it is a phrase used in reference to garden design and was first enunciated by Alexander Pope. He contended that garden or landscape designs must always be adopted to the location for which they are … Continue reading Genius loci
This project at Mount Congreve Gardens was started only last year so it was both a surprise and a huge delight so see it is an immediate success and has already made a huge and beautiful impact on this area of the garden. I had expected it to take a few years to develop but … Continue reading A Snowdrop and Hellebore Extravaganza
A blast from the past: photographs of visits to Helen and Val Dillon's garden in 2003/4/5, came up unexpectedly today. A publication has asked me for photographs of another garden and the search took me to an old external hard drive with photographs dating back to my first digital camera. Browsing such collections inevitably leads … Continue reading The Dillon Garden 2003/4/5
Of course, I have been dramatic with the title but there are occasions when small interludes can feel like just that, a great escape. We had days of the most miserable weather; days when we not only had incessant rain but rain accompanied by bitingly cold wind. There were days of being confined to the … Continue reading The Great Escape!
Why do we seek beauty and prettiness and exclude the unappealing, distasteful or unattractive when we photograph a garden? I have just looked back over an album of shots from a visit to The Garden House in Devon and find the photographs strongly contradict my thoughts and impressions of the garden on the day. They … Continue reading The Excluding Eye – A Visit to The Garden House, Devon.
Mount Usher, in Ashford, Co. Wicklow is one of my favourite gardens and, indeed, it has regularly polled as one of Ireland's top visitor attractions and has often been described as Ireland's most romantic garden. It is very much an Irish garden, a garden of softness and naturalness, a garden which lies at ease in … Continue reading Mount Usher
On retirement, my late friend, John Riley, spend some time in Devon before moving to Ireland. John was an East-End boy, of Irish parentage, and there were regular recollections of his evacuation during the Second World War, of summers with his mother hop-picking in Kent, of his days in the Posts and Telegraphs, of fishing … Continue reading Marwood Hill Garden
