Gardens of Ireland - Part 1

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I recently spent a week in Ireland, visiting gardens there. This is the first of four blogs about the ones I visited.

We started with two nights in Belfast. First on the itinerary was Mount Stewart. The gardens were created by Edith, Lady Londonderry in the 1920’s and consist of formal gardens south of the house and extensive grounds on the north side. Mount Stewart is situated on the coast of Strangford Lough, and rarely has hard frosts, allowing many tender and exotic plants to grow outside.

View of the south front

Sunken garden on the west side

I liked this restful hidden area, planted with white and blue flowers

How about this for a water feature?

Among the tender plants growing outside, I spotted watsonias from South Africa

The leaves of myostidium hortensia, the Chatham Island forget-me-not

And a mutisia from South America

Next we made an unscheduled visit to Belfast Botanical Garden. Although small, this contains a good selection of plants.

There is a recently restored Palm House

Herbaceous borders

And a ravine house – a heated greenhouse built over a small ravine in 1888, housing tender trees, shrubs and climbers.

Rowallane is a ‘small’ house with extensive grounds on poor soil, mainly among woodland. But better soil was brought in for the walled garden

This area contained some outstanding shrubs such as this hoheria from New Zealand

And the climber schizophragma hydrangeoides

In another area, a natural rocky outcrop had been planted with small plants that enjoyed the poorer soil, including a pseudowintera from New Zealand

And a large clump of eucomis from South Africa

Fortunately, visiting rules are more relaxed now

Finally in this section is Castle Ward. Although the inside of the house was quite impressive, the garden was a bit of a disappointment. Most of the extensive grounds are given over to trails for walkers, cyclists and horse riders with only a small sunken garden near the house.

The house is a strange mix as the owner liked the old Palladian style

While his wife liked the newer Gothick

Inside, half the rooms are in each style as well!

The most interesting plants here were lobelia tupa from South America

And the largest itea ilicifolia, a shrub from western China, I have ever seen

To be continued ….

• 25 Aug, 2012
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