Old School Garden

Ardgillan Castle

Emerging out of the woodland, one encounters the first view of Ardgillan Castle as the grounds roll down to it and beyond to the Irish Sea, 20 miles north of Dublin city. When the skies are clear, just visible are the Mourne mountains, across the bay, as they “sweep down to the sea”.

Of course it isn’t a Castle at all, but a rather comfortable country house with towers and battlements, the home of the Taylor family for 200 years, until purchased by Dublin County Council in 1982. The name Ardgillan is derived from the Irish Ard Choill meaning High Wood. Of course, Castles usually have the requisite ghost and the footbridge over the main road leading to the grounds is known as The Lady’s Stairs, due to the apparition of a ghostly lady there from time to time.

194 acres of  wild woodlands, walled gardens,an impressive…

I’ve seen several Shakespearean productions en plein air, but there is no doubt that the most fitting is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, with its star-crossed lovers wandering in woodlands inhabited by fairies. So the sylvan setting of Ardgillan Castle, north of Dublin, seems to me a wondrous setting for the play on Friday 1st August.

Ardgillan Castle

This battlemented C18th country house, with its acres of parkland stretching down to the sea, is magical in its own right, with views along the east coast north of Dublin as far as the Mourne Mountains.

The walled garden Ardgillan Castle, Co Dublin

The setting is the Walled Garden – a Victorian styled kitchen garden, with arched gateways and high stone walls, clothed in old roses. Today the walled garden is subdivided into five compartments:

The Ornamental garden with a wide range of semi-tender plants and a pretty rockery with lots of colour…

St Anne’s Park lies close to the lovely coastline on Dublin’s northside, its 300 acres owned by the Guinness brewing family until purchased by Dublin City Council in 1939. The parkland is full of mature trees and children populate it, playing happily in the woodland or riding their tricycles.

But situated deep in the park is one of Europe’s finest rose gardens – 25,000 plants grouped into hybrid tea, floribunda, climber, shrub and so on.

There is a special section with the newest unnamed varieties of roses, to be judged by an international panel of judges for the prestigious International Rose Trials held this week, followed by the Dublin Rose Festival this weekend with rose growers, nurseries, the Federation of Beekeepers, Dublin Community Growers and many other attractions such as Art studios and workshops.

The focal point of course will be the roses, laid out in large concentric circles, with…

A couple of months ago I had the idea of using pallet wood as a cheap lawn edging solution. Lawn edging is something I’d wanted for a while but with around 80m to cover the cost was always prohibitive.

When I first thought of using pallets I tested out some self made stakes along a metre stretch and really liked the results. So, for the last two days I’ve been making hundreds of pallet wood stakes and making my way around the lawn. I think the result is great!

The wood is untreated so it won’t last forever but since pallet wood is free and these stakes are so easy to install I didn’t consider the benefit to be worth the cost and effort of treating it.

Our garden visits on Saturday were to two contrasting gardens – one private and one very public.  Gill will be telling you about Bressingham Gardens in another post – this one will give you a glimpse into the garden of Janet Sleep, chair and Collections Coordinator of the Norfolk group.

On our way we were told that this garden is remote, even by Norfolk standards, but well worth the trip.  Janet welcomed us to The Harralds and provided a map warning us that it is possible to get lost in this garden.  Although the header on this post spells the name differently, this was picked up at an antique shop and the house records, which go back to 1850, use the more unusual spelling of the name. Along the drive The pond   The borders Glasshouse  Beautifully constructed compost bins Shade area

We could be in a Mediterranean courtyard here.

Plant…