Video: Irish Gardens
Bill and I recently returned from a wonderful trip to Ireland. We saw so many wonderful places and especially beautiful Irish gardens. What a treat that was!
This was our first time to this gorgeous country. We started out in Dublin for a few days, then headed toward Kilkenny. At that point, we continued on to Killarney, then to Lahinch, and back to Dublin before returning home.
We were especially impressed with the many gardens in Dublin. These include the National Botanic Garden, which is amazing. Believe it or not, it has free admission so we made a donation. Wait till you see the huge glass houses there! It was also a treat walking through the Victorian Walled Garden. At the end of our trip, we went to Powers Court Gardens. It was wonderful!
But the biggest surprise in Dublin was the Bord Bia Bloom garden festival. We’d never seen any information about it while we were in the planning stages. As you’ll learn at the start of my video, we just sort of stumbled onto it. And as a bonus, we met one of our British gardening heroes! How cool is that? (you’ll see photographic proof of that, LOL!)
HuntingBrook Garden was another highlight of our trip. Located not far from Dublin, this is truly a plant lover’s garden. It is owned and was created by Jimi Blake. The gardens are peaceful, colorful, wild, thought-provoking… you name it.
While in Kilkenny, we came across “St. Mary’s Garden,” and thought it would be fun to wander through it. This is a very peaceful garden with beautiful plantings. We also visited the Woodstock Gardens & Arboretum before moving on.
Next up was the Fota Arboretum & Gardens in County Cork. That was very impressive! I’ve always thought how cool it would be to have high walls around a garden. I especially love “garden rooms” and there were plenty of those to make me smile. The working Victorian gardens, featuring beautifully restored glass houses, was truly a highlight.
Then we visited the Vandeleur Walled Garden in County Clare. We just about had the gardens to ourselves and enjoyed strolling through the different areas. There was a maze, beautiful plantings everything, fun garden art, a lovely edible garden and much more.
As mentioned above, once we were back in Dublin, we took the time to visit Powers Court Gardens. It is a HUGE estate that is a delight to explore. Walled gardens, a Japanese garden, the Italian garden, statuary… you name it.
Yes, we did visit a lot of other sites, primarily historic ones. But I decided to focus this week’s video on the Irish gardens since that’s what you’re here for, right? I hope you’ll enjoy this video and consider visiting Ireland some day.