Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Travel / Places to Visit => Topic started by: Paddy Tobin on May 11, 2008, 10:34:46 PM
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We visited Mount Usher on the 26th of April but have only now gotten round to posting a few photographs. For general information, I have copied some information from the Mount Usher website. The final line give a warning of sorts - that the planting style is very natural in its approach and that the visitor should bear this in mind. You will find beautiful plants of Trillium grandiflorum growing cheek by jowl with celandine, wild garlic, buttercup and the like. Imagine a beautiful Celmesia semicordate growing among ground elder. This may startle you but the celmesia was growing in perfect good health and did not seem at all put out by the wild things which surrounded it - but then again, it is a native of N.Z. and they're a tough sort down there. (Now, give me a moment while I attempt to dislodge my tongue from my cheek.)
From the Mount Usher Gardens website:
The History of the House & Gardens
Mount Usher was once a working mill. It was first a tuck mill and later a corn mill.
The mill used the Killiskey river, a tributary of the River Vartry, to turn its wheel.
Where the main house is today, there was a small cottage with less than an acre in
front of it which was used to grow potatoes.
The gardens came into being in a romantic way. Edward Walpole Senior, a Dublin
businessman, was very fond of walking in the Wicklow hills. He often stayed at
Hunter's Hotel, Newrathbridge, which is still, as it was then, a comfortable hotel.
He seems to have met with the owner of the mill, Sam Sutton, and become friendly with him. At all events Walpole
began to stay at the miller's house rather than the hotel. When Sutton's lease expired, Walpole took it over in 1868.
Thus began an association which was to last over 100 years. In 1980, the property was bought by the current owner, Madelaine Jay.
In the early days of the garden, the Walpoles were fortunate in having a great deal of expert help and advice.
Yet the garden is not a manicured showpiece and it is not a botanical warehouse. It is a collection of felicitous
natural plantings according to Robinson's principles and must be approached with that in mind.
I shall start with a run of photographs posted in the order in which they were taken as we walked around the garden. Later I will post some of individual plants.
Paddy
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Oh, boy! I'm going to enjoy this visit! What a magical place... or is it your super photos, Paddy? 8)
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There was a hitch there for a few minutes when photographs wouldn't upload to the site. Seems to be working again now.
Hope you enjoy them Maggi. It really is a beautiful garden. Isn't it fabulous to have a stream running through the garden?
Paddy
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Walking on...
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A few plants from the garden. Paddy
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Stunning pictures Paddy!
Again a garden to visit in future on my wantlist! Thanks a lot for sharing!
One question: why are you visiting such beautiful places when it's raining? ??? 8) ;)
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Thanks for persisting through the posting hiccup, Paddy... it was playing silly devils with me,too, earlier!
Would you look at that Acer!? It is a work of art and nature combined.... fabulous!
I have heard of Mount Usher, of course.... but I had no notion of this beautiful landscape... even the stream is "sculpted" with those little weirs :o
And this paradise is still in private hands, is it? How lucky the owner is!
Luit, Ireland is always raining ( except on Mark in the North!).....
....how else do you suppose it got to be so GREEN?? ;) ;D
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Last few strands of my hair being pulled out here as my final 6 photographs have been rejected so many times. Here we go again.
Luit,
This is Ireland - it rains here A LOT.
Maggi, uploading photographs is very difficult tonight. Even though I have reduced to 6 per post when normally 10 would be accepted my postings have been rejected as being too large several times. But I am stubborn.
Winding it up now. Well, actually, this is my third time attempting to wind it up; site difficulties.
Apart from the Michelia which caught my eye, or rather my nose, during this visit below is my favourite tree in Mount Usher. This is Pinus montezumae. I make a point of going to see this tree each time I visit the garden and each time fall in love with it again. I haven't posted any photograph, but there are several specimens of Taxodium distichum whose wonderfully constructed trunks I always admire.
If you can help with a name for the final plant illustrated I would be most grateful. It has caught my eye previously but I have never identified it.
Lesley, should be be reading; this was the garden where I saw the twisty Cordaline australis. I have made enquiries about it but have had no reply to date.
Paddy
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What's this?
Paddy
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Apologies that some of the photographs may not be with the corresponding text. Unfortunately the site was experiencing uploading difficulties tonight and photographs were being constantly rejected as being too large a file.
Paddy
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Paddy, I have made a post recording these difficulties in the appropriate thread.
Thanks for sticking with it! :-*
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OK Maggi. Goodnight, I'm off to bed now. That took ages. Paddy
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A fantastic journey Paddy, and my grateful and most appreciative thanks for all your wonderful pics and the time taken to upload them through the frustrations. Truly heroic! :)
I'd love to see the Celmisia in ground elder (thank God we don't have that here so far as I'm aware.) As for your tongue in cheek comment, yes, we're hardy folks especially in the south and can take a good joke against ourselves.
This is a glorious place, one I hope to visit some day. You will be my guide Paddy.
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Paddy - I don't think I ever seen such an exquisitely beautiful garden.
Can you find out what the incredible rhododendron is just after the Montezuma pine?
When I click on the photos to enlarge they disappear with a blue question marked box.
Thanks again
johnw
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This is Ireland - it rains here A LOT.
So glad you took my question as serious............. ??? ;D ;D
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Lesley,
Here is the celmesia. You are fortunate not to have it in the garden as it, the ground elder, is a truly pernicious weed and extremely difficult to eliminate. Having said that, I grow a variegated ground elder but in an area where I only have trees and shrubs and it makes an excellent ground cover. As I am very unlikely to be transplanting the trees or shrubs to other parts of the garden I won't move the ground elder around. This approach has worked with it over the past ten years or so and I feel relatively safe with it.
Paddy
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John,
I'm afraid I can't help you with a name for that rhododendron. The garden, as you have seen, is laid out in a very informal/natural manner. They do not go in for labelling of the plants for the public though sometimes one can see a label with a number, obviously for their own records. Also, there have been changes in head gardeners over the past number of years and names could be lost etc.
Apologies. Paddy
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Wonderful photo's Paddy !
What an amazing garden.. or should I call it estate !
Truly beautiful and very British !
Thanks a lot for taking us on this walk !
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Lovely pics Paddy, that's another garden I must visit.
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I never realised how close the garden is. For some reason I always thought it was way down south. Their web site is 4 years out of date http://homepage.eircom.net/~gardens/ (http://homepage.eircom.net/~gardens/)
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Thanks for the Celmisia Paddy. It almost looks as if it's a seedling, self-sown, the seed having blown that way from a bigger plant elsewhere. The ground elder certainly looks like a thug, but in the long run I would expect dead and rotting rhodo flowers falling into the rosette to be more likely to kill the daisy.
John, it rather depends on whether that red rhodo is low or not, but it does look a bit like `Scarlet Wonder.'
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it rather depends on whether that red rhodo is low or not, but it does look a bit like `Scarlet Wonder.'
No chance, Lesley.... it is a large leaved job and the flower cluster is to dense to be anything like that... one of those big old trees, I'm sure! More like a R. fulgens, I reckon.
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But I thought 'Scarlet Wonder' WAS very dense in the head, though it's a while since I had it. I see what you mean about the foliage though. Must be my own head which is dense and I'm thinking of something else altogether. Ignore me John. :D ???
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Paddy,thank you so much for showing us such a paradise.I enjoy the spirit of these old,
blessed places.
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YIKES Luc,
How could you call this garden "very British". No, this is a very Irish garden in the style of William Robinson, a very Irish man.
No offense taken but correction is absolutely required.
Paddy
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Re the big red-flowered rhododendron. I checked back on my photographs and hadn't any photograph of the whole plant. It was growing tucked in under trees but was certainly standing well higher than me. And yes, the leaves were quite large and long.
Sorry, that I cannot help with any further identification pointers.
Paddy
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YIKES Luc,
How could you call this garden "very British". No, this is a very Irish garden in the style of William Robinson, a very Irish man.
No offense taken but correction is absolutely required.
Paddy
Don't blame him Paddy........he is from B. ;D ;D ;D
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But I thought 'Scarlet Wonder' WAS very dense in the head, though it's a while since I had it. I see what you mean about the foliage though. Must be my own head which is dense and I'm thinking of something else altogether. Ignore me John. :D ???
Lesley, see this page and post for a photo of R. Scarlet Wonder from Mick.
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http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1722.msg44417;topicseen#msg44417
Re: Flowers and foliage May 2008
« Reply #85 on: May 10, 2008, 10:31:01 AM »
It is a forrestii repens hybrid which is similar tothe plant Axel Olsen, which I showed today in the Rhodo page.
More openly campanulate bells and a laxer truss than the red shown from Mount Usher.
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That red rhododendron - reminds me that lately I was asked what kind of car I drove and I answered, "a blue one". It wasn't the information required but was how I thought of my car. Make and model? So what! As long as it goes.
Paddy
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Nice photos, Paddy....I think perhaps a R. arboreum now I see these shots... the leaves look right.
Ian's car is a blue one! But she's called Verity!
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A most important piece of information on Mount Usher Gardens, especially of interest to Cliff Booker, is that they have an excellent restaurant.
Paddy
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YIKES Luc,
How could you call this garden "very British". No, this is a very Irish garden in the style of William Robinson, a very Irish man.
No offense taken but correction is absolutely required.
Paddy
Paddy,
Please accept my most humble appologies for this "slip of the hand".... :-[
Glad you didn't take offence - I should have known better ::)
sorry again.