Mount Usher Gardens, Ashford, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

[Paddy Tobin]

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

[Paddy Tobin]

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

[Luc Gilgemyn]

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 !

[David Nicholson]

Lovely pics Paddy, that's another garden I must visit.

[mark smyth]

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 Their web site is 4 years out of date http://homepage.eircom.net/~gardens/

[Lesley Cox]

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.'

[Maggi Young]

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.

[Lesley Cox]

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.

[ruweiss]

Paddy,thank you so much for showing us such a paradise.I enjoy the spirit of these old,
blessed places.

[Paddy Tobin]

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 Tobin]

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

[Lvandelft]

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.     

[Maggi Young]

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.

Lesley, see this page and post for a photo of R. Scarlet Wonder from Mick.
.
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.

[Paddy Tobin]

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

[Maggi Young]

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!