IGPS at the Clare Garden Festival

Bruno Nicolai had an IGPS stand at the Clare Garden Festival today – as well as presenting a talk to those attending. A great day was had, with lots of requests for an IGPS branch to be set up in the west. If there is anybody interested in helping set up a branch in the […]

The New York Botanical Gardens

The  New York Botanical Gardens are celebrating their 125th anniversary and this book from Gregory Long, who has been president and chief executive of the gardens since 1989, outlines the history and development of the gardens using hundreds of excellent photographs, beautiful reproductions of rare botanical art and a text which is so informative and […]

A Display of Gems

Each year in April the Dublin branch of the Alpine Garden Society holds its show at the Cabinteely Community College and it is an opportunity to view the most beautiful plant gems imaginable and, of course, an opportunity to meet some of the people who are gems of the gardening world. A visit to the […]

A Woodland Garden

A large group of IGPS members made their way to Co. Meath on Saturday, 23rd of April. We were blessed with good weather, and everybody thoroughly enjoyed the visit. The woodland was planted with a great mixture of native spring flowers and choice woodland plants with an imaginative uses of ivy as ground cover. Photographs from […]

Pay Me in Tulips!

Tulips are the new currency it would seem! So, Frances McDonald explained to us this morning when we visited her in her garden, The Bay, just north of Ferns in Co. Wexford. Over the past weeks I had seen mention of Frances and Iain’s Tulip Extravaganza at the garden but only yesterday spotted that Frances […]

IGPS at Fota Plant Fair.

    There was a huge attendance at the Plant Fair at Fota Island on Sunday, 17th April, and the IGPS had a presence there, sharing a stand with Blarney Castle Gardens to both promote the upcoming Blarney in Bloom Festival on the 10th of July and to promote the IGPS itself. Bruno Nicolai, Chairperson […]

A Visit to David Ledsham’s Garden – 9th March

It was a testimony to David Ledsham’s garden that we enjoyed it enormously despite poor weather conditions. We met with so many beautiful plants, so well cultivated, that is was a joy from beginning to end. Hellebore, trilliums and primulas were especially fabulous. Here are just a few photographs of plants which caught the eye. […]

Molly at Mount Congreve

A walk of the gardens at Mount Congreve with Michael White, the Garden Curator, always brings out great stories and connections. Michael walks at a gallop and talks at a gallop because he has much to do and his head is so full of information that it seems to simply burst from him. I recall […]

Mount Congreve’s Magnificent Magnolias

Mount Congreve Gardens must be one of the very best places in the world to see magnolias. There are three spectacular plantings of magnolias in the garden: the first and original planting was on the terrace below the house where we can see Magnolia campbellii, Magnolia veitchii and Magnolia sprengeri var diva among others, all […]

Narcissus ‘Countess of Annesley’ An Irish cultivar presumed extinct – alive and well

Narcissus ‘Countess of Annesley’   An Irish cultivar presumed extinct – alive and well   Narcissus ‘Countess of Annesley’, a late nineteenth century, large early-flowered daffodil that originated at Castlewellan in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, and long presumed extinct, has recently been found alive and well in a number of Irish gardens. The discovery was […]

Rainy Days are Reading Days!

It is the first of April, the weather is dreadful but it has provided an opportunity to catch up on book reviews. There is always a queue of books to be read and often it is more pleasant to read the next one that write about the previous. This must be one of the busy […]