We are very excited to tell you we are moving to Northridge House in Blackrock. There is plenty of onsite parking, the building is fully wheelchair accessible, has comfy seats, a sound system, air conditioning, and best of all, tea and coffee making facilities.

Northridge House (at St. Luke’s Home), Castle Rd, Mahon, Cork

For a map and directions visit: www.northridgehouse.ie/how-to-get-here

 Autumn/Winter 2016 Schedule

All lectures take place on the first Tuesday of the month at 8pm in Northridge House, Mahon, Cork, unless stated otherwise. The Building is fully wheelchair accessible. Each evening consists of a lecture, usually lasting between 1hr and 1hr 30 minutes, refreshments, and opportunities to win raffle prizes. We often have plant sales on our lecture nights. Sometimes our lecturers bring plants to sell, and at other times we hold Members’ Plant Sales where members bring along plants which we sell on the night to help raise funds. Lecture nights are free to members and €5 to nonmembers, unless stated otherwise.

Check out our October, November and  December speakers who have just been posted in our “Upcoming Events” sections.

This project, to build a garden highlighting Irish heritage plants, raising awareness of them, of the trail of Irish heritage plants at Blarney Castle Gardens and of the IGPS was led my Rory Newell and overseen by Adam Whitbourn, with many Blarney staff helping out in it’s design, construction and planting, in their own free time. It was hugely popular with visitors, and was the highlight of the show. (It drew people to the IGPS stall also and to our plant sale)

On the stage Rory also gave a great talk about the IGPS and Irish heritage plants, and I was nabbed at the end to say a few words as IGPS Munster Chair. I gave an overview of the IGPS and briefly thanked everyone for what
they had achieved.

Bruno Nicolai. 

Billy McCone, Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the IGPS, sent this message:

The garden looks great and I love the concept of a ‘forgotten garden’.  Obviously a lot of work went into this and you are both to be commended on your achievement. 

From the photos and Bruno’s email, it is clear that you have done a lot in raising the profile of the IGPS and highlighting the conservation of heritage plants.

On behalf of the IGPS executive committee I would like to offer our sincere thanks and well deserved congratulations. 

Well done guys.      Billy McCone

Many thanks to Adam Whitbourn for the images of the garden – and, indeed, for all his work in promoting Irish heritage plants and the work of the IGPS.

We had a very enjoyable visit to Victor and Roz Henry’s garden in Newtownards yesterday despite the most unseasonable weather – heavy downpours, gusts of wind which caused the gazebo for the plant sale to lift off, and a temperature of about 12*C. But IGPS members and their friends are a hardy lot and made the most of the fleeting sunny periods to explore a garden packed with plants, both well known and exotic, and well-chosen interesting detail. Some highlights were the pergola festooned with Rosa ‘Francis E. Lester’, a fabulous cardiocrinum with blooms soaring to about three metres, and a stand of mouth-watering delphiniums in glorious shades of blue. There was a seriously well-stocked plant stall which included a decent selection of Irish cultivars including Dahlia ‘Matt Armour’, Cytissus ‘Donard Gem’, and Primula ‘Rowallane Rose’. And a final touch was the beautiful music played by their ten year old grand-daughter Josie on her harp.

Victor Henry greeting the visitors as all admire the wonderful delphiniums

Lush plating around the pool, including Zantedeschia aethopica

Exotic planting: A tree fern with a lush under-planting of hostas and Myosotidium hortensia, the Chatham Island Forget-Me-Not.

The afternoon was enhanced by the lovely harp music played by the Henry’s grand daughter.

Text and photographs from Maeve Bell.

To view further photographs from the day visit the BLOG

Shirley Musgrave, Christine Fehily and Catherine McHale all obviously enjoying the garden visits at the weekend.

Many thanks to the Munster committee of the IGPS who organised our AGM weekend in Blarney, Co. Cork. It was a great success and enjoyed by all.

Our first garden visit of the weekend was to Blarney Castle Gardens where we had a range of wonderful guided tours and this set the tone of the weekend which we all continued to enjoy.

Click here to see an album of photographs from Blarney Castle Gardens. 

Click on the link to view an album of photographs from Mairead Harty’s  Poulacurry House

Click to view Mary Byrne’s Garden

The final garden of the weekend: Hester Forde’s, “Coosheen” in Glounthaune.

To mark Martin Edwarde’s ten years on the Munster committee of the IGPS Bruno Nicolai, Chairperson of the IGPS Munster committee, made this presentation at the AGM dinner in Blarney

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 Stephen Butler and Jenny Constable.