From the lone Irish yew tree, first discovered growing in Co Fermanagh in the 18th century, whose countless offspring now flourish in gardens all over the world, to the great Irish gardeners, garden makers, planthunters and plantspeople who have made valuable contributions to the world of horticulture, we have many reasons to be proud of our unique gardening tradition. Here are some suitably horticultural ways to celebrate Ireland’s “40 shades of green”.
Honour Ireland’s rich heritage of garden plants by growing some of the hundreds of outstanding cultivars that have been bred or selected by Irish gardeners. Many are heirloom varieties in cultivation for generations, from famous old varieties of fruit and vegetables to ornamental trees, shrubs and perennials. Well-known examples include apple varieties such as Malus ‘Irish Peach’, Malus ‘Ard Cairn Russet’ and Malus ‘Kerry Pippin’; the winter-hardy Gortahork cabbage from Donegal; the aforementioned Irish yew, Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata’; the dainty, starry-flowered heirloom variety of daffodil, Narcissus ‘Rip van Winkle’; the evergreen shrub Mahonia x media ‘Charity’, raised in the famous Slieve Donard nursery in Co Down back in the 1950s; and the dainty spring-flowering woodlander, Anemone nemorosa ‘Robinsoniana’, named after Ireland’s most famous gardener, the plantsman, writer and publisher William Robinson.
Contemporary examples include the golden-flowered Primula ‘June Blake’, which arose in the west Wicklow gardens and nursery of June Blake; Clematis tibetana ‘Lorcan O’Brien’, an elegantly understated late-flowering climber collected in the wild by Seamus O’Brien, author and head gardener of Kilmacurragh Botanic Gardens; Magnolia ‘Adam Clayton’, raised by Michael
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