Mount Congreve – A National Treasure

IGPS Munster hosted Paddy Tobin with his talk on Mount Congreve Gardens at their new venue at Northridge House, St. Luke’s Home, in Blackrock. There was a very good attendance and the talk will certainly entice people to make the journey to Waterford to visit these excellent gardens. Mount Congreve Gardens are hosting the Rare […]

Magnificent Magnolias

As I live very close to Mount Congreve Gardens in Waterford, magnolias are a big part of my gardening year as I can see not only an unrivaled selection of magnolias but also plantings in numbers which cannot be seen anywhere else. The February flowering of Magnolia campbellii, a planting made over fifty years ago […]

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 […]

Heritage Irish Plants – Plandaí Oidhreachta

The beauty of the work of the members of the Irish Society of Botanical Artists was the inspiration for this project which features heritage Irish garden plants. The ISBA is quite a new society but has already made a fabulous contribution to Irish art and to our heritage of Irish plants with its initial exhibition, […]

A New Rhododendron

A New Irish Rhododendron named at Mount Congreve Gardens, Waterford. Tánaiste, Joan Burton, with Michael White, Curator of Mount Congreve Gardens and Tony Kelly, Administrator at Mount Congreve. Michael has presented the Tánaiste with a rhododendron which he had bred, selected and named Rhododendron ‘Tánaiste Joan Burton’ to mark Ms. Burton’s visit to the gardens […]

IGPS Members Visit Mount Congreve

There are  times in life when it is not inappropriate to be boastful – well, at least, to express one’s pride in a very clear and positive manner. Such an occasion fell to me on Saturday morning last when I greeted a group of fellow IGPS members to the wonderful gardens of Mount Congreve in […]

The Paeonia Borders at Mount Congreve Gardens, Waterford

Early June each year brings one of the most spectacular and popular flower displays at Mount Congreve Gardens in Waterford.  It is one of the most wonderful examples in the garden of Mr. Ambrose Congreve’s planting philosophy of planting in large numbers. He would always wish to have his plants in groups of 25, 50, […]

Mount Congreve – A Preview

Mount Congreve Gardens, in Waterford, will open for the 2015 season on Thursday 12th of March but I took the opportunity to have a walk around the gardens during the last week. My first impression, as I remember the scenes of devastation we witnessed in the gardens following the storms at this time last year, […]