Birr Castle Gardens, County Offaly

The Himalayas and the Far East were, in fact, his principal areas of interest and in his pursuit of new material he insisted on obtaining plants of known wild origin or cultivars of the very highest quality. Accordingly he sponsored and subscribed to plant collecting expeditions and visited China together with his wife in 1935. When he died in 1979 at the age of seventy-two, he left behind one of Ireland's greatest gardens brimming with Wilson, Forrest, Kingdon Ward, Henry, Rock and Yu Tse-Tsun introductions. The garden is now being maintained and enlarged by his son and successor, the seventh Earl of Rosse, who has continued to associate Birr with plant collecting expeditions, notably those of Lancaster and Rushforth, and has himself participated in an expedition to Nepal.

In order to get a feel for the geography and planting of Birr, visitors should head straight for the River Garden, passing the massive ramparts below the castle. Here in the garden's heartland along the banks of the River Camcor some of Birr's most prized plants can be found, perhaps none more beautiful than a tender collection of magnolias cushioned by a blue carpet of Omphalodes cappadocica in spring. Varieties of magnolia include the pink-flowering M. dawsoniana, the fragrant white-flowering M. officinalis and the spectacular varieties of M. veitchii, M. heptapeta and M. sprengeri. Equally striking is the large specimen of M. delavayi growing against the terrace walls which was supplied by Veitch just before the outbreak of the Great War.

Quite a number of the magnolias here were raised from seeds collected at Nymans, one of England's greatest gardens and home of Anne, Countess of Rosse, wife of the sixth Earl. Here also is the magnificent white-flowering Eucrypbia x nymansensis 'Nymansay', while other gems along the river bank include the rare Carrierea calycina from western China, a Cork oak (Quercus suber) and the largest known example of a grey poplar (Populus canescens). The suspension bridge over the river, built in 1810, is the earliest of its kind known in Ireland.

On the High Walk above the River Garden visitors will come across a large specimen of the rare Chinese tree Ehretia dicksonii, characterised by its broad corymbs of small fragrant white flowers in June. Here in this thicket a large London plane also thrives, and beyond lies a Morinda spruce flanking the Lilac Walk. The northerly path alongside the lake passes a weeping beech, a large Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) and a dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) - a remarkable deciduous conifer discovered in 1941 and known previously only from fossils millions of years old. This specimen, one of two plants received from Kew, is among the earliest in cultivation.

The arboretum on the Tipperary side of the river is divided by an avenue of recently planted Prunus 'Accolade', noted for their pendulous clusters of semi double-pink flowers. Within the arboretum are many trees of distinction, including an excellent oriental beech (Fagus orientalis), young examples of the limes Tilia henryana and T. chingiana and many fine conifers: a Larix laricina and Thuja plicata. Crossing back over the bridge into the Offaly part of the demesne, visitors have the option of walking straight on towards the Walled Garden or taking a detour to visit the Fernery. The latter option is recommended, for this restored Victorian fernery with its little bridges, jets of water and moss-covered rocks is one of the finest examples of its kind to survive in the British Isles. North of the Fernery is a recently built well, lavishly decorated with sea shells.

The Walled Garden is divided into a kitchen garden to the north and an ornamental area to the south. On the main north-south axis of the garden an impressive pair of thirty-foot-high box hedges - planted over 200 years ago and claimed in the Guinness Book of Records to be the tallest in the world - looms upwards. The south-east quarter of the garden contains a suite of formal gardens laid out by Anne, Countess of Rosse, to mark her marriage in 1935. Central to this layout is a boxwood parterre centred around a pair of baroque urns and based on a Bavarian seventeenth-century garden design. This is enclosed by cloisters of pleached hornbeam allÈes with ceilings of curving baroque forms aligned upon statues of the Graces and bordered with winter-flowering snowdrops.

Flanking the old green house to one side is the wisteria garden which, in addition to the venerable wisteria W. floribunda 'Macrobotrys', contains the oldest and one of the finest magnolias at Birr: M. stellata from Japan, planted around 1910 and now over twenty feet in diameter. A few yards away lies an exceptionally fine specimen of the Japanese bitter orange tree (Poncirus trifoliata) whose scented white flowers bloom endlessly in May.

Before leaving the Walled Garden, visitors should seek out Birr's most famous plant: Paeonia 'Anne Rosse' - a tree peony with large ruffled yellow flowers, streaked with red. It is named after Anne, the late Dowager Countess of Rosse, and was a hybrid (created by her husband) between a yellow tree peony discovered in south-eastern Tibet (P. Iutea ludlowii) and a Chinese Yu introduction (P. delavayi) which has small flowers of dark red. It won an award of merit and the Cory Cup and, perhaps more than any other plant, symbolises the profound contribution that Birr and the sixth Earl of Rosse have made to Irish horticulture.

Located in the town of Birr. NGR: N 056047.
Parking in street outside gates. Refreshments and teas outside castle gates. Plants for sale. Gift shop. Toilet facilities. Suitable for wheelchairs. Dogs on lead. Castle not open. Admission charge. Annual subscriptions. Tel: (0509) 20056. Property of the year, 1993.

From the Appletree Press title: Irish Gardens.