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January is surely the harshest test for any garden. Yet the sun shines, albeit with a wintry muted light, on Helen Dillon's masterpiece at 45 Sandford Road in Dublin's Ranelagh. It is a study in elegance which testifies to the harmony of art and science within nature. On any day, in all weathers, there are at least seven gardens to view here, with hundreds of variations in the course of a year. Dillon, a relentless perfectionist who will be honoured in June by Britain's Royal Horticultural Society, patrols her garden with a mother's strict, loving eye.

Unlike many master gardeners, she is generous with her knowledge. Within moments of meeting her she has mentioned her two mentors: the late David Shackleton, once the master of another famous Dublin walled garden, that of Beech Park, Clonsilla; and Graham Stuart Thomas, author of the classic Perennial Garden Plants or the Modern Florilegium (1976), of whom she says: "He's a gardener as well a brilliant plantsman." A bearded light blue Iris he gave to her resides here.