Russborough’s secret garden

The day in 2012 that Marcus Beresford, chairman of the Alfred Beit Foundation that owns and operates Russborough House in Co Wicklow, decided to explore the estate’s “secret” rhododendron garden, he had to don his shooting gear in order to scramble through the wild overgrowth of briars and broken branches.

“It was only then that I realised what a hidden gem it was,” he says. Tucked away in the sheltered northeast corner of the 200-acre historic demesne, Russborough’s rhododendron garden was created at the instigation of Sir Alfred and Lady Beit, who acquired the estate in 1952 and soon set about restoring the Palladian house and its gardens.

To assist them, they employed the services of James Russell, one of the great British garden makers of the 20th century.

A hugely knowledgeable and intrepid plant-hunter with a particular passion for roses and rhododendrons (Madagascar, Nassau, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Mexico and Japan were just some of the places to which he travelled, while he was one of the first westerners to visit the People’s Republic of China), Russell is associated with some of the finest gardens in Britain and Ireland as well as further afield. These include Castle Howard in Yorkshire, Glenveagh Castle in Co Donegal and Mount Agaki in Japan.

He is also known for restoring the ailing fortunes of the famous Sunningdale Nurseries in Surrey, employing the equally distinguished 20th-century plantsman Graham Stuart Thomas as its manager.

As an old Etonian, Russell wasn’t short of wealthy clients keen to call on his talents as a landscape designer. Within that network of well-connected old school friends were the Duke of Westminster, the Astors and various lords, including Sir Alfred.

In 1952, the Beits invited him to revitalise the gardens of Russborough. Russell visited the west Wicklow estate, drew up plans, and then began planting as part of a consultative process that was to continue right into the mid-1980s.

A detailed planting plan discovered amongst his papers by one of Russborough’s tour guides Clare Hayter (these papers are now held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at York University) shows the virtuosity of Russell’ design for Russborough’s rhododendron garden.

Within the existing framework of mature parkland trees, he planted several hundred choice rhododendrons, a mixture of species and hybrids. Next to and underneath them, Russell planted a wonderful variety of woodland trees, shrubs, flowering perennials, ferns and spring bulbs. Magnolias, hydrangeas and dogwoods. Dicentras, hellebores, trilliums and primulas. Deer ferns (Blechnum spicant), anemones, narcissus, crocuses and scillas.

For many years, the Beits enjoyed their woodland garden. Anthony Harney, who has worked as a gardener at Russborough since 1976, remembers Sir Alfred often bringing lunch guests up from the house to show them his favourite plants while “every once in a while he’d also open it up to visitors”.

Russell continued to visit and to advise on the gardens, his work at Russborough leading to an invitation from the artist Derek Hill (a keen gardener and good friend of the Beits) to work on his own garden at St Columbs in Donegal. That in turn led to a commission from Henry McIlhenny, Hill’s friend and neighbour, to act as a consultant on the gardens of Glenveagh Castle.

As the Beits grew older, their interest in Russborough’s rhododendron garden slowly faded and the number of gardeners in the estate’s employment was greatly reduced. Lord Alfred died in 1994, followed by his wife Clementine in 2005. Russell himself died in 1996, by then the recipient of both the Veitch Medal and the Royal Horticultural Society’s highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour, given in recognition of his outstanding horticultural knowledge and skills as a landscape designer.

By the time of his death, Russborough’s rhododendron garden had become an increasingly forgotten and overgrown wilderness, known only to the estate’s few remaining hard-pressed gardeners, local people and a handful of keen plantspersons.

That is, until the day Marcus Beresford visited.

On his invitation, local gardeners June and Jimi Blake then took a look. Both quickly confirmed what he’d already suspected: that Russell’s rhododendron garden was of great horticultural and historical significance and should be restored.

Soon Russborough’s two remaining gardeners, Anthony Harney and Jim Keogh, were given the go-ahead to begin clearing the thorny thicket of overgrowth which threatened to engulf Russell’s planting, a process they carried out painstakingly by hand (with the help of volunteer Paul Cripps) to avoid disturbing vulnerable root systems. Work started in the autumn of 201. They discovered that much of Russell’s original planting had survived, including some of the understorey of woodland perennials and bulbs, now joined by carpets of bluebells.

Last spring, for the first time in several decades, Russborough’s restored rhodendron garden opened to the public. This month, the Beit Foundation has decided to mark its ongoing restoration with daily tours of Russell’s hidden gem, now in full and majestic bloom, its many different rhododendrons covered in thousands of colourful, trumpet-shaped blossoms in shades of carmine pink, cream, red, purple, orange and yellow.

When I visited last week, lofty specimens of the majestic, large-leaved tree rhododendron, R macabeanum, were in full and magnificent flower as were countless other rhodendrons including the rose-pink R 'Cornish Cross', the ground beneath them carpeted in sheets of white and mauve dicentras and swathes of bluebells. A peaceful, restful place, it's filled with the sounds of birdsong and visiting bumblebees. In another corner of the estate, at a distance from Richard Castle's Palladian masterpiece and under the shadow of the Wicklow mountains, lies Russborough's historic walled garden, also in the process of being restored – in this case by members of the RHSI and volunteers. Together, they make for a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable garden visit.

For details of Russborough’s rhodendron tours, some of which must be pre-booked, see russboroughhouse.ie.

Visitors should be aware that the walk from Russborough's car park to the rhododendron garden takes about 10 minutes and follows a rough grass path that wends its way uphill from the house.

DIARY DATES
The Irish Alphabet in Botanical Art, the inaugural exhibition by the Irish Society of Botanical Artists, continues at the Visitor Centre in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin until May 25th, see irishbotanicalartists.com;

The Rare and Special Plant Fair will take place at Killruddery House & Gardens this tomorrow, May 11th from 10am-5pm, rareandspecialplantfair.ie

Burren in Bloom festival continues throughout May with talks, walks,
lectures and workshops by a variety of expert contributors including artist Susan Sex (May15th), Jesmond Harding (May 24th) and Zoe Devlin (May 28th), see burreninbloom.com;
May 20th-24th, RHS Chelsea Flower Show, see rhs.co.uk;

May 24th, Community Garden
Network meeting in Ballybeg CDP,
Waterford, see cgn.ie