Jane Powers visits Ireland's garden of the moment, Terra Nova, which has been glowingly described as a place owned by plantaholics
Regular visitors to the Begley household head straight for the back door. They know there's no point in trying to gain access to the house via the hall door. It's there all right, hidden somewhere behind a Canary Island date palm, a European fan palm and a banana plant (a rather choice Yunnan species grown from seed), but its original use is long forgotten. Instead, its little porch offers a convenient nook for these vulnerable plants, sheltering them from the leaf-shredding south-westerlies that whip across from the Ballyhoura Mountains.
It's fair to say that at Terra Nova, Deborah and Martin Begley's Co Limerick garden, near the village of Dromin, plants come first - and people fit in wherever there's a bit of free space. Of course, that's not unusual where the garden belongs to keen collectors. No, what's unusual here is the alarming speed with which the space has filled up. Ten years ago there was little more than a half-acre field with a workaday vegetable plot; now there are numerous interlinked gardens daisy-chaining through the space. Here there is a river of swaying ornamental grasses, there a waist-high bed of liquorice-allsorts auriculas, over there a parade of sherbetty cannas and begonias, while yonder a pair of monstrous, hairy echiums have slipped out of their allotted space to march conquistadorially towards the gate that gives into the neighbour's field.
A narrow woodland path is edged with trilliums in spring, and strangely moulded toad lilies and dayglo spindle berries in autumn. The sensible vegetables, incidentally, have long been ousted by an exotic border where bananas (the Chinese Musa lasiocarpa and the tender, red Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii') flap their great oars amongst torch-flowered ginger lilies (Hedychium densiflorum 'Assam Orange'), feathery South African restios, purple-flowered kangaroo apples (Solanum laciniatum), and other tropical-looking species. Tree ferns (three kinds of Dicksonia and one Cyathea) raise their frondy umbrellas over this eclectic gathering of species. It may look like an untamed miniature jungle, but, in fact, here, as with the rest of the garden, all is tightly controlled and beautifully maintained. Martin mows the lawns every three days in the growing season, after carefully clipping the edges by hand. And most impressively, there is not a single weed in sight - anywhere.
So, it's not surprising that the Begleys' garden has recently been declared the winner of an all-Ireland competition, run jointly by Viking Garden Machinery and Irish Garden magazine. Deborah, however, was astonished that "the award went not to Cork, or to Dublin, but to Limerick!" Their half-acre ("a garden owned by plantaholics", as Gerry Daly described it at the awards ceremony), beat hundreds of other gardens from all over Ireland.
The number of plant varieties is just one of the remarkable things about this Limerick plot: "neither of us could possibly know how many we have", says Martin, but he admits it must be in the thousands. Take, for instance, Deborah's arisaemas (a genus of plants with cowl-like inflorescences and sculptural, lobed or fingered leaves): she has 50 different species and cultivars, possibly the largest collection in Ireland.
Yet what impresses me more than the sheer variety of vegetation (as a person who likes the growing of plants, rather than just having them) is the vast number of things that have been grown from seed. Propagation is Deborah's passion, or perhaps, addiction. This is a woman who has sown 1,000 different varieties of seed in one year. But what does she do with the resulting swarm of green things? The answer is a neat one: she starts a nursery - which helps disperse some of the clamouring progeny. Her seeds come from many sources: catalogues, plant societies, other enthusiasts, and botanical expeditions to which she subscribes. (Her catalogue is on the internet at www.terranovaplants.com.)
Unlike some gardeners, Deborah is not afraid to sow tree seeds and sit back and wait. The garden is full of seed-grown specimens: birches and eucalyptus, sown eight years ago, have shot up to a height of eight or 10 metres. A trio of Acer japonicum sown at the same time, put into the ground as soon as they were hand-high, are now more than two metres tall - making a mockery of the idea that Japanese maples are slow growers.
The heavy, water-retaining Limerick clay is partially responsible for the speed of growth, but so also is the fact that the Begleys feed their plants lavishly. Martin loves planting, and Deborah recalls the very first bed that he dug: "He just kept digging and digging. He excavated more than two feet deep. I said that's enough, but he had been reading books, and that's what the books had been telling him."
"I wanted to put good stuff in - lots of manure," protests Martin. And to feed his appetite for feeding the plants, the Begleys take delivery of three tractor trailer loads of the good stuff every winter. He even spreads it on the lawns on occasion - finely crumbed.
The Limerick pair are perfectionists, and busy ones too: each winter sees another project started and completed. This year a new pergola will be built, by Martin (who is exercised about achieving the exact right shade of buttery concrete paving), and planted by Deborah, who won't be growing clematis up it - "too messy" - and has instead ordered 38 David Austin roses.
They manage the garden entirely without any outside help, racking up about 40 hours a week between them. "We like to do it all ourselves," says Deborah. "We have different, but complementary skills. It's all about teamwork."
And who, I wonder, is the team leader? "Oh," says Martin without a moment's hesitation, "Deborah's the boss!" jpowers@irish-times.ie
Terra Nova Garden, Dromin, Kilmallock, Co Limerick, is open from April to September on Fridays from 10am until dark, and on Saturdays and Sundays, but please phone first. Groups by appointment at other times. Admission: €5 (garden not suitable for under-12s). 063-90744; www.terranovaplants.com; www.limerickgardentrail.com.
PROVINCIAL WINNERS OF VIKING/ 'IRISH GARDEN' AWARDS 2005
ULSTER: Liam Greene, Derry: an impeccable formal parterre, an elegant Oriental pool and other well-designed gardens surrounding a Georgian house.
LEINSTER: Iris and John Riley, Carrigeen, Co Kilkenny: a plant collectors' garden, with hundreds of varieties arranged in huge colour-themed borders.
MUNSTER: Deborah and Martin Begley, Kilmallock, Co Limerick (see main article).
CONNACHT: Tadhg Kilcummins, Roxboro, Co Roscommon: a colourful cottage-style garden, only metres from the road, but with an acre behind. The whole lot crammed with plants, and a collection of exotic poultry.
IRISH MEDAL IN LONDON
Irish plantsman Martin Walsh has been awarded a Silver-Gilt Grenfell at the Royal Horticultural Society's October London Flower Show for his series of 18 photographs of alpine plants taken in the Himalayas and China, entitled Hairs and Bracts - solar panels and insulating blankets.