"IRELAND shares with Britain one of the most favourable climates in the world for gardening and the love of plants is so much part of human nature that there will always be gardens as long as the world endures. Nevertheless, to glance back to the past helps us to appreciate the distinctiveness of Irish gardens and to realise what we do to carry forward this heritage to the future." With these thoughts, Keith Lamb and Patrick Bowe conclude their book A History of Gardening in Ireland.
It is a very welcome book, long overdue as there is nothing available in print on the subject. Such is the general ignorance of a tradition and history of gardening and garden making that we often hear aspiring novices make remarks such as: "I would like an old-style English garden". Here is a book to put them right and one which will open many eyes to a rich and illustrious past.
There are predictable things here, but lots of surprises too. The Hanging Garden of Limerick for instance, sounds more like a modern adventure such as we might encounter in late 20th-century Paris. "Limerick had one extraordinary garden - the Hanging Garden started in 1808 by William Roche, a wealthy banker who `being much occupied by the care of an extensive banking concern, devised a plan for his personal recreation, to, obviate the necessity of occasional absence from his residence'.
"At the back of his house in George's Street he built lines of arches arising in terraces above one another, the lowest terrace 25 feet high and the highest 40 feet. The side terraces were 150 feet long by 30 feet wide, the central one 180 feet by 40 feet. On top of the arches was a bed of earth five feet thick. A drainage system of lead channels and downpipe was converted in summer for irrigation by closing the downpipes.
"Flights of steps led from one terrace to another, and from the top there was a fine view of the city and of the winding River Shannon. The highest terraces carried heated glass houses, some for the production of grapes, pineapples and peaches; others were orangeries and conservatories. These houses were united in the angles, by globular greenhouses. The middle arches were lower, 25 feet above the street, and on them vegetables and fruit trees were cultivated, as well as `flowers of every form, scent add hue'.
"Mr Roche's gardens were one of the sights of Limerick. Several of our Irish Viceroys and other illustrious strangers have visited this singularly interesting curiosity existing in the centre of a large commercial city and all have departed impressed with admiration of the taste and ingenuity of the worthy and intelligent contriver. The whole cost him £15,000 but was a shrewd investment, for the cellars under the arches were well adapted to the storage of 2,000 hogs heads of wine, safe from fire or robbery, and at an even temperature because of the insulating effect of the mass of soil overhead.
"The government took them over at a fine of £10,000 and a yearly rent of £300. By 1866, the Hanging Gardens were in a ruinous state, and the cellars had been used as a bonding warehouse for many years by the Customs and Excise. Mr Roche's house had been occupied since 1858 by the Limerick institution, a body founded in 1809 with reading rooms, news rooms and a library. Today, the remains of the terraces can be seen, consisting of two arches in Henry Street, now used as a post office store.
THEN there were innovative people in other parts. Mr John Charles Lyons of Ledeston near Mulingar, a landowner with wide ranging interests, was author of the first book published on the culture of orchids. He was a man of strong opinion and here he is on "so-called gardeners": "There exists among the profession unfortunately a set of low fellows, who spend their evenings in pot houses, and their days in cheating their employers. These persons, the dregs of the craft, may be known by a swaggering demeanour, which the simple mistake for knowledge. They are men of assertions, talking down the really well-informed gardener with loud words, slang and braggadocio. At Horticultural Meetings you may see them dirty and unshaven, in greasy clothes, foul linen, hats and shoes, like their hair, unacquainted with the luxury of a brush towards noon they liberally perfume the room with porter, peppermint, whiskey and onions, and thus they strut about, the very Parias of Horticulture. On such occasions you may observe them in clusters, perplexing their scanty brains by foolish arguments about nothing. By way of showing their importance they jostle the ladies who may have the misfortune to be near them, and eventually are consigned by the police, or threatened with it, when their insolence is quieted, and they sneak away. Such persons I do not honour with the name of Gardener."
He had differences of opinion with his own gardener, as when he asked him to stop the vine shoots beyond the bunches of fruit... "But this practice he wholly disapproved of and the only reason I could ever obtain from him was that the practice was condemned by the best authors, but whom they were I could never find out from him, his constant reply was, the best authors. I shortly after determined on being for the future my own gardener.