I hope you are enjoying the amazing weather we are having at the moment! The gardens at Powerscourt are buzzing as the tourist season kicks in and people from home and abroad make their way to beautiful County Wicklow.
The gardeners and I are busy with tasks such as cutting the grass and trying to keep up with all of the growth with this heat! We are stripping out the winter and spring beds this week and getting ready to put out the summer bedding, with its glorious colours and scents in the next few days.
We are cleaning up Triton Lake in our battle to control the algae! The common yellow Lily is becoming an invasive weed throughout the lakes of Ireland so we are doing our best to control this and encourage the white and more ornate Lily to flourish. This is all done through organic methods. We found eels in the lake when cleaning it, in addition to lots of fish and even an otter! Our ducks are still there of course. We are cutting back a lot of the viburnum around the lake itself to create a more open view of the lake and it is looking very well. We are putting a new slate roof on the pump house on the island so keep an eye out for this on your next visit.
It is almost time for the Roses, which will look incredible in the walled garden and other parts of the gardens. We are feeding them with liquid feed and spraying them to prevent disease and fungus. It’s so dry the roses are already starting to come into bloom. Red climbers are among the first to bloom so be sure to check them out the next time you are here.
Everything in the gardens is late this year due to our lack of spring! The Rhododendron Walk is looking amazing at the moment. There are a lot of old tree rhododendrons, mixed with deciduous azaleas and we have many unusual varieties of these species with spectacular colours. The scent is magnificent and they are still in bloom due to the late spring!
At the bottom of the long walk you will meet an orange bushed flower called Embothrium or the Chilean flower bush. It usually flowers at the end of April and is at its best now.
As you head past the Pet Cemetery towards the bottom of the lake, look out for a very large specimen of the Drimys winteri or Winter’s Bark which looks beautiful. This tree like shrub is over 20 metres tall and is covered from head to toe with the most elegant white jasmine scented flowers. Don’t miss it!
Another thing worth seeing at this time of year in the Japanese Garden is the Azaleas which are just about to finish. Above the grotto is a beautiful specimen, a Chinese lantern tree, which looks very like a fuschia. We have another lovely specimen flowering below the Pepper Pot Tower.
I better go now as there is lots to be done outside J Until next month,
Michael Byrne, Head Gardener, Powerscourt Gardens