Mount Congreve Gardens is celebrating the month of March 2019 with a Magnificent Magnolia Month.

The Magnolia Walk lined with 200 Magnolia Trees creates a colourful overhead canopy of giant blooms. During the month of March, the Magnolia Walk will also be officially dedicated to its creator Mr Herman Dool.

Mr.Dool was the landscape architect responsible for the layout and development of the world famous Mount Congreve Gardens including the Magnolia walk set in the middle of the 70-acre garden. In the early 1960s, he took up his position at Mount Congreve and was Garden Director for almost 40 years creating, with Ambrose Congreve, masterful work on what has been hailed by the Horticultural Society of Massachusetts as “One of the Great Gardens of the World”.

Expertly designed and tended by these two gentlemen, the garden not only has a remarkable collection of rare and unusual plants and trees, but the landscape is one of the very few that has been designed for an estate of this scale.

By design, Mr Dool never placed any less than 25 plants of a variety because according to him the mass planting makes the proper statement when the garden matures. And this has truly been the secret behind the spectacularly colourful arrays at Mount Congreve Gardens.

The Dool family is steeped in various aspects of horticulture going back several generations, with family members still active in their field today on many continents of the world. Mr Hermann Dool received the Orange Order of Nassau from the Queen of Holland, the equivalent of a British Knighthood, for his achievements. He died in 2004. Present for the re-naming ceremony which is set to take place on March 19^th will be Mrs Dool, who is delighted to see the dedication to her late husbands’ lifelong work. She will be accompanied by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Mount Congreve Gardens is one of the very best places in the world to see Magnolias, featuring three spectacular plantings of magnolias in the garden: the first and original planting on the terrace below the house is Magnolia campbellii, Magnolia veitchii and Magnolia sprengeri var diva among others, all now mature and impressive trees. This planting is best viewed from an elevated spot near The Temple where one can look along the top of the canopy and see magnificent planting.

A straight walk downhill of approximately 150 metres with a view to the River Suir and beyond to County Kilkenny, the Magnolia Walk is lined on both sides with Magnolia soulangeana backed by the taller Magnolia campbellii and Magnolia sargentiana var. robusta. The grass verges are planted with Frittilaria meleagris, the Snakeshead Frittilary, and Primula veris, the cowslip. The result is an extraordinary array of colour and scent.

Mount Congreve is the largest private collection of plants in Ireland. The Gardens are now open to the public year-round, for further details click here