Like most things in life, my Garden has evolved over the years. Around 2003, I became fascinated with growing plants from seed and eventually started a small nursery selling a range of unusual plants. This little nursery was actually in the present garden but as the garden expanded, the nursery had to relocate to the old farmyard.

When I was a child, the field where the garden is situated was called The Paddock and was a gently slopping three acre field , filled with sheep and a few cows. It was also the shortcut from the house to the farmyard. Little did I know what secrets lay buried beneath the soil as I raced downhill to check on new lambs or to collect eggs!

When Tinode House was built in 1860, it actually replaced an older building called Horseshoe House which was an old coaching Inn on the side of the old main road to Dublin. When the new main road, now called the N81 opened, presumably the old Inn was bypassed and demolished. A new house was built for Mr Coogan up on the hill…Tinode House. This required huge excavation and tons of soil were dispatched downhill into the field which we called the Paddock covering all its amazing history.

Most of our discoveries were accidental but are an intrinsic part of the garden design. Our first find was a beautiful 40 metre dry stone wall . I decided to put a reflecting pool along side the wall and plant a row of Stipa gigantea on top of the wall. It is still one of my favourite designs in the garden.

Originally we entered the garden from the old road and parked our cars in front of the House. One day my friend Michael Kelly suggested banishing cars to the far side of the farmyard and this was the beginning of the garden you see today.

I decided to use the house as the focal point, all beds are raised rectangular enclosed by dry stone walls and the paths lead the eye to the house. During this work while planting trees with Ned Maguire we discovered some cobblestones deep beneath the soil. After further exciting excavation we discovered what we believe to be the remains of Horeseshoe House. The finds included hundreds of bottles, broken pottery, and scraps of mementos from that period. We used the excavated soil to make a curved raised path on the extremity of the garden. This would act as a viewing point down on the garden and across to the Wicklow mountains and surrounded by a meadow. However, I was unhappy how the formal garden looked from the path as everything was on a slope. The answer was to build three dry stone walls at the end of each bed which would give the appearance of all been level. These beautiful walls were built by my neighbours Jack and Tom Cripps.

The most recent find was again accidental. I wanted to insert what I called a Sky Box buried deep in the garden. As we were finishing the project we noticed a few cobblestones and again with Ned’s meticulous and patient work we uncovered an old road which according to an very old map went right through the garden, through Tinode House which had not yet been built to an old quarry behind the house. . So this changed all my plans for a hidden sky box but allowed me to create a very interesting contemporary raised bed using large sheets of steel to enclose the new raised beds. Each of the ten beds in the garden are planted independently. I treat them almost like Twelve separate gardens. The entrance bed is calm and so using a mixture of grasses and perennials in shades of purple, pink and blue. Three other beds have a combination of red and orange. I use a combination of shades of red and orange Dahlias from seed, Monarda Jacob Cline, Lilium lancifolium, Lilium, Claude Shride, various Crocosmia such as Hell Fire, Zanzibar and Calabar and various tall Alstromeria. In another bed I have a huge clump of Phyllostachys which is a fantastic tall yellow stemmed Bamboo. This gives me an opportunity to use some of my favourite tall yellow
plants such as Silphium perfoliatum, Rudbeckia lanciata, Helianthus Lemon Queen and lots of beautiful tall pure yellow Dahlias from seed. Other beds change from year to year, I love to experiment with new plants or designs. I like to think when people visit the garden they are surprised and excited, maybe even inspired.