After 27 years, Madelaine Jay is handing over the guardianship of Mount Usher Gardens, writes Jane Powers
"Formerly a mill-house on a stream in a sheltered nook, it has been transformed into a garden paradise. I have never seen a more lovely garden . . . The water plants were most effective; great masses of Saxifraga peltata, Primula sikkimensis, Rodgersias, Gunneras, Nymphaeas . . . and many others were very happily provided for. The stream sides were richly clothed with Ferns and other plants."
The above paragraph was written 101 years ago, and published in the Gardeners' Chronicle magazine in 1906. The words may be fading somewhat on the page, but remarkably, the garden to which they refer is as fresh and vibrant as its century-old description. The extraordinary health of Mount Usher is largely thanks to its current owner, Madelaine Jay, who bought the 22-acre patch of Co Wicklow in 1980.
"It was maybe a little run down at the time," she remembers, "but I fell in love with it. I was very worried that it could be sold and demolished." Mrs Jay admits that when she took over the house and its watery green gardens - bisected by the River Vartry in Ashford - she was "terrified of how to manage. My whole life before had been horses."Her instinct was good though: "My one ambition was to keep it the way it was, and not to 'improve' it."
At the time Mount Usher was - and still is - a set piece Robinsonian garden, with the kind of naturalistic planting and ethos promulgated by the great Irish gardener and writer, William Robinson, at the end of the 19th century. The opinionated Irishman's ideas were a reaction to the strait-laced, formal gardens of the Victorian era, where order was imposed at any cost (in fact, the greater the price, the better it showed off one's wealth and authority). He preached that, instead, a garden should be "a reflex of Nature in her fairest moods", with plants placed "in clouds instead of dots", and arranged with regard to the existing contours and conditions of the location. "The best kind of garden grows out of the situation, as the primrose grows out of a cool bank."
Robinson's precepts were enthusiastically espoused by the three Walpole brothers, drapers from Dublin - Thomas, George and Edward - who took over the property from their father in 1875. George and Edward were keen gardeners, and sought advice from Sir Frederick Moore, director of Dublin's Botanic Gardens, as to what exotics they might try in the favoured and sunny location in the sheltered valley. Thomas, meanwhile, busied himself with beautifying the river, fashioning weirs to smooth its reaches into shining mirrors, and adding the first of the gossamer-thin suspension bridges that still span the waters today.
In the course of 100 years, the brothers and two further generations of Walpoles continued to develop Mount Usher, always keeping it simple and naturalistic, and free from formal artifice. Wisely, they let the romantic setting and the sympathetic planting do all the talking. The river banks were reserved for some of the choicest trees - especially those with autumn colour that would be reflected in the glassy water. They built up valuable collections of plants: of eucryphia, eucalyptus, southern beech (Nothofagus) and other southern hemisphere species; and of magnolia, rhododendron, azalea, maple and many other Asian and north American woodlanders.
The gardens became famous internationally, and remain so, rightly. Not only are there thousands of plant species to keep the fussiest of plants people (particularly tree lovers) happy, but the watery tranquillity and lushness makes this place magical to all visitors. The majesty of certain trees is inarguable: the century-old Mexican blue pine (Pinus montezumae) with its great dome of needles, each pointing upwards with the exquisite regularity of a fine engraving; the paper bark maple (Acer griseum), with its shaggy, rust-coloured skin; the grove of lofty eucalyptus with multicoloured, patchwork trunks stretching interminably into the sky; and the countless chameleon trees mirrored in the river: maple, katsura, Persian ironwood, Japanese stewartia, sweet gum, and many others - morphing in autumn from quiet greens to flaming reds, oranges and yellows.
Under Madelaine Jay's guardianship, planting has continued, always following Robinsonian principles, with exotics and native plants effortlessly weaving together to perfectly cloth the landscape. Over the years, her head gardeners - John Anderson, Maria Vlahos, and now Sean Heffernan - have employed no pesticides, weedkillers or artificial fertilisers. This chemical-free regime has encouraged an abundance of birdlife: all manner of songbirds in the woody and grassy areas; and, on the river, shy dippers and kingfishers, nodding moorhens and coots, primeval-looking herons.
The secluded haven of Mount Usher has become more of a treasure in recent times, as the clodhopping boot of development marches relentlessly forward in the world outside. Maintaining this sanctuary is paramount for Jay and her family, but now that she is in her mid-80s, she feels it's time to let someone new carry on her work.
That person is Simon Pratt, who through his family's business, Avoca, has taken a 25-year lease on the gardens, the tea rooms and the shopping courtyard. Lovers of Mount Usher's slightly old-fangled character can relax, as Simon plans to tiptoe gently around the property's vintage charms. "We don't want to put more 'Avoca' in Co Wicklow," he says candidly, referring to the company's existing operations at Kilmacanogue and in the village of Avoca itself. In Ashford, the tea rooms will be refurbished and reborn as the Mount Usher Garden Cafe, while a new bakery, and "maybe an organic vegetable shop" will open in the courtyard.
"But there will be no radical change," he says soothingly, which comes as a relief to those of us who have a fondness for this idiosyncratic and invaluable slice of the past in Co Wicklow. Simon, now 42, has visited the gardens since he was a small boy, and taking on their supervision is something that he does with a certain amount of respect. A manager, Anthony McCann, will keep the business end of things running smoothly, while Mount Usher's team of five gardeners will carry on as before, keeping this grand old garden in the style to which she has become accustomed, and that includes a chemical-free diet and absolutely no artificial additives.
• Mount Usher Gardens (Ashford, Co Wicklow) reopen on April 27th; 9.30am-5.30pm daily; adults - €7, OAPs and students - €6; children aged five to 16 - €3; under fives free. Contact: 0404-40205, 0404-40116 (cafe); www.mountushergardens.ie