Walter Kelly's dedication has turned part of the family cattle and sheep farm, in Co Wexford, into a burst of colour, writes Jane Powers
Don't praise him too much," says Nellie Kelly,
mother of Walter Kelly, as we sit down to a cup of good strong tea, a plate of home-made scones and a chat about the garden. PJ, Walter's brother, offers his own take on horticulture: "Every garden looks the same to me." With family like this, who needs . . . ? Actually, I suspect this gardener's relations are just poking a bit of fun at his complete devotion to the couple of acres that he has annexed from the family farm and turned into a home for hundreds of varieties of plants.
Walter started the garden in 1989, when a new bungalow was built, overlooking the fields above the Slaney, and with the dark bulk of Sliabh Buí rising in the distance. His first step was to plant an enclosure of birches around the house, imagining that he would have enough room for his gardening needs within this sheltered space.
Now, however, years later, an army of plants commanded by Walter has conquered vast tracts of land, advancing as far as possible behind the house (there's a farmyard that precludes further encroachments), and making significant sorties
(including an entire orchard) on other sides. The original garden now serves as a lobby or antechamber to the rest of a much larger creation.
And what a lively entrance it is - with the brightest plants in the garden concentrated here. I'm especially taken with the bank around the far side of the house, where a crowd of flashily coloured flowers creeps up the little slope (expertly retained by great, mossy, granite boulders).
Salmony watsonia, pink diascia, scarlet lychnis, buttery anthemis, orange lily and lashings of other brilliantly hued blooms are bravely combined to make a jolly and jelly-coloured conglomeration. The Sam McGredy rose 'Eyepaint' - a real slapper of a flower with red petals, white centres and golden stamens - is right at home here.
This is the sort of exuberant planting that makes you smile. (Also adding to the entertainment of the place is Walter's collection of pure-bred fancy fowl, whose euphonious voices animate the air.)
Beyond the house, the plants are a little more modest, with the band of birch providing a ribbon of woodland where shade-lovers are planted en masse: epimedium, lungwort, hardy geranium, dicentra and some very stout clumps of hosta. Generous applications of well-rotted cow manure keep everything mulched and fed - and, this being a cattle and sheep farm, there is no shortage of the nutritious material. Clematis, which are greedy plants, do well here on the rich diet, as do rambling and climbing roses, some of them old cottage varieties whose names are long lost.
Gravelled paths meander throughout the garden, turning back on themselves here and there, or pausing beside a well-placed bench. The old farmhouse that once stood on the property has provided many pieces of salvaged cut granite, and these have been imaginatively reused throughout the acreage, as seats, pillars and punctuation marks.
"You try and use what you have," says Walter. It's a sentiment that makes economic sense, but it also means that the garden has a character that it wouldn't have if it were full of disparate bought-in bits and bobs.
One of the newest parts of this Wexford country garden is a big duck pond, its water (and a few serendipitous trout) piped up from the stream on the farm. It cascades over a natural saucer of rock that Walter found on the side of Mount Leinster, on the farmland of his "brother's wife's people".
The planting around the edge is still young, but in another year the gunnera, rodgersia and other waterside plants will give this pool a well-foliaged margin. A summer house, cleverly constructed from corrugated sheets, is already being clothed in a mantle of deep maroon, large-flowered clematis. Next to them, a stand of sugary pink hollyhocks strikes the perfect contrasting note.
And, yes, I know Mrs Kelly said at the beginning of all this not to praise him too much, so I won't. But I'd just like to put it in writing that her son has a way with plants and gardens.
Walter Kelly's garden is at Tombrick, Ballycarney, Co Wexford (off the N80 midway between Bunclody and Enniscorthy), 053-9388863. Open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm, until October 10th. Plants for sale. Admission €4. Groups by appointment at other times.