A Cavan garden stops Jane Powers in her tracks
There's a kind of garden that I think of as a stop-the-car garden. It flashes by at the edge of a country road at 30 or 50 miles an hour - just long enough to beam an image of bright flowers, a tumble of roses, perhaps a leprechaun or two, but mainly, an overpowering feeling of rampant individuality. It takes a few seconds for the picture to sink in, and then it's "Stop the car!", followed by a careful reversing operation, or the search for a field gate to back into and turn around. Once you spot such a garden, you can't ignore its invitation.
On a very quiet road in Killinkere in Co Cavan, a cascade of honeysuckle, a crowd of dazzling annuals and biennials, a cluster of deep-blue monkshood spires, and a pair of red-and-white-painted chickens at the gate collectively call a halt to the passing motorist.
Closer inspection reveals another hen, several gnomes, a frog, a bear, and a pair of wise owls nestling in a bed of blue campanula.
Beyond the happy menagerie, and nearly obscured by more honeysuckle and climbing roses, is a smartly painted mobile home, its colours perfectly matching the livery of the poultry sentries at the gate. It is the home of Barbara Geddes, who for 20 years was an aid worker in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"I had nothing when I came back, because it was voluntary work," she says. I remember the first time I turned the key here, I thought, at last, I have my own door!" And she laughs at the memory.
The mobile home sits on a sliver of her aunt's and uncle's farm. "I didn't want it to be in the corner of a field, or to be taking up good land, so the obvious place was here."
"Here" is in the garden of a long-derelict cottage, now serving as a shed, but barely visible under a covering of roses, ivy and yet more honeysuckle - "my favourite plant: you put down slips, and nothing happens ... and then whoosh! the whole thing is covered!". Little remained of the garden's original planting, except for a couple of bits of box, periwinkle and "egg tree hedge" (snowberry or Symphoricarpos). "After living in the dry countries in the east, I thought it was gorgeous. I didn't even cut the hedge, it was up to here," and she indicates the roof of her home.
But eventually, she did clear away some of the egg-tree hedge, revealing an ancient well, and, along the roadside, an expertly-built dry stone wall. After that, the garden "just happened. It was never planned". Bit by bit she cleared the ground, chopping down the overgrown vegetation, and laying carpets on the soil to keep the weeds in check.
When the carpets had done their job, she barrowed eight tons of gravel into her back garden, where she now has a sheltered sitting area. On this side, the garden is bordered by a sloping field with an old chestnut that has been given a neat, bobbed haircut by browsing cows.
At the front, the low Cavan hills make a gently curved horizon. "I like the hilliness of Cavan," she says approvingly. "I don't like huge flat landscapes, where you can see on Friday who's coming to visit you on Sunday!"
In the best tradition of cottage gardening, almost all of Barbara's plants have been grown from cuttings, from seed, or from divisions. "A lot of the stuff came from old gardens," she says, including red campion, everlasting sweet pea, osteospermum, and the unnamed roses that clothe the old stone building. 'New Dawn', a pink climbing rose, was one of the few plants that Barbara actually bought - and then she propagated numerous offspring from it, which are now scrambling vigorously over several arches around her perimeter.
Her talent with cuttings, and her general resourcefulness are remarkable. She has made all the arches herself - "and I'll give you a tip", she offers. "Just put a hinge in the top so that you can get the angle right." Her arch ingredients are simple: two lengths of two-by-one cut in two for the uprights, slating laths for the top, and spare bits of timber for the the gridwork. "It'll cost you no more than €10."
Fencing panels, meanwhile can be made from recycled pallets. "You can make anything out of anything," she declares. And indeed you can, as she has so ably proved. A friend's old skirting boards, for instance, have been turned into elaborate fretwork ("I traced around an egg cup for the pattern, and had it cut out with a jig saw"). The decorative boards, now painted yellow ("my favourite colour"), give a cheery veneer to another of her arches.
Such ingenious creativity is half the charm of this unexpected Cavan garden. You have to applaud a woman who can make a shed door out of "the top of a bed, an old bit of tin and some baling tape", or who has revived the vernacular practice of making a plant container by turning an old tyre inside out.
And you must congratulate her for showing that "you don't need to spend loads of money on things. You can get slips from people, and divide things." And you have to agree when she says, "I'd much rather have a slip that I got from someone. You remember them every time you look at it. It's like a souvenir."
And yes, I can bear testament to this, as I study the red campion plants here in my Dublin patch that came from a certain stop-the-car garden in Cavan. jpowers@irish-times.ie
GARDENING AT FARMLEIGH
August is gardens' month at the state-owned Farmleigh (Castleknock, Dublin). Each Sunday there are talks and practical sessions by horticultural experts including Helen Dillon, Matthew Reese (assistant head gardener at Christopher Lloyd's Great Dixter), John Cushnie, Carol Klein and others. On Saturday August 7th and 21st, Celia Spouncer (winner of a silver-gilt at this year's Chelsea) will hold workshops for children. For details, see www.farmleigh.ie, or telephone 01-8155900.