As autumn moves in, gardening matters take on a dependable inevitability: nights become colder, fruits flush and ripen, stems dry out and harden, leaves drift to the ground. And a Cork garden wins the title of "All-Ireland Top Garden" in the annual Shamrock Gardens competition. Or so it has been for the past several years - and this year is no different. From among more than 550 entries, it was Mary Byrne's garden in Glounthaune, Co Cork, that took the prize, for the second time in four years. "It's difficult to beat the Cork gardens," she says, with a tiny bit of justifiable pride. "We're all great friends, we exchange plants and we go to England together to buy more plants." And she marvels that at the awards ceremony some of the Leinster gardeners had never even met each other. Is there much rivalry among the Corkonians, I wonder? "Very little," she replies, without hesitation. ("Great rivalry, great camaraderie and a lot of swapping of plants," says another Cork gardener.)
It's not just the united front that makes the Cork gardening troops unconquerable - their armoury includes the most clement climate on this island. Snow is almost unknown, severe frost is a rarity, and around 60 inches of rain pour annually onto the favoured, lush land (nearly double the quantity that drizzles on Dublin). Plants that are ungrowable or that struggle along as measly excuses in all but the most sheltered locations in the rest of the country, make gargantuan, rudely healthy specimens in this southernmost county.
But even for Cork's select soil, Mary Byrne's sprawling four-acre plot is remarkable. It is enviably situated on a steep, south-facing slope, enclosed by woodland and with a view downhill to Cork Harbour and the Lee estuary. She has two acres of her own woods: pine, beech and larch, with an understorey of hazel and holly, and a haze of bluebells in spring. She has planted its edges with rhododendrons and azaleas for early colour and with hydrangeas for later on. A dozen or more of the West Himalayan birch (Betula utilis var. jacquemontii) make a tiny grove where the chalky-white bark reflects the light on the darkest winter day.
The woods dictates the shape and feel of Mary Byrne's garden. As well as serving as a pleasing backdrop, it flows into the shrub borders, and here and there, leaves tree-islands in its wake. An immense beech, for instance, sits in the middle of the contoured lawn, spreading its elephantine, grey branches over its own miniature woodland. Here are pittosporum, the honey-scented Euphorbiam ellifera, rhododendrons and azaleas (the latter two shrubs a recurring theme in her good, acid soil). Small gravel paths are lined with shade-lovers such as lungworts, hellebores, ferns and hostas. "The more hostas I can get for there the better," she says with the unashamed acquisitiveness of the avid plant collector. "There's a good hosta nursery in England, Apple Court. I need to go there and load up."
Nearby, a scree bed ("don't forget to mention my scree bed," she instructs) is filled with treasures, many bought on her frequent visits to England (three times so far this year). There are salvias, dwarf rhododendrons and irises, saxifrages, gentians, phloxes and celmisias, the latter - notoriously tricky plants - shielded from winter wet by sheets of glass. And lots and lots of grasses: "I love grasses, but I can't remember their names. They're beautiful grouped together, or in corners of beds. They're architectural, and lovely with their fronds flowing in the wind," she says. One of her favourites is the tall golden oats (Stipa gigantea). "It's one of the best, it gets its seed heads early. And it's easily divided in late spring." She has grouped some by a patio at the top of her garden, where they catch the slightest breeze.
The garden took its prize for being interesting during all four seasons of the year. Now, her herbaceous border is still going strong with penstemons, crocosmias, salvias, perennial lobelias, agapanthus, eupatorium and the blood-red dahlia `Bishop of Llandaff'. Autumn colour, meanwhile, is sneaking into the leaves of her dozens of Japanese maples, viburnums and dogwoods. And in the woods, thousands of ivy-leaved Cyclamen hederifolium have spangled the ground with their upturned, white and pink petals.
But there's no time for this busy Cork gardener to stop and admire. The autumn clean-up is in full swing: tidying, pruning, cutting back. Shrubs that have outgrown their space, or that might look better in a different location, have already been marked for moving. "You just have to keep on top of it." And indeed you do, when you've just won "All-Ireland Top Garden" in Ireland's most competitive county. Again.