Horticultural hot spot In the Co. Wicklow countryside – the ‘Garden of Ireland’ – is Jimi Blake’s extensive, ever-changing Hunting Brook Gardens, the vision of a plantsman known for flamboyant, experimental planting
Author Jane Powers writer and author of The Irish Garden Photography Marianne Majerus Hunting Brook Gardens
Summer scene Near where Counties Dublin Wicklow and Kildare meet Hunting Brook Gardens is home to one of the largest private collections of plants in the Republic of Ireland In Ashley’s Garden an area near the house plumes of Stipa elegantissima ‘much better than Stipa tenuissima’ says owner Jimi arch over paths Tiger lilies single dahlias Monarda ‘On Parade’ Filipendula purpurea ‘Elegans’ and Thalictrum ‘Splendide’ add orange pink and purple notes Taller woody plants such as Toxicodendron vernicifluum and Pseudopanax crassifolius provide leafy backdrops
Hot and cool Foliage plants such as an unnamed Splashes of redleaved Astelia bold colour ‘incredible really black in winter’ says The verdant Wicklow Jimi and a fresh hills across the valley green Ricinus bring contrast with vivid an exotic feel to the colours close to the Long Border Warmth house Bold red comes from red blotches are added by Alonsoa and vibrant Monarda ‘Gardenview orange Calendula Scarlet’ which ‘never officinalis ‘Indian gets mildew’ says Jimi Prince’ Angelica Among contrasting sylvestris ‘Vicar’s palercoloured plants Mead’ hoists its floral are fluffy angelica and umbrellas throughout Thalictrum ‘Splendide’ the plantings
36 The Garden | December 2017 December 2017 | The Garden 37 Hunting Brook Gardens
n 2002 Jimi Blake left his secure job as trouble-free and healthy. And for me it’s the Head Gardener at Air eld Estate in Dublin, vibrant colours. I don’t do much pastel.’ I Republic of Ireland. He started anew on the He certainly does not, especially around the edge of the family farm in rural County Wicklow. house. Here there is much use of saturated His plan was to create a garden from scratch and purples, reds, pinks and oranges. In summer to ‘open it quickly to try and make a living from the main beds at the front have the luminance it’. While that may sound like a cool business of a pointillist painting. Originally this area was decision, the result is intensely personal, given over mostly to car parking, but ve years Heightened unexpected and full of joy. Jimi is an obsessive ago ‘we dug down about two feet and put in planting plant collector and enthusiastic experimenter, good soil and manure’. The space was lled with so the visitor nds treats such as mini groves of choice plants that perform well in communities. Woody plants break through packed beds to Canary Island-native Aeonium arboreum, e r y The mood in one area, Ashley’s Garden add height and colour explosions of hot-coloured perennials and trial (named after a late friend), changes dramatically Pale fl uff y umbels of beds for a collection of 226 salvias. ‘I needed each year. ‘I take out the most dominant plants Angelica sylvestris them all,’ he says, only half-joking. and replace them with something di erent,’ ‘Vicar’s Mead’ contrast The 8ha (20 acre) parcel of land holds a says Jimi. So, one year the star plant may be with another Jimi Blake fortuitous mix of landscapes: the southern sombre, deep purple- owered Salvia ‘Amistad’; favourite Pseudopanax boundary is folded into a valley through which for another it may be Actaea cordifolia ‘Blickfang’, crassifolius and the tumbles a cheerful stream, Hunting Brook which sends energetic white rockets of ower pink to deep purple spectrum created using (hence the garden’s name). Woodland spreads skywards. For yet another it may be oaty perennials such as lilac up the slopes of the glen – beech on one side, clouds of a cerise Japanese meadowsweet, fl o w e r e dThalictrum larch, oak and sycamore on the other. The trees Filipendula purpurea ‘Elegans’. ‘Splendide’ Persicaria give way to a 6,000sq m (1.5 acre) meadow at For contrast and added texture Jimi uses amplexicaulis Orange the east end, and to an erstwhile sheep eld umbels such as carrots and angelica, feathery Field ‘Orangofi eld’ on the northwestern corner. grasses and single- owered dahlias. The dahlias and Monarda are selections that Jimi and his sister June Blake, Making the garden whose garden (September 2016, pp68–73) is just On this eld, with its commanding views of the half a mile across the elds, have been growing Wicklow Mountains, Jimi built a small timber from seed for years. Hunting Brook Gardens house 15 years ago and started to make his Lamb Hill near Blessington Co Wicklow W YK garden. The site is 282m (925ft) above sea level, Structural and sculptural plants tel from UK huntingbrookcom and spring comes later here than in other parts Everywhere sparkling planting is lent Overview experimental plantsman’s garden always in fl ux of Ireland. The land around the house slopes to dramatic bass notes by the addition of big- Location off the N about miles southwest of Dublin the south, however, so frost settles less than it leaved exotics such as cannas and bananas Size ha acres including ha acres valley/woodland might, and drainage is good. Jimi, who has only (Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’ and Musa Soil rich acid heavy clay Age years part-time help, gardens intensively here, but sikkimensis ‘Bengal Tiger’). ‘If you are in a Aspect southfacing slope at m ft above sea level less so as the garden moves through woodland colder place, just give them enormous amounts Purple patch Key seasons early spring to late autumn (with its collections of snowdrops, erythroniums, of feed to get them to grow big,’ he says. Open April¡October Wed¡Sun am¡¢pm Also by appointment On a slope at the side of trilliums, primulas and meconopsis). The valley The jungly theme recurs through the garden outside offi cial opening times the house the Terrace and its slopes have been mass planted with with tropical-looking shrubs, and trees that Garden is awash with Accessibility partial wheelchair access gravel paths some steep areas architectural-looking woody specimens: large- are frost hardy. Among them are Pterocarya purple Geranium leaf rhododendrons (Rhododendron falconeri, stenoptera ‘Fern Leaf’, evergreens Daphniphyllum psilostemon ‘Mount R. macabeanum and R. sinogrande), S c h e e r a in macropodum and Euphorbia x pasteurii, plus Venus’ an Irish cultivar Long Border N plenty, and ‘all the panaxes’. Among them – each several di erent Aralia. with Deschampsia Ashley’s Garden ¡m (ft) with excellent structure and exaggerated leaves Recently, Jimi has started to add succulents cespitosa ‘Goldtau’ injecting dashes of – are Pseudopanax ‘Tuatara’, P. ‘Moa’s Toes’, and cacti, which make sculptural set pieces Terrace Garden Oreopanax echinops and Oplopanax horridus. around the garden. These tender species may golden light Drooping dark green leaves of house Hunting Brook has a strong educational seem an odd choice for temperate, rainy Ireland, Pseudopanax purpose. Jimi is a knowledgeable and generous but Jimi is eclectic in his tastes. ‘I don’t like to crassifolius make a teacher, holding classes and running a well- look at a plant and say I can’t grow that,’ he says. graphic contrast woodland Hunting regarded plantsperson’s course every year. Instead he works out the best place to put them, A lightweight upper Brook He aims to ‘introduce people to new plants, whether nestled into a south-facing bed or on storey is supplied by valley new ways of planting and new combinations’. purpose-built rough timber tables. The e ect Aralia echinocaulis woodland To meadow Jimi works tirelessly to nd ‘good, easy-to-grow, is quirkily instructional – and simply adds to from seed that Jimi collected in central long- owering perennials that people can this extravagant garden that has become a China in cultivate in their gardens. They have to be horticultural cabinet of curiosities.
38 The Garden | December 2017 rhs.org.uk December 2017 | The Garden 39