Jane Powers marks your horticultural calendar
Cork readers! Finish that cuppa and get over to Barnavara Hill, in Glanmire. Brian Cross's remarkable garden, Lakemount, is open today from 10am to 4pm. It's a rare opportunity to see one of the south's best gardens in all its winter nudity, garlanded with a few brave January flowers, such as witch hazel, Sarcococca, rhododendron, camellia and hellebore. Specialist nurseries Camolin Potting Shed and Terra Nova Plants will be there also. The day is in aid ofMarymount Hospice, and entry is by voluntary contribution, so let your offerings be generous.
Not many gardens are open during the chill days of winter, but one that welcomes visitors all year is the National Botanic Gardens, in Glasnevin, Dublin. On January 21st, the staff demonstrate pruning and winter maintenance of both roses and fruit (11am-1pm, ¤20, bookings 01-8570909).
This is just one of the gardens' many activities for the public during the first half of the year. Also of note are Seamus O'Brien's lecture at 3pm on March 1st, Bat Plants, Lolos and Ginger Lilies: An Adventure in Southern Yunnan; the annual orchid fair on April 1st and 2nd; and a Tuesday evening botany course, starting on April 4th.
February 11th brings one of the year's major events, the Garden & Landscape Designers Association's 10th annual seminar, at University College Dublin. Entitled Landscape Polygamy: Marrying the Client, the Site and the Designer, the seminar continues its tradition of presenting some of the best names in international design.
Among them are Andy Sturgeon – the man whose elegant and clever garden should have won the Best in Show award at last year’s Chelsea Flower Show – and the French landscape architect Gilles Clément, co-designer of Parc André Citroën, in Paris.
The Irish holistic architect Michael Rice also partakes, as does the designer Isabelle Van Groeningen, who is well known for her naturalistic waves of herbaceous plants and grasses (€132 for non-members, bookings 01-2781824, www.glda.ie).
Snowdrops are known as "fair maids of February", so it's fitting that Altamont Garden's annual Snowdrop Week should occur next month (13th-19th at Tullow, Co Carlow; guided tours at 2pm daily; 059-9159444, www.altamontgarden.com). There are more than 60 varieties here, and very one is worth getting down on your knees to nspect.
The first Sunday in March marks the start of ational Tree Week (5th-11th), seven days of vents throughout the country, all devoted to elebrating the gentle wooden giants (Tree Council of Ireland: 01-2849211, www.treecouncil.ie).
March also brings the first of the garden exhibitions. The MyHome.ie Spring House & Garden Show, which pitches camp at the RDS, in Dublin, from the 16th to the 19th, features six show gardens, 20 nurseries, a floral-art demonstration area and a garden-design forum chaired by Gerry Daly. Then, from the 24th to the 26th of the month, the same organisation, Expo Exhibitions, sets up in King's Hall, Belfast, with the Northern Bank Spring House & Garden Show.
The roving Rare and Special Plant Fair is now in its 6th year. It makes its first appearance in Dublin, at Farmleigh, on Sunday, May 7th. As usual there will be dozens, or even scores, of specialist nurseries selling plants that you are unlikely to find at your local garden centre (www.farmleigh.ie).
Unredeemed plantaholics will head off to rance the following weekend for the Journées des Plantes spring plant fair at Courson (35km southwest of Paris) on May 13th and 14th, a gathering of 200 nurseries (www.coursondom.com).
Those with a little time to spare may consider motoring on to the Loire for the annual Chaumont garden festival (www.chaumont-jardin.com). This year's theme is "playing in the garden". The exhibition, which runs from April 29th to October 15th, is favoured by new and experimental designers and is sure to provide interesting food for thought, the odd shock and one or two laughs.
The end of May sees a mass exodus of Irish designers to find out what's hot and what's not at Chelsea Flower Show (23rd-27th). This year, as far as I know, no Irish garden designer features in the Royal Horticultural Society's premier show – Diarmuid Gavin tells me his application was turned down, and Paul Martin is busy redesigning the landscaping at the Belfry golf course, in Warwickshire. There will be plenty of other big names, though, including Chris Beardshaw, Jinny Blom, Tom Stuart Smith and Andy Sturgeon. As always, the Great Pavilion will host more than 100 spectacular displays from nurseries and other horticultural concerns from all over the world (www.rhs.org.uk/flowershows).
Back in Ireland, at Balmoral in Belfast, Garden Show Ireland takes place from June 9th to 11th (www.gardenshowireland.com), while the Garden Heaven show is at the RDS from June 23rd to 25th.
The first half of the garden year ends with the prestigious International Clematis Society Conference, at Dublin City University. The weeklong programme (June 30th-July 7th) includes lectures by the US plantsman Dan Hinkley and our own queen of plants, Helen Dillon. Garden tours, social occasions, workshops and a day trip to Crûg Farm, in Wales, are also planned.
Attending requires a fair amount of time (say goodbye to family and other commitments for the week) and financial outlay (€635-€835 for nonresidential participants), but those who make the effort are likely to emerge as fully-fledged clematis buffs (01-2802641; www.clematis2006.com).
Real gardeners never stop learning. This year, I'm pleased to note, more courses are on offer than ever. Co Leitrim's Organic Centre continues its excellent education programme, which includes From Plant to Plate, Creating a Wildflower Area or Meadow, and Shaping the Soil (most courses last one or two days and cost €80-€180; 071-9854338; www.theorganiccentre.ie).
The centre's former head gardener, Klaus Laitenberger, moved to Lissadell House, in Co Sligo, last spring, bringing along his considerable expertise in both gardening and teaching. Laitenberger leads workshops on organic gardening and growing under glass; other specialists teach a host of subjects, among them growing bulbs, woodland flora identification, creating an orchard and gardening in a small space. (Most courses cost €70 a day; 071-9163150; www.lissadellhouse.com.)
Jimi Blake's courses continue at Hunting Brook Gardens, near Blessington in Co Wicklow, and at Airfield House, in Dundrum, Dublin. A highlight falls on May 6th, with a day of talks and demonstrations by Jimi Blake and Helen Dillon at Hunting Brook (¤110, 087-2856601; www.huntingbrook.com).
Finally, although we have the best climate in the world for growing the widest possible range of plants, the "soft days" do occasionally dispirit the most ardent of gardeners. TravelQuest organises escorted trips to gardens abroad for those who need a rejuvenating shot of sunshine and foreign air. This year's 16 destinations include India, Amsterdam, Madeira, Pennsylvania and New Zealand (054-83349; www.thebaygarden.com).