Altamont House and Garden is a jewel in the crown of the Carlow Garden Trail, writes JANE POWERS.
THE STORY OF great Irish gardens is so often a sad one. Owners die and property developers move in. They sweep away the atmosphere, squash the green spirit and leave behind bundles of houses, or the shroud of a surreally verdant golf course. They stick the name of the ravaged garden on the development, and publicise it with green-spirited, atmospheric photographs - taken before the pillage.
The above tale is all too common, much less common than that of the gardens that are preserved - which makes me feel angry and disheartened. Yet there is a particular house and garden whose story restores my flagging faith in our species: every time I visit I am uplifted by the generosity and forethought of its erstwhile owner.
Altamont in Co Carlow could have been sold for development, could have been turned into a hotel, could have been streamlined into a golf course, but wasn't - thanks to Corona North.
Before her death in 1999, Mrs North, an accomplished gardener and passionate plantswoman, arranged for her house, garden and farm to be left to the State, for the people of Ireland to enjoy. Her heart and soul were rooted in these hundred or so acres of land near Tullow, where, since being demobbed from work as an ambulance driver in England during the second World War, she devoted all her waking hours to gardening and farming. Her energy and knowledge were prodigious. She knew every square inch of her estate: the fields where her Jersey cows grazed, the immense lawn sloping down to a two-and-a-half-acre glassy lake (dug in the 19th century as a post-Famine relief project), the rose borders with their collection of blowsy hybrid teas (and earlier in the year, dozens of different snowdrops), the ancient oak forest with its glacial boulders, the beech-lined and periwinkle-carpeted "Nun's Walk", and the innumerable beds, borders, pockets and expanses of good Carlow loam - home to one of the most interesting plant collections in Ireland.
For Corona North was not just a woman of the soil, she was an avid plant collector. In her fifty-plus years of gardening at Altamont, she amassed collections of plants suitable for the 40 acres of mixed terrain that made up the cultivated part of her landscape. There were dozens of varieties of spring bulbs, herbaceous things in plenty, climbers scrambling over all the old walls, and a diverse range of shrubs and trees. Over the years she indulged in love affairs with different woody genera, including dogwood (Cornus), maple (Acer), rowan and mountain ash (Sorbus), southern beech (Nothofagus) and rhododendrons, accumulating as many species and cultivars as she could find.
Plants were in her genes, and in her name, too. Her father, who had bought the property in the 1920s, had been an ardent plantsman and sponsor of plant-hunting expeditions. Rhododendrons were one of his passions, and he propagated them by the hundred in his greenhouse. After Corona was born, and still nameless, he replied to his wife's "What shall we call the new baby?" with the name of one of his favourite rhododendrons.
Before she died, Mrs North was planning a stupendous double herbaceous border. The pair of beds, each 70 metres long and seven metres wide, would be harmonious stretches of vibrant, shimmering flower and foliage. The border would be a tribute to Irish plants and people, with plants that had arisen in gardens on this island, or that Irish plantspeople had collected abroad.
Alas, death claimed Mrs North while her last great project was still being planned, but her friends were determined to carry on, and to make the border a living memorial to this great gardener, as well as to all things Irish and horticultural. The hundreds of hours of work make too long and too Herculean a story to tell here, except to say that most of the labours were carried out by plantswoman Assumpta Broomfield, and Assumpta's then business partner Robert Miller. And the hundreds of plants, each one with a special story attached, came from all over Ireland, and from abroad, donated by Mrs North's vast network of fellow gardeners and friends.
The Corona North Commemorative Border, designed by Broomfield and Miller, opened just over a year after its namesake's death (and on her birthday). It was - and still is - a beautiful and fitting salute to a woman who gave so generously and good-humouredly to all who crossed her path.
Indeed, the whole of the gardens, now managed by the OPW (and where Mrs North's careful head gardener, Paul Cutler, still works) is a tribute to one of Ireland's greatest and most resolute plantswomen and gardeners. Her indomitable spirit lives on, smiling approvingly on grateful garden-lovers.
Altamont, which includes Robert Miller's interesting nursery, is one of a slew of gardens and garden centres that make up the just-launched (and very well signposted) Carlow Garden Trail. Other historic horticultural treats include Hardymount gardens, the herb gardens at Kilgraney House, and Huntingdon Castle gardens. The recently restored Duckett's Grove walled gardens was replanted just last year, and with its ruined, castellated buildings, it offers one of the most dramatic, gothicky backdrops in the country.
For more information on the Carlow Garden Trail phone 059-9130411, or see www.carlowgardentrail.com
DIARY DATES
Tomorrow, 10.30am-4pm: The annual Rare and Special Plant Sale (and poultry sale) at Larchill Arcadian Garden, Kilcock, Co Kildare. Admission: €6. www.larchill.ie
Wednesday, May 14th, 10am-12.30pm: Garden plant and home produce sale at Skryne Community Hall (near Dunshaughlin), Co Meath, in aid of MS Society Meath Branch. Admission: €5 (includes coffee).