I went to see those million-pounder new homes on Brennanstown Road in Carrickmines, Co Dublin the other day. It wasn't the houses that caught my attention so much as the landscaping on the estate. And it wasn't even the scores of candy-coloured rhododendrons and other curiously chosen plants (nicely interspersed with native trees, it has to be said) that fascinated me. No, what really made me blink was the pond thing: a collection of granite rocks, bulldozed out of the bowels of the site and stacked up like a bleached bone-pile around a wiggle of water.
The estate agent explained carefully to me that lots of money had been spent on the landscaping, and that experts agreed it was good and desirable landscaping. And certainly, a lot of effort had gone into making those bits of granite conform to a late 20th-century suburban water feature. I mean, there's no doubt that those rocks - heaved from the ground and broken into chunks - are now tamed and owned by those million-pound householders.
A few minutes away, on Glenamuck Road, there is another granite-filled garden, but in this case things are entirely different. In this two-acre patch, ostensibly belonging to Shirley and John Beatty, it is in fact the rocks that own the garden. It is the rocks - part of the same 75,000-year-old glacial formation as that down the road in "Millionaires' Row" - that dictate the shape and flow of the garden. They run here and there around the property, inches under the surface or in ridges rising several feet into the air. They stick up implacably out of the lawn and gravel. They even crop up in the vegetable beds like cast-off bits of sculpture. The Beattys cherish their rock, and work with it and around it. And through it too - drilling 220 feet into it to sink a well after that droughty summer a few years ago. "We have the garden because of the rock," says Shirley. "It just tells you what to do."
And the rock is very particular about what it will tolerate in the garden. Formality is forbidden, except for some low box hedges by the front door and the occasional clipped stand of laurel. A lawn is allowed, but not of the flat bowling green variety: instead there is an agreeably wobbly surface, like a close-woven blanket thrown over a lumpy bed - with the odd granite knee protruding. And lots of secret areas are encouraged, with the garden wandered over by narrow tracks and divided by stands of trees and - naturally - outcrops of majestic, immovable stone.
Within this framework, Shirley Beatty ably demonstrates her skills as a keen plants-woman, placing combinations of unusual specimens with creative flair and abundant sympathy for the surroundings.
For instance, behind the lawn (the preserve of John, who grooms it diligently) a winding path travels through a small woodland where seemingly artless mixtures of plants constantly delight the eye. Big hostas are interwoven with the lacy leaves of dicentras; the lovely poppy-flowered yellow Stylophorum pops up through the herringbone fronds of ferns; a miniature plantation of pleiones - terrestrial orchids - sprouts from a tree stump, in its turn stitched around with a fringe of the tiny pea-green oak fern.
Right next to the house, the granite bedrock has risen up and folded itself into a series of mounds and dips. A gentle trickle of water (artificially created, but you'd never know it) is wreathed in maiden hair fern and Soleirola soleirolii (the much-maligned lawn-weed, "mind-your-own-business") before it flows into a rock pool. Another pool further up - home to hundreds of froglets in spring - is ringed with candelabra primulas, including the rosy Irish cultivar, "Rowallane". Paths move upwards - eventually petering out on a near-wild gorse-topped hill - passing pale puffs of rhododendron flowers, and more luridly-coloured ones, their heated tones cooled by foils of lush green foliage. One such rhodie, "Countess of Derby" reminded a recent visitor of Dame Barbara Cartland - and on considering its over-excited, saturated pink, I can't agree more. In the darker areas, sheets of the wonderfully drought- and shade-resistant cranesbill, Geranium macrorrhizum carpet the soil and drape over humped-up granite shoulders. A vegetable and fruit garden appears. It is fenced off from hungry rabbits, and the spare produce is sold at the Kilternan country market each Saturday.
The garden is part of a recently-formed association, the Dublin Garden Group, which John Beatty - together with John Bourke of the small but perfectly-formed Fairfield Lodge garden in Monkstown - administrates. Ten Wicklow and Dublin private gardens are involved, and visits are arranged to coincide with the best seasons of each property (and there is no fee other than the normal admission charge to each garden). So far, most of the visitors have come from overseas, but groups of Irish garden-lovers are eagerly welcome too. That is, if they're not all engaging in the pastime which has overtaken the restful and inspiring pleasure of garden visiting - trampling through brand new estates and their show houses.
