Historic Cork Gardens

Historic Cork Gardens of County Cork, Ireland.

Started by Richard Grove Annesley, in the grounds of a house near Fermoy dating from the early eighteenth century. Home to many Himalayan rhododendrons, some from seeds collected by Captain Frank Kingdon-Ward in Burma and Tibet in 1924. The garden, on the River Blackwater has a unique water garden to which William Robinson devoted a chapter in his publication The English Flower Garden. [1], [2]

On the shores of Bantry Bay, home of the Hutchins family and of the botanist Ellen Hutchins, who, guided by the Director of Kew Gardens made an arboretum. This included Podocarpus salignus, among the finest in Ireland or Britain. Many Himalayan trees and shrubs were subsequently added by a later proprietor, Colonel Kaulback, who had accompanied Frank Kingdon-Ward on one of his Himalayan plant expeditions in the 1920s. Samuel Hutchins 1834-1915 returned from Australia in 1858 with one hundred packets of seeds of Australian plants. Earlier plantings were made by Arthur 1770-1838, his brother Emmanuel 1785-1815 and Ellen 1785-1815 (also a botanical illustrator). The area's history was recorded in 1980 by John Bevan: 'Ardnagashel-A Hidden Treasure'.

Mr. R.H. Beamish laid out his alpine and sub-tropical gardens at Glounthaune in 1900. Included were plants from China introduced by E.H. Wilson and from New Zealand by Captain Dorrien Smith of Tresco Abbey in the Scilly Isles. Notable species include Haplocartha scaposa introduced from South Africa by Mr. Beamish, together with the rare Mexican White Pine (Pinus ayacahuite), the tallest in Ireland and Britain. [3]

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