Peter Donegan Garden Design & Landscapingplaces i visited
This has to be one of the most unusual Botanic Gardens I’ve ever accessed in my life. From the Monte Palace Gardens, Madeira to South Africa at Kirstenbosch, this tops them by a million miles. And, every step of the way is worth it. Grab a cuppa, you’re gonna love love this one.
From the first side of the road, cross the Kura River over the Peace Bridge.
I visited here some time ago now and literally just stumbled across the information I had set to one side.
If I’m honest, I had found it particularly difficult to find out any information on the gardens of Chateau de Dinan. That, I have found is usually the norm and the building (in this case I appreciate it is a castle) tends to take precedence.
But here, as building a park as for what the people (rather than the building) preferred stood out to me. And to it’s credit as I spent some there there it was full and used for the greater.
I’ll get back to noting the gardens I make as Donegan Landscaping just as soon as I catch my breath.
According to wikipedia, Chateau de Dinan:
I’d got a note from Jane Perrone some time ago now. Essentially, there was a gentleman by the name of Christopher Woodward she felt I should have a chat with. Christopher, Jane noted was the Director of the London Garden Museum.
That I remember, the museum was in the process of trying to meet its opening day deadline and understandably so post that, my meeting may be more appropriate. The day after Chelsea Flower Show Press Day I popped in for my first visit.
The images below will give you a gist of just what was on display there at the time; and from the video the view from the top of the tower – not for week of knees – so well worth the 131 steps. Visuals aside, my still of horticulture hobby for sometime now allows and again allowed access (one of) the brains behind the scenes and the gentleman behind London Garden Museum, Director Christopher Woodward.
One might think it funny (maybe ?) that I note Trinity College’s Zoology Museum here, but there is literally so much that this horticulturist takes every time I visit. Regularly done but never noted ’til now. NB: not The Dead Zoo, alias The Natural History Museum.
Before I get there, if you are looking for a slight Dublin City escape, you could do a lot worse than to side exit stage left with your luncheon through the main gates of Trinity and down towards ‘The Pav’. We on this occasion, took the route off College Green through Trinity’s main arched entrance.
Walking through that way – a place I used to go between 2 bus journeys over to see my Grandmother on the Southside of Dublin and later again when I was between 3 much longer bus journeys heading to horticultural college – I get to see the lines and symmetry of the buildings windows; and its in part softened dappling by the now aged trees – that in my eyes, never have they seemed to age. Something that has always amazes and never ceased to make me smile.
I was away camping (the very best way to see the great, outdoors of this very beautiful island of Ireland) in Cork with old Kildalton Horticultural College mate Finbarr O’Mahony. His business, The West Cork Secret is based in Kilbrittain and, though it’s no surprise that I’d never heard of or seen the Village Park before, this little gem is more than well worth a visit.
Some purists of the botanical latin may suggest that I should see, or at least be here noting recreational spaces differently, considering I guess and rightly so the larger gardens and spaces I have designed and built. But life needs variety and also places that will make a 5-year-old princess giggle and, ask questions. And no, it is not a very long dinosaur.