Garden Tour Of The Meadows

Garden tour of The Meadows by Arthur Shackleton

Renowned garden designer Arthur Shackleton leads this tour around the garden of the great artist and painter Philippa Bayliss.
The concept for this garden was based largely on 17th century Chinese landscape paintings so you can expect lots of jagged rocks, planting between rocks and into gravel, small trees and a recently installed stunning sculpture of a seed head. Visitors are promised lots of ideas that can be recreated in different contexts in a small space of a ¼ acre.

The Meadows is positioned in a small estate in Myshall Village with views extending to the Wicklow Mountains, the Carlow Ridge and Mount Leinster. The plot slopes steeply into the hillside with the back shaded by sycamores. The back garden is planted with an informal hedge of shrub roses and some interesting trees interspersed with mostly herbaceous plants set into gravel.

In 1999, Arthur transformed two derelict farm buildings and their accompanying land outside Abbeyleix, Co. Laois, into his own garden. Arthur shares Fruitlawn with artist Carol Booth and grows in the garden a wide selection of plants originally from his father, David Shackleton’s garden at Beech Park in Clonsilla. It has been called “enchanting” for its “billowing borders and quiet corners” by The Irish Garden Magazine, and has received visitors from around the world.