Shirley Lanigan has been writing about Irish gardens for two decades in books and magazines, and is a regular columnist with the Irish Garden.
With a background in art, she has a keen interest in the use of art in gardens and believes that artists’ gardens are particularly fascinating. This garden tour of the talented painter Philippa Bayliss is an exciting addition to the festival programme.
Visitors are promised lots of ideas that can be recreated in different contexts in a small space of a 1/4 acre. In front of the house there are plantings of pampas grass, miscanthus, orange fennel, heathers, catmint while the back features an informal hedge of shrub roses and trees interspersed with mostly herbaceous plants, set into gravel.
Venue: No. 7, The Meadows, Myshall, Co. Carlow, R21 CF43
Time: 3 p.m.
Admission: €5 Pre-booking advised but not essential
Shirley Lanigan has been writing about Irish gardens for two decades in books and magazines, continuously criss-crossing the island, visiting and re-visiting every large and small, old and new, public and private garden she can find. She lives and loves Irish gardens. Travelling like this puts her in the enviable position of constantly meeting with, and learning from, hundreds of enthusiastic amateur gardeners and growers, as well as with professionals and experts of long standing and international renown.
After twenty years of enjoyable nosing about, she has become more and more interested in how our gardens are evolving in the face of a fast changing and worrying world. Shirley is a regular columnist with the Irish Garden magazine and has published a number of books on Irish gardens: The O’Brien Guide to Irish Gardens (2001), The 100 Best Gardens in Ireland (2011) and The Open Gardens of Ireland (2017). With a background in art, she has a keen interest in the use of art in gardens and believes that gardens made by artists are particularly fascinating. The artist’s eye adds an extra, magical and often indefinable dimension to a garden, making them the most rewarding places to visit and explore.