Gardens in Ireland

Clint Smith February 2003

For the last several years we have been privileged to hear Clint, on the subject of his visits to the gardens of England, Wales and Scotland. This year he will complete his account of the ancestral islands. His background is splendidly varied: a political science major, his vocations have ranged from house building to commercial fishing, and he is known to be a natural philosopher. His erudition on the subject of rhododendrons is accompanied by a fine wit

In his annual appearance Clint Smith provided multiple stimulation for an enrapt audience in his review of Ireland’s treasures, both ancient and modern (well, fairly modern reflecting the recent hundred years). His photographs – a selected hundred or so of some 800 taken on his tour – were presented in an historical context. There was the Burren, a massive area of limestone outcroppings harbouring alpines of origins from Africa to the Arctic; the ubiquitous Celtic crosses marking the western migration of a race whose genesis has been traced to Asia’s Gobi desert; the mysterious standing stones and a great dolmen, the sacred megalithic tomb, representing a long forgotten religion; and several castles and great houses whose owners have deeded their garden estates to the country.

The gardens themselves reflected the longer time dimension: we saw huge banks of rhododendrons of 1840’s vintage; in Eire’s west country whose climate matches Clayoquot Sound, a 70 foot high arboreum grows wild in great health with neither watering, deadheading, nor fertilizing; and other ancients with trunks resembling our common arbutus abound. In all, we saw what could be in store for us a century hence as our young gardens mature. A broad selection of rhodos were shown blooming, of which a gorgeous (lowly) ponticum, scorned by the cognoscenti, would easily have won ‘best-of-show’ in any contest. We saw a spectacular picture of a road through a gigantic grove of arboreum whose spent petals resembled a livid lava flow.

And the humour flowed, too. Clint, along with Ken Gibson, Canada’s recognized rhodo ambassador, was unable to stop the bus to investigate the lineage of Dave Dougan’s Pub & Grub in County Kerry. At Blarney Castle, Clint was saved from kissing the Blarney Stone (he had already done so on a previous visit), when he encountered the custodian, armed with a bottle of disinfectant, on his way to cleanse the mystical object from its frequent desecration by micturition. His final photograph of the Atlantic’s beginning showed the massive Cliffs of Mohr, whose grassy sloping verges could be lethal for the unwary. Indeed, the local watch-keeper remarked on the number of tourists from North America who had visited on one-way holidays each year.

Clint Smith’s February should never be missed.