Gardening Courses County Down

To find the best horticultural lecturers in County Down, your best bet is to not let your location limit you. At MyGardenSchool we bring the world’s best gardening authors to you in your own home.

Rowallane Garden in Saintfield houses one of Ireland’s premier plant collections. Walks include the main garden, the Spring Garden, the Rock Garden and the Walled Garden. In spring and early summer the rhododendron walk is one big, beautiful blaze of colour. Other highlights are the hydrangeas, fuchsias, shrub roses, primulas, meconopsis, heathers and dwarf bulbs. Mount Stewart in County Down is a famous garden that can’t be missed if you’re in the area.. Almost every style of gardening over the last two centuries is represented at Mount Stewart. The great diversity of styles and plants from every continent were ingeniously combined by Lady Edith Londonderry (1879-1959)

Seaforde Gardens, Downpatrick has the oldest maze in Ireland at the centre of the 18th Century walled garden. It also has a Butterfly House, with insects and tree ferns and interesting tropical planting.

From the oldest to the largest and longest, you will find the world’s largest and longest hedge maze (Guinness Book of Records) the ‘Peace Maze’ in Castlewellan Forest Park. Castlewellan covers 460 hectares of natural beauty enhanced by diverse woodland and a variety of attractive man made features, all of which are accessible to the visitor on foot. At Castlewellan Forest Park you will also find the National Arboretum and historic Annesley Garden.

For a walk on the wilder side Tollymore Forest Park in the shadows of the Mourne Mountains is a worthwhile visit. Tollymore takes in an area of almost 630 hectares and offers panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and the sea at Newcastle.

By Elspeth Briscoe