Corke Lodge GardeN

OPEN DATES 2025

June 2nd to 27thMonday to Friday

July 1st to 26th Tuesday to Saturday

August 4th to 24th Monday to Sunday

Between the hours of 10 A.M. and 2 P.M.



Voluntary contribution of €10 per person in favour of Our Lady’s Hospice



Corke Lodge garden is also open at other times by appointment

Phone Number / WhatsApp: +353872447006
Email Address: cochranealfred7@gmail.com

TREES AND SHRUBS OF INTEREST

This is a woodland garden with a colour palette restricted to shades of green structured by the shapes of the trunks and branches as well as the clipped hedges of Box and Lonicera. 

The trees and plants encountered on a clockwise tour of the garden are as follows, starting from the lawn to the side of the house. 

Quercus Suber; a good specimen of a Cork Oak planted as a pun on the townland name of Corke Little, a marshland (corcach) in Irish; Quercus Ilex or evergreen oak, Wellingtonia, American Cedars, an Irish Yew trees and Portuguese laurels. The woodland incorporating those specimens was replanted in the 1820’s with the creation of a “wilderness” inspired by a Mediterranean grove of olive trees and cypresses. 

The 1980’s design of the garden, by architect Alfred Cochrane, followed in the semi-tropical, Italianate idiom with self-seeded ground cover of Acanthus, wild Geraniums as well as spiky cactus-like Phormiums and then the palm-like Dicksonia Tree Ferns from Kells Bay in Kerry. The other ferns like the Woodwardia Radicans and the Blechnum Chilense also grow spontaneously as have the Echiums who have decided to inhabit this garden. The Gunera springs from the bog in which the Cork tree was planted. 

The surrounding trees that adorn the perimeter of the open spaces are the Katsura Cercidiphyllum (Caramel Tree), a Blue Atlas Cedar, a Sorbus Hibernica (Whitebeam) , Irish Yew and Golden Yew, Washingtonia Palms as well as Laurels and Hollies. 

The formal circular box parterre and the W/E axis along a moss path is punctuated by a variety of Cupressus, Juniperus Blue Arrow, Thuyas and other pillar-form trees, framing a vista to a Gothic Revival folly using the former entrance to Glendalough House designed by Daniel Robertson in 1840’s. The blue grey theme is carried through with Senecio Brachyglottis ground cover. 

To the left is a moss garden with tiered laurel lawn, all that remains of the laurel trees that had invaded the whole estate up to the early 1980’s. Cordylines and Bamboos evoke a South Asian climate. 

The gravel path leads the visitor through the woodland with cut vistas of bluebells and wild garlic in Spring and Cyclamens in Autumn. Crocosmia abounds in Summer. The other W/E axial path then appears leading to the main Folly, the triple arched porch, surrounded by varieties of Hoharia Sextilosa, Copper Beeches and flowering Portuguese Laurels. The path crosses a bridge flanked by Miscanthus and other Grasses leading to the crossroads where the main S/N axis appears. This starts from the cloister and is lined with an avenue of Cordylines and ends with a contemporary take on Robertson's gothic designs, a red structure designed to avert the eye from the new housing estate, erected on what used to be a view on barley and poppy fields. 

The main lawn is flanked by two symmetrical pavilions under a canopy of Ulmus x Hollandica Wredei (Golden Dutch Elms) with views into the woodland shrubbery of Azaleas and Hollies. On either side of the lawn are a Nothofagus Antarctica and a Platanus Orientalis as well as other Planes, Limes and Poplars. Canary Pines and an American Cedar form the evergreen structure. 

The Mediterranean Garden with a backdrop of architectural fragments against a brick wall, contains a variety of spiky plants, as the Beschorneria Yuccoides, Dyckia Fosteriana (Plant Lust), Rhapidophyllum Hystrix, different Yuccas with the encroaching Echiums. A variety of Eucalyptus Niphophila and Gunnii frame the composition of Cypressi , Junipers and other Southers vegetation. As in the rest of the garden, pots with Variegated Pittosporum punctuate the composition. 

Closer to the house is a grove of Myrtus Luma as well as a collection of different coloured Birch trees, Betula Pendula, Acer Griseum (PaperBark Maple), Acer Davidii (Snakeskin Maple) and Crinodendron. The red of the trunks is matched by the red Cotinus Grace and the Photinia Red Robin. 

The tour ends under the arbour of a Perotia Persica extending above Gunnera and Rhubarb back to the Cork tree. 

It is interesting to note that when I was designing the garden in the mid 80s, with no significant horticultural expertise, the fashionable garden designers at the time considered my garden to be “suburban and overgrown” because of the use of Lonicera, Senecio and the worst, Leylandii Castlewellan Gold! My unforgivable crime was to allow weeds to fester and not have the mandatory “herbaceous border”. Even the occasional punctuation of colour and scent given by the very few fiery roses was considered vulgar as the plants were nameless and wild of appearance. 

Welcome to my Secret Irish Garden. 

 

 

 

 

 

Alfred Cochrane, Architect.                                                                                         July 2025.