A place where you can view hawthorn in all its glory

It is the time of year where we truly feel that summer is arriving and spring is waving goodbye.

We cherish the long light in the evening, the brightness, and the sunshine. Forgotten are the bleak branches, the cold days. A green canopy of leaves has unfolded, and one might feel it has never been any different.

New wildflowers are popping up in the meadows every day, peonies show their beauty in the garden, and swallows dart through the air again.

It is also the time of the hawthorn, or, to give it another name, May tree. Flowering all over the country, it especially shines in the barren landscape of the Burren in north County Clare.

Only one species is native to Ireland, crataegus monogyna, but a recent visit to Caher Bridge Garden in Formoyle West, close to Fanore Beach in Co. Clare, showed the variety of the hawthorn.

Carl Wright, the owner and sole gardener of this special place, has a collection of more than 30 different species.

He started the garden in 1999, with barely any soil. Situated on a north-east facing slope, and directly on the limestone that makes the Burren, it was a bold choice to try and built a garden out of it. It is so impressive what dedication and years of work can achieve.

Since 1999 Carl has brought in 1,500 tons of soil. He sieved all of it, to get rid of stones, sticks, and every plastic that might be in it.

Stones are plentiful here, they can be admired in the walls that Carl built out of them. Nothing now tells of the bare rock he started with.

Coming into the entrance, a new rock garden bed lies to the right, a gravel path leads to the left into the first part of the garden.

One enters through the flowering branches of a native, mature hawthorn, covered in an abundance of flowers from Clematis montana.

A beautiful vanilla-like scent comes off the Clematis, while a wildflower lawn with some short-kept paths and specimen hawthorns as well as herbaceous borders around the edges can be admired here.

The path meanders down to the pond area. It is connected to the nearby river, which is a trickle at the moment due to the dry weather. The river then flows through a solid stone bridge with two half-circles. The bridge can’t be ignored by the eyes and can be seen from a good few points throughout the garden.

The pond is filled and surrounded by a huge number of plants like waterlilies, candelabra primulas and rodgersias.

The path leads to the next garden area, a walk along the river, lined with white and blue camassias.

A serpentine goes up to a more open space with tulipa ‘white triumphator’ and narcissus poeticus var. recurvus. White-flowering hydrangeas are planted here as well, which will complete the picture later in the year.

Native orchids have self-seeded in the meadow patches, and over the course of the last year Carl counted 13 different species.

The path then moves on to a very sheltered spot, you can’t look in from the outside or out from the inside. It is planted with mostly hydrangeas and astilbes.

The hydrangea collection in this garden counts about 200 varieties, there are more than 100 varieties of astilbes. Later in the year, it will be a mass of pink, purple and blue flowers, surrounded by hazel and hawthorn.

Back towards the house again, one steps into the part of the garden with the moon window. It is a sight to behold, a circle window out of stone with a stone ball right in the middle, water trickling down from the ball.

Standing in front of it, the view opens into the back garden. Like a frame, it captures a picture of plants, depending on the season.

Not by chance, that circular moon window lies in a line with the stone bridge mentioned earlier, picking up the half circle/circle theme.

Going through a door, we get to see the whole back garden though, not just a small, framed piece. As the garden is an ongoing project, the soil just behind the house has been removed and the bare limestone is clear to see.

One can only imagine from this small section the work that had to be put into the garden, just to get that layer of soil and to grow plants.

Apart from the sedum and aeonium pots directly at the house, the back garden presents itself as a shady woodland. Horizontal terraces are connected through stone steps, a few trees have been left to grow and provide the shade for the fern and woodland garden.

Before the garden opens to visitors, these stone paths and steps must be power washed, a total of 70 hours of work.

While walking up the steps, the Burren appears more and more above the house. At the same time, the garden gets more natural. Stepping out of the woodland, a wildflower meadow with some mowed paths and specimen trees blends in beautifully with the surrounding landscape.

The masterpiece is a newly-built folly with a water feature in the front and a circular opening as a look-out. It is hard to describe, it really must be seen. It is also very hard to imagine that all these carefully crafted garden areas have once been hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn and bramble woods, cleared by manpower.

The garden is open throughout the summer months and can be visited by pre-booked appointment.