The Victorian Walled Garden & Garden Blog

The Victorian Walled Garden is an oasis of ordered splendor in the wild Connemara Countryside. Developed along with the Castle in the late 1800s it once boasted 21 heated glass houses and a workforce of 40 gardeners. One of the last walled gardens built during the Victorian period in Ireland it was so advanced for the time that it was compared in magnificence with Kew Gardens in London.

As the years passed the garden fell into decline and became completely overgrown, with brambles and trees hiding all traces of it’s former glory. The Benedictine nuns began an extensive programme of restoration in 1995 and in the year 2000 the Garden was opened to the public. The Garden restoration project won the prestigious Europa Nostra Award in 2001 and now attracts garden lovers from all over the world.

Comprised of roughly 6 acres, the Garden is divided in two by a beautiful mountain stream. The eastern half includes the formal flower garden, glass houses the head gardener’s house and the garden bothy. The western part of the garden includes the vegetable garden, herbaceous border, fruit trees, a rockery and herb garden. Leaving the Garden by the West Gate you can visit the plantation of young oak trees, waiting to be replanted around the estate. The Garden also contains a shaded fernery, an important feature of any Victorian Garden. Follow our self-guiding panels through the garden and learn more about its intriguing history.

Today Kylemore is a Heritage Garden displaying only plant varieties from the Victorian era. The bedding is changed twice a year, for Spring and Summer and its colours change throughout the year. Be sure to visit us and fall in love with a garden that is surely the jewel in Connemara’s Crown.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to enjoy our Head Gardener’s Blog

Download our Herbaceous Border Leaflet here

Victorian Walled Garden Video

Walled Garden Map

This is a detailed Walled Garden Map.

1. Tea House	11. Stream
2. Garden Tour Meeting Point (June to August)	12. Rockery
3. Garden Entrance	13. Nuttery
4. Main Gate	14. Herb Garden
5. Formal Flower Garden	15. Kitchen Garden
6. Lime Kiln	16. Herbaceous Border
7. Glasshouses	17. Cut Flowers
8. Bothy	18. Tree Sponsorship Area
9. Head Gardener’s House	19. Fernery
10. Woodland	20. Wild Garden Walk
	21. Shrub Border

The Formal Flower Garden

The first area to greet you on entering the Garden at Kylemore is the Formal Flower Garden. The Victorian style garden design is based on archive photographs taken by Alexander Henry in the 1870s. The geometric patterns and strong colour schemes are typical of those used in a fashionable Victorian Garden. Although many of the plants look similar to those in a domestic garden, ours are all exclusively Victorian varieties. Pre-restoration this part of the Garden was completely hidden by bushes and trees. However once the trees and overgrowth were removed the original landscaped slopes and structure began to emerge.

The Garden is sheltered by its original walls which are made of Scottish red brick and Irish granite. The red brick absorbs the heat of the sun during the day and slowly releases it back into the garden in the evening.The apple and pear trees grown in espalier style along the walls, take advantage of this extra warmth which can be invaluable in our cool and damp climate. The imposing walls also help to protect the Garden from wind, frost and of course the always hungry sheep who are our Head Gardener’s nemeses! The tricolour beds planted in strips down the side of the garden are known as ribbon beds and again are very evocative of the Victorian era.

At the top of the Formal Flower Garden you will find the first in a series of twelve self guiding panels, which give lots of interesting historical and horticultural details.

The Vegetable Garden

The Vegetable Garden forms a very important part of the Victorian Walled Garden. Bordered by the fernery to the east and the rockery to the north, like the Formal Flower Garden this area also features exclusively Victorian era plants. Visitors find it fascinating to discover little seen victorian vegetables such as cardoon, salsify, scorzonera and the many heritage varieties of common plants such as potatoes and cabbages. As well as vegetables a herb garden containing both culinary and medicinal plants can also be found in this area.

In the past, the Vegetable Garden played an important role in providing produce for Kylemore’s kitchens and the Benedictine community were almost self-sufficient over most of their 100 years at Kylemore. Today the Vegetable Garden is principally a show garden although some of the produce is sent to the restaurant kitchens or sold to raise money for charities, we no longer can produce enough to supply our busy estate. Although our garden is not 100% organic, our gardeners are certainly striving in that direction. Traditional farming methods such as the use of seaweed, farmyard and green manure are used as they were in times gone by and natural methods such as spreading coffee grinds and companion planting are used to deter pests.

Head Gardener’s House

Kylemore Abbey Head Gardener ‘s House sits in a prominent position overlooking the Garden where in times past it gave its occupier a perfect view over both the garden and the workers. Unlike the other garden buildings and glasshouses the main structure of the house remained intact and indeed it was home to many guests of the nuns over the years. These guests included a local family who lived there for a while after their own home had been destroyed by fire in the 1970s and the famous German travel writer, A.E. Johann, who used it as a base when he wrote his classic travel guide to Ireland in the 1950s ‘Home of the Rainbows’.The house has been lovingly restored to give a glimpse into the lifestyle of the Head Gardener and his privileged position in Victorian society.

Just down the path the ‘ Workman’s Bothy’ is also open to the public and gives the visitor a look into the life of the ordinary garden workers.The word ‘Bothy’ derives from Scots Gaelic where it describes a small house or workers quarters. The Bothy provided live in accommodation to several gardeners and for its time would have been considered of a very good standard. The gardeners worked extremely long hours, from first to last light but Kylemore workers in general received much better pay and conditions than on other estates. At a time of desperate poverty throughout Ireland the chance to work in the Kylemore garden would have been a life changing one.

The Garden Tool Shed is also open to the public with a small display of found garden tools and artefacts on display.

Gardener's Blog

Garden Diary December 2019

Welcome back to my last garden blog from the Victorian Walled Garden here in Kylemore Abbey for this year. We are in full swing with the winter preparation of the garden. The first frost appeared last night and it's time to wrap up things like the outside water connections and taps for example. We are using bubble wrap which gives a good layer of insulation. The roses in the different areas of the garden were pruned and got a good layer of rotted manure and our own compost around the base. The leftover seeds are counted, weighed and recorded in specific lists. This information is important for the preparation of the new seed order beginning in 2020. This task is one of the main ...