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Ram House Gardens

Garden

Densely planted country garden laid out in a series of contrasting garden rooms.

Address:

Coolgreaney
Gorey
Co Wexford

About Gorey

Tel: +353 402 37238

Please mention ireland-guide.com when enquiring.

Ram House Gardens

Opening Months: April, May, June, July, August
Opening Days: Sunday
Opening Hours: Open Sundays, Bank Hols, to groups by appointment & during the Wicklow Garden Festival
Admission Charge:

Appointment Only
Admission Charge

Georgina Campbell

The Ram House, nestling behind a stone wall and a wicket gate, its Georgian fanlight draped in roses and clematis, looks like a Beatrix Potter illustration. The cottage style garden lives up to the image and is packed with interest and full of inspiring ideas.

One of those happy gardens that just grew over the years, its two acres are laid out as a series of contrasting areas where visitors are irresistibly drawn from one to the next. Lolo Stevens started with nothing more than a patchy lawn and a cypress tree... The lawn was gradually replaced with informal planting and gravel paths, and the cypress is now smothered in Clematis montana, one of the 50 varieties of clematis in the garden grown through trees and old roses.

There are gardens within gardens like Russian dolls. Inside the courtyard garden with its banks of old roses and clove scented dianthus, is a secret shady garden known as the Piggery, plus a pool garden, and a terrace garden with inviting seating. In a further Beatrix Potter touch, animal statues have been dotted about the garden with a Pigling Bland here and a Jemima Puddleduck there.

A pergola garden links the upper garden to two green gardens dominated by the soothing presence of a weeping willow with Clematis‘Perle d’Or’ growing through its tresses. Beyond are the wilder parts of the garden where a stream cascades from pool to pool in the shade of a grove of silver birches, its banks lined with water loving plants and a host of candelabra primulas.

Local materials and plants are used in original ways; a variegated ivy forms the edging of a lawn, railway sleepers become steps, slate is set on edge in the gravel to make a starburst pattern. Plants are allowed to do their own thing: ajuga, saxifrage geraniums and lamium form carpets; southern hemisphere plants like osteospermums and helichrysum bask in sunny corners. The planting, which looks deceptively simple, is multi-layered and gives a wonderful display from spring through to the end of August.

And, just to add to the perfection, Lolo Stevens is famous for her home made cakes.

Best time of year to visit: