GARDEN VISIT: Glenarm Castle

One of our favourite gardens in the world is the wall garden at Glenarm Castle, built in the early 1600s. We normally set off with the kids, and take the Coast Road around to Glenarm, which is an amazing sight in itself (with lots of places to stop for beaches, playparks and ice cream!).

One of the oldest and largest walled gardens on the island of Ireland, this is somewhere that you can really step back into history and imagine what it might have been like to be live a life of romantic luxury, hundreds of years ago.

 

The entrance to the walled garden is trough a potager, or kitchen garden. A door opens onto a thyme path, beside a wall covered in sweet perfumed lemon coloured roses.

 

 

In front of you are rows and rows of perfect vegetables (not too perfect of course because they are clearly being used - this is not Villandry!). There are enormous fig trees, growing up a wall facing the sun, with a single-pane row of glass erected above it.

 

 

Then you reach a much thicker wall, with a stone archway, which is the entrance to the main part of the walled garden. The view directly in front is filled with two long herbaceous borders, filled with cottage garden perennials.

 

 

 And a view through to the Sundial garden in the distance.

 

Catmint as far as they eye can see by the glasshouse.

Pink & white Peonies.

 

Box hedging immaculately clipped into castle-like defences for the flowers within.

 

So many interesting plants and flowers to see.

Wooden sculpture among the wildflower meadow.

Box balls line a Roman column.

The North Border.

So many well thought out features, like this climbing rose, cloud framing a bench.