How to be a tourist in Ireland

Skip the Irish cabarets for one thing. How many choruses of “Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra” can one person stand? Personally, I would avoid the medieval banquets, too. I attended the show at Bunratty Castle Folk Park in County Clare (near Limerick) years ago, and drank the mead and watched the show along with the herd of other foreigners. And boy, did we feel like foreigners. The setting of Dunguaire Castle , right on Galway Bay in Kinvara, is fabulous, but I think I’d rather enjoy the sights from a pub in that hopping little village (although, it’s become a much posher place since the last time we visited).

Instead, ask around the town or village for good traditional music pubs. On our recent Ireland trip, many in our group went to the Kilkenny Traditional Music Trail that travel agent Brad Cilley of Northwest Travel found. They enjoyed the music and learned a bit about the instruments.

Our hotel in Kenmare hosted music one night we were there – just a local family, including their daughter who danced. We felt like we were part of the evening, not just the audience.

In Dublin, Brad booked us into the Irish House Party, held in the Lansdowne Hotel in Ballsbridge, for our tour’s farewell dinner. We had dinner and music and dancing and no one had to beg for salt or feel like they were channeling Bing Crosby. I found the entertainment was enjoyable – these people really care about their music. Yes, I was a tourist, but I have lived in Ireland, and feeling like a tourist here was OK. I wasn’t a cheesy tourist, I was a tourist who wanted to have a good time and even learn something about the country. Besides, the room was full of not just us, but the bell ringers of Somerset and an Irish hen party. We all had a great time.

Black is the new black – black Tuscan kale

at Hunting Brook

Edibles and ornamentals – the new hot celebrity couple. The top honors for the most popular edible to plant in an ornamental bed must go to the Tuscan black kale, seen everywhere but to greatest advantage at Hunting Brook in County Wicklow, Ireland, where Jimi Blake paired it with this fabulous Bupleurum longifolium subsp. aureum. The combination of the dark, chunky, textured leaves with the airy sprays of flowers made a good show.

More on Hunting Brook to follow.

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, part 2

Proving there’s nothing new under the sun – but perhaps always a new way to convey your message – the gardens at Hampton Court this year displayed the essentials: small landscapes, water features, flowers (yes, yes, and vegetables) and sustainable practices. (My friend and colleague Virginia Hand, says responsible designers have always been sustainable.)

NealeRichards Ltd

Water remains a huge draw. Designer David Neale used “floating York steppingstones” across a formal pool and Arthur Northcott and John Gutteridge, in the Fire Pit Garden, included a burbling feature. The latter garden and

The Plant Co

It’s Only Natural by The Plant Company delighted in showing casual reseeders making a splash,causing us all think that we probably spend too much time rogueing out volunteers.

A Lost Loved Garden by Linda and Ralph Gardening brought lots of sighs with the display of those ornamentals that hang on after a garden is no longer tended. A ramshackle gate and abandoned bicycle added to the atmosphere. It reminded me of the gardens that John and Toni Christianson created for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show.

A Lost Loved Garden

No visit to Hampton Court should begin without first getting a Pimm’s Cup for the journey around the grounds.

Look out for the wheelie box! Notes on Hampton Court

They were everywhere – “wheelie boxes” being pulled along the metal pathways at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Their plastic wheels grated on the washboard walking surface, making a constant “grrrrrring” as gardeners made their way around the show.

No need to worry about gardening being dead. Yes, there were plenty of veg displays, but those wheelie boxes were filled to the brim with all sorts of plants – Helenium, Phlox, Veronica, ornamental grasses and … was that a Cercis?

It was warm and muggy; some of the display tents were like saunas. A blast of hot air hit us as we neared the entrance to the Country Living marquee, causing us to veer at the last moment. “There were lovely things in there,” a woman commented in the queue for the train. I’m sure there were, but I couldn’t have stood it. I did, however, put up with the heat to see the floral marquee – who could resist those flamboyant displays awash in chrysanthemums, sweet peas, bougainvilleas, fuchsias and pelargoniums.

I’m a terrible eavesdropper and so I report with relish the comments I hear at shows and nurseries. For starters, here’s one Hampton Court attendee as she passed one of the “conceptual gardens” (a pile of sand with some plants coming out of it):

“I’m sure it’s supposed to mean something.”

More Hampton Court in part 2.