Rose gardens to be blooming lovely after revamp

Mick Harford at St. Anne's Park, Dublin

By Fiona Dillon

It's all coming up roses for St Anne's Park in Raheny, where a major revamp of its gardens is underway.

A five-year rejuvenation programme of its famous rose garden has already begun.

There are approximately 25,000 rose plants in the garden, and it is one of the biggest in Europe.

Mick Harford, the district parks officer said that the garden opened in 1974, so a lot of older roses have now reached the end of their life.

"They are not producing the blooms that they should be, and so it's a case of replacing these ones.

"We will be replacing them with a lot of the same varieties that were original to the garden, but they will be new plants, so we will get another 40 years out of them," Mr Harford said.

"They are Irish roses. We worked with Marian Nurseries in Lusk who specialise in rose propagation.

CHANGED

"It is not the whole garden that is being done. Over the 40 plus years there would have been some beds that would have been changed.

"Probably over 50pc of the roses will be new," he explained.

Roses start blooming hopefully late May, early June and they will be at the peak of the first flush probably the first or second week or July, according to the expert.

Mr Harford said the rose garden is regarded as one of the best in Europe.

"It's a case of bringing it back to its very best again. It is labour intensive as you can imagine.

"We have stripped out the outer beds, and we are putting soil in them and the grass seed is being sown at present," he said.

In a separate initiative, a new community garden will see up to 15 people coming together to grow their own fruit and vegetables at the park.

fdillon@herald.ie