House of the week

LEAFY surrounds are a feature of the 1970s and 1980s houses in Cork’s old Mount Oval — a niche scheme of detached red-brick homes.

There’s close on two dozen houses here, in three different sizes, and not only has just about every house evolved over time, but the private planting in each garden has added further individuality, while serving to blend one boundary into another.

In early summer, this enclave near the Rochestown ring-road roundabout and church is looking its very best, proof-positive about the communal benefits of like-minded, and green-fingered, neighbours; every occupant benefits not only from their own planting, but from everyone else’s too. That pays off too for re-sales, as 30 years and more of maturing gardens lifts and holds values: houses in this scheme always sell well, and at market peak easily topped €1m.