VIDEO: The garden at Mount Congreve is still breathtaking after all these years

Peter Dowdall first visited Mount Congreve in Co Waterford at age 10, and in an early spring return, he finds he is still lost for words to describe the intense beauty of a world class garden

I know many words and I am sometimes good at putting the correct words in the right place to describe a garden or a plant, but either I cannot find the words or perhaps they don’t exist to accurately describe the gardens at Mount Congreve.

I can tell you about the walkways of magnolia, the banks of rhododendrons, the meticulously maintained walled garden, the huge rockery, the glorious herbaceous beds, the immaculately kept lawns. But none of this can convey to you the feeling, the atmosphere, and the intense feeling of being in one of the world’s special places — that is Mount Congreve.