Donegal Garden Trail owners experienced a thriving season this year, with thousands of visitors checking out beautiful landscapes all over the county.
Donegal Garden Trail comprises of 21 private and publicly owned gardens open for visitors at differing times during the gardening season.
Gardens reported a healthy growth in visitors numbers this year at the recent end of season meeting in the ‘garden rooms’ at Salthill House, Mountcharles.
A quarter of a million visitors toured the grounds of Glenveagh National Park this season, enjoying the castle, unique gardens and surrounds.
Raphoe’s Oakfield Park’s lush landscape containing parkland, formal, walled gardens and narrow gauge railway, attracted 60,000 explorers.
Oakfield Park, Raphoe
The historic Dunmore House, Carrigans reports a great season. On one weekend alone, over 1000 visited the historic hideaway.
Good seasons were reported everywhere, from the 19th century Glebe Gallery and gardens at Churchill to the country estates of Glenalla House Milford and Greenfort, Kerrykeel to Nora’s Rose Garden, Ballybofey in a modern housing development.
Gardens also reported an increase in bus tours this season.
Sean O’Gaoithin, Ann Kavanagh, Margot Caldwell, Elizabeth Temple
Donegal Garden Trail Co-ordinators Joan Donleavy and Dorothy Jervis listened intently to positive reports from garden representatives of the twenty-one gardens on the ‘Trail’ which stretches from the Inishowen peninsula to Mountcharles and is among one of the County’s finest tourist attractions.
Their comprehensive reports showed that overall in 2018, visitor numbers are well up and continuously growing year after year.
Joan Donleavy said: ”These unique visitor attractions are continuously growing year after year and thanks to the Trail’s popular seven partner hotels and eleven garden centres all of whom contributed to the success that is the ‘Donegal Garden Trail’ which is entirely self-sustaining, without any financial assistance from government bodies.
“We are already working on next year’s season and our joint purpose is to make the horticultural heritage of Donegal more accessible to visitors to enjoy the rich and varied experience of garden visiting, from our National Park to cottage gardens, all bursting with colour throughout spring and summer.”
Dunmore Gardens, Carrigans
Margot Caldwell ‘Foxrock’ garden, Shroove, Greencastle was presented with the “2018 DGT Award of Merit in memory of Bob Kavanagh” by judges Sean O’Gaoithin, Head Gardener at Glenveagh National Park and Elizabeth Temple Salthill Gardens, Mountcharles.
The late Bob Kavanagh of Ros Ban garden, Raphoe and his wife Ann were the founder members of the Donegal Garden trail over twelve years ago.
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