Gardens in Co. Cork

1.Garinish Island (Oileán Garinis)

An Italian garden you reach only by boat

A tiny island garden in Glengarriff harbour, where a mild Gulf-Stream climate grows Italian terraces, a walled garden and a Martello tower — reachable only by a short boat trip past a seal colony.

2.Glenview Gardens

A three-acre garden with a hobbit house

A three-acre, multi-themed West Cork garden where a sunken white garden, a Japanese red bridge and a hobbit house built through a birch mound sit one after another around every corner.

Highlights

• Sunken white, Japanese, Chinese and Mediterranean gardens
• Hobbit House built through the birch mound
• Fairy woods with fairy houses

Facilities

Good for kids · Wheelchair access

3.The Ewe Experience

Award-winning sculpture garden, now closed to visitors

The Ewe Experience was a gloriously eccentric sculpture garden and nature trail in a wooded glen near Glengarriff, once named Ireland's number one garden by The Irish Times. It is now closed to the public — the owners still sell art and take sculpture commissions, and Falling Water Lodge and the garden are for sale.

Highlights

• Named Ireland's #1 Garden by The Irish Times
• 32 years of sculpture, poetry and nature trails
• Described as 'a phantasmagorical landscape of weirdness and brilliance'

4.Annes Grove House & Gardens

30 acres of rare rhododendrons by a wooded glen

A 30-acre Robinsonian garden above the River Awbeg, planted with exotic shrubs from the Himalayas and only fully opened to the public in 2022. The 190-acre Annesley estate holds some of the earliest rhododendrons introduced to Ireland.

Highlights

• Rhododendrons among the earliest introduced to Ireland
• 18th-century Walled Garden
• River garden and glen on the River Awbeg

5.Bamboo Park

30 bamboo species in a Gulf Stream seaside garden

An exotic seaside garden on the Glengarriff coast, where thirty species of bamboo, palms and tree ferns thrive in Ireland's mild Gulf Stream air.

Highlights

• Thirty species of bamboo, mostly giant
• Hardy palms and self-seeding tree ferns
• Private beach with views to Garnish Island

Facilities

Good for kids · Dog-friendly · Wheelchair access