Garden Redesign

Caragh Nurseries is a family owned nursery providing a full service from design to planting for both domestic and commercial clients.

Situated on 55 acres on County Kildare, Caragh Nurseries has a huge range of wonderfully large trees, specimens, plants and shrubs. Jo McGarry of Caragh Nurseries recently underwent a redesign of her very own garden. Here Jo talks us through the process.

‘When you spend every day designing gardens for other people, your own can suffer from neglect so I was determined to invest a bit of time and energy into our own garden for the summer. I spent about three months thinking about it and planning it, it’s a labour of love when it is your own garden getting the detail right is really important.

First step is to clear the space by removing any unwanted old shrubs etc and levelling the areas, adding compost to the soil. You can then look at the hard landscaping you need to make your garden work for you in terms of eating or sitting outside. Having fallen in love with a grey porcelain stone while working on another garden, we decided to use that in our terrace so we went with that combined with a grey Mediterranean tile for the sides of the steps in order to soften the look. A contractor laid the stone and the tiles for us and we added a path in the stone down one side of the garden.