Dawros – The Journal Autumn 24

Gardening outside Kenmare with her husband Andrew, the artist Charlotte Verbeek has created a garden both startlingly contemporary and as old as the stone walls that define it.

There are gardens that tame nature and gardens designed to enhance a particularly spectacular natural feature. Beautiful though these are, for me the most empathetic gardens are those where nature and garden are utterly at one. This is what you’ll find at Dawros. There are no signs to guide you. You turn left at the pub and then it’s the second farm track and over the bridge. You’ll wonder whether you’ve found the right house. But there’s an RHSI Partner garden sign on the gate and you hope for the best. And the best is what awaits you with a friendly greeting from the Verbeek family just up the lane.

This is woodland space divided by a spine of bog stream and filled with drift planting in the Piet Oudolf style. Charlotte and Andrew garden five acres of their ninety-acre property, leaving the rest to natural woodland and wildlife habitat. At house level there is a modernist terrace in polished concrete with water trough features and ever-changing planting. The rocky Beara peninsula crowds the horizon. Falling away to the sides are plantings of exceptional trees beloved of Andrew, offset by sweeps of colour and shape in flower and leaf curated by Charlotte’s creative eye.

It was a step into the unknown for the family to leave a busy life of international postings for a small house on a farm track in Kerry in the 1990ies. “We rooted here with the trees we planted”, Charlotte told me. One of her earliest plantings is now a superb mature Parrotia persica. Andrew has planted a collection of pines including Pinus patula, P. x schwerinii of the long droopy needles, P. densiflora ‘Umbraculifera’ the umbrella shaped Japanese red pine, P. pinea the Italian stone pine and a magnificent P. montezumae. A Cryptomeria japonica and a Sequoia sempervirens planted in the very early years are also growing exceptionally well. Oak woodland is native to this area and is prized by the Verbeeks for its leaf drop. Recycling is fundamental to Dawros and oak trees make excellent leaf mould.

The Verbeeks readily acknowledge how much they have learned from other gardeners. Brian Cross was a mentor. Jimi Blake continues to be an inspiration in the development of their woodland garden. There, under a multilayered canopy of oak and acer, Schefflera, Epimedium, Rhododendron and Rodgersia thrive. Annual rainfall here averages over 1.5 meters annually. Ferns love it. Specimens from Billy Alexander’s collection are tucked in everywhere. The woodland garden is surrounded by the old stone walls, ghosts of the hill farm of long ago, a feature of Dawros the family value and protect.

In the wider garden, Charlotte has turned to her countryman Piet Oudolf for inspiration. “As an artist, I enjoy the creative process of working with plants. I also make jewellery and paint. It is all about the process. The medium is secondary for me”. Life in Africa and in Asia developed her love for abundant planting and accustomed her eye to a wide palette of shapes. An early convert to naturalistic planting, the idea of working with drifts of plants and specifically with grasses, was something with which she felt very comfortable. However, not all Oudolf-recommended plants thrive in Kerry. After multiple attempts to establish Echinacea, Charlotte admits defeat.

The Verbeeks resisted the temptation to bring in machines to reshape the site choosing instead to live and work with its natural shape. The lower part of the plot is a natural bog area. Lythrum salicaria, Myrica gale and Molinia caerulea flower in abundance along a raised walkway. The air is alive with dragonflies. Frogs and newts prosper. The bog walkway is a peaceful place, with cross-glimpses of specimen trees, various art installations contributed by family and friends and ‘plant communities’ of clumping perennials.

The Dawros site is mostly acid soil with pockets of heavy clay soil in several areas. Managing the garden with little outside assistance, the Verbeeks find that ‘chop and drop’ cultivation works well for them. They cut back herbaceous growth in late winter/early spring before the first bulbs emerge. The cut is done in sections, each about 30cm in length. Having participated in the soil study group run by Conall O’Caoimh of Ardán Garden last winter, they are enthusiastic converts to the benefits of mycorrhizal fungi. Andrew is developing a small arboretum. Planting trees into grassland, he aims to change the soil from a bacterially dominant soil culture to a fungal culture. When planting, he now favours a smaller root hole, minimising disturbance to the soil in this area of heavy rainfall. The holes are backfilled with mycorrhizal-rich soil taken from the local woodland. Trees establish more quickly with a robust colony of mycorrhizal fungi at their roots.

Kenmare is a glorious place. Dawros is an exceptional garden. Please do call Charlotte to arrange a visit. I promise you a few hours of garden heaven.

Dawros Gallery and Garden, Kenmare, Co Kerry is an RHSI Partner Garden open to visitors by prior arrangement. Not suitable for strollers or wheelchairs. Lots of comfortable seating. Contact details on RHSI website.