Mount Congreve Gardens, just 10 minutes from Waterford city, is a great garden of the world – a 70 acre woodland garden with stunning views and 16 kilometres of paths to explore the gardens.

Dating back to the 1760s, Mount Congreve Estate was originally developed by John Congreve (a high sheriff of County Waterford) and designed by local Waterford architect, John Roberts. For an uninterrupted period of six generations, the Congreve family lived on the estate, until the passing of Mr. Ambrose Congreve C.B.E who died in 2011, aged 104.

Representing more than 100 acres of formal and woodland gardens within the original 560 acre estate, Mount Congreve Gardens boast an incredible variety of rare and exotic, indigenous and non-native plants that thrive within their own microclimate.  In fact, the entire collection consists of over three thousand different trees and shrubs, more than two thousand Rhododendrons, six hundred Camellias, three hundred Acer cultivars, six hundred conifers, two hundred and fifty climbers and fifteen hundred herbaceous plants.

Equally fascinating, are the secrets and innovative gardening techniques that have been passed down through the estate’s 250 year old horticultural history by people (both Congreve family members and resident gardeners) who truly understand how to work with nature. And so, these working gardens thrive within a living windbreak, along a natural incline, with the full benefit of acidic soil and sea air from the tidal River Suir; helped along by interventions that include self-irrigating conservatories and garden spaces, sheltered by beech trees walls.

Seasons

• Spring for Magnolias, Camellias, Rhododendrons.
• Summer for Herbaceous plants.
• Maples in the Autumn.