Garden Inspiration to Create Your Perfect Garden At Home

Garden Inspiration- how to create your perfect garden at home.
How can we get the best out of our garden space? 40 Years ago we created gardens around our house and nursery in the Netherlands that were very popular with visitors and I’m going to share some of my tips for creating a garden with you.
The important thing is to create a garden that reflects your personality. For example, we, the Stams of Caherhurley Nursery, with our mainly introvert personalities, want to feel safely tucked away between the tall plants. Try to imagine your garden as a blank canvas that you can fill in the way that pleases you best. Perhaps you love to travel and want to recreate, in essence, or pay tribute to, elements of gardens seen on your travels? Perhaps you love vibrant colours, or you want to create beautiful views out of each of your windows. Maybe the natural feel of a cottage garden reflects your love for your home and garden? If this feels tricky, maybe if you have too many ideas to settle on one, a vision board can be a useful tool. With this in mind, what you want your garden to feel like or with an idea for the lay-out, look carefully at what you have now. Dig out any plants that no longer please you. This is good housekeeping- a chance to refresh the soil and crucially to make space for what you want to see in your garden. Don’t worry if you end up taking out a lot of plants- you can’t expect to get everything right first time round and remember gardening is a labour of love! Make sure that you know your space as you take the next step- wind (direction and is it very windy?), sun (is it sunny or shady? Where are the sunny spots?), soil (type, and is it moisture retentive or does it dry our quickly?) and size (how much do you have room for?). How big are your beds and what shape are they? Are you happy with this? Can you change it? As well as thinking about how your garden will reflect your personality think about where to place the plants so that they will thrive. Before heading off to the nursery have another look around in the garden to find out where features are lacking, for instance where some more colour could be inserted or where the garden could do with some taller plants.
We have curated our extensive collection of plants at Caherhurley Nursery with the individual in mind. We have over 800 varieties, a much wider range than usually found in nurseries and we are very proud to be Irelands only certified organic ornamental plant nursery. We are pleased to be able to offer this wide choice, because we need a wide choice as gardeners to create the gardens that we truly desire. There is a lot of variety in the plants available in our nursery because we wanted to create a space for inspiration for gardeners, whatever your personality.
Let the plants choose you- to paraphrase Marie Kondo, pick out the plants that ‘spark joy’ for you. Select a limited number of varieties and plant 3 to 5 plants of the same variety in groups. You will be amazed at the result in your garden.
We care deeply about the environment. Most plants in garden centers carry traces of chemicals that are harmful to bees and other pollinators, vital to our ecosystems. We have a section of our nursery dedicated to plants that attract bees and other pollinators. At Caherhurley Nursery we produce and grow our plants certified organically. Plastic is an issue in the garden and we are happy to take back and re-use pots, only from plants that you buy from us, to limit plastic use. At Caherhurley Nursery we are passionate about unusual garden plants. We’ve discovered they’re so much more exciting for us than the standard range of plants and that’s why we grow them. Our range grows year by year. For our extended collection of unusual botanic delights please see our lists of perennials.
Since the time we retired from attending plant fairs, people come from all over Ireland to visit us here in the nursery. Many come back for more plants as they develop their garden plans. One visitor was moved to tears of joy, overwhelmed by the variety of plants that we have. Experienced gardeners come and spend hours strolling around the nursery, lost in the plants. New gardeners are excited and boosted by the hardiness of our plants giving them early success.
Hopefully we will welcome you to the nursery soon! Our nursery is nestled in the scenic foothills of Slieve Bernagh in beautiful East Clare. Our Eircode is V94K3E3, we're open everyday 10.00am to 5.00pm.All our plants are €5 each, and you will find special deals, exclusively for visitors to our nursery.
For those of you who cannot make the trip to our nursery, we offer the possibility to get our plants delivered to your door by An Post.