Nature reigns
REVEALING MY FIRST STEP TURNING A BOROUGH INTO A BOTANICAL KINGDOM FOR EVERYONE
JUST before the ceremonies got under way in Westminster Abbey for the King and Queen, we opened the gates of the new Coronation Garden at Hazelbank Park in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, for a day’s preview.
For all involved it was a hugely exciting moment, revealing a garden that had been in the planning and planting for the past six months. It all came about at the completion of last year’s garden in the borough, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee Clockwork Garden.
Since lockdown I’ve abandoned my treks across the world and made a conscious decision to garden to home.
Antrim and Newtownabbey are just two-and-a-half hours from my garden in Wicklow and on my very regular trips there last year, I realised what a special place it was. It’s edged on one side by a huge inland lough, Lough Neagh, and touching Belfast Lough, that majestic seafarer’s entry into the city.
These great waterways have helped to create the perfect environment for growing plants. They act as solar devices – the warming waters ensure much of the landscape never gets too cold.
Plants love to grow here and after the Lord Lieutenant of Antrim had unveiled our garden I had an idea.
Why not turn the whole borough – a population of 145,000 people, with fields, homes, businesses, towns and international airport and motorways – into a huge botanic garden, the first of its type, without walls, fences or boundaries?
A botanic garden for everybody, where the meadows tumble down hills towards the sea, intermingling with houses and routes to school or church, and a tree collection is outcloser
side your front door.
This was voted on by forward-thinking politicians and became policy and it was decided to launch this initiative with a new garden to celebrate the coronation. And so, at Hazelbank Park, a delicious coastal parkway that skirts the lough shore and enjoys tumbling lawns and mature trees, we found
Coronation Garden will see plants dance to Bring Me Sunshine
a disused bowling green.
I saw the potential of the space – it was slightly sunken, resulting in further shelter from sea winds and it was bordered on all sides by mature trees.
This would make the perfect amphitheatre in which to build a towering pavilion surrounded by a tapestry of planting.
A perimeter of a native wildflower meadow, lapping against the circulation path, with soaring topiaries of beech, bay and Carpinus standing to attention, and with a teal and gold three-storey ornate pavilion.
It’s from here that the joys of gardening, the enormous beneficial effects of working with our environment, the calming greens and excitement of vibrant blossom, will ripple out through the communities.
And so last Saturday we opened for a few hours. And later in the month, when the meadow has established and after we add another garden to the development, it will open every day for everyone to enjoy.
And each 15 minutes on the quarter hour through hidden mechanical mechanisms, the garden puts on a show.
To a soundtrack of Morecambe and Wise singing Bring Me Sunshine, box balls bob up and down, bay trees twirl around, bubbles blow and, finally, a two metre mirrorball set in the dome underneath the Royal Crown rotates!
To enjoy the show visit Hazelbank Gardens in Newtownabbey, just outside Belfast from the end of May.
I hope to meet you there!