Diarmuid Gavin
speaker
389 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 20 Jun
Diarmuid Gavin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And nowadays, we're a bit more careful about alien species in case they run riot or destroy some of our native species.
But there was a great fashion then for plants from Japan, from Asia, from all over the place.
That's right.
So you had people, collectors such as Augustine Henry, Ernest Wilson and Joseph Hooker from this country or from next door to us.
They were going finding incredible plants, both for in terms of commercial crops and both for ornamental trees and shrubberies and sort of people could buy.
show off or be delighted by the latest arrival and understanding I mean we often forget what we think about yesterday and the rain that came yesterday and you know we feel sorry for ourselves but of course that creates the perfect climate or in places microclimate for growing all these extraordinary plants that have arrived on our shores from many different parts around the world so this would have been Nepal as we've just mentioned China and Japan and the Americas so brilliant collection
Now, what we have today in this wonderful garden, much of it goes down to Seamus.
You mentioned him.
He arrived in 2006?
Seamus arrived in the gardens in 2006.
So he was appointed head gardener there.
He was from Boltinglass in 2006.
deeper in County Wicklow, and he had developed an amazing love of plants from his mum, Mary.
He trained in Glass 7, he later trained at Kew Gardens and worked at Ilna Cullen on Garnish Island.
And very, very fast, as a young lad, he established himself as one of this country's and one of Europe's and probably beyond best plants person.
He just had that innate understanding of plants, of gardens.
And he was a great lever.
So he I met him when he was working at Glenleam Gardens, which was the old Knight of Kerry's estate in on Valencia Island in County Kerry.
It was 1995 and I was going begging, borrowing and stealing plants for my first display at the Chelsea Flower Show.
And Seamus was working in this garden.
Showing 81–100 of 389 · page 5 of 20
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