The Walled Garden at Glenarm Castle - North Antrim Coast, N Ireland

[ideasguy]

I met one of gardeners from Glenarm Castle (James Wharry) on the Grand Gardens Tour in May 08.
James told me that the Walled Garden was very well maintained and well planted, full of interest.

On the same trip, James' wife told me that James was very proud of his own private garden, and - I got an invite to go up there and have a look.

I had a few days off this week, so I gave James a ring and arranged a visit.
I was give 5 star treatment. A conducted tour of the Walled Garden, by the Head Gardener (Nicky Kerr) and James.
What a fantastic and fascinating garden. Being right on the East Coast, I discovered that they can grow many tender plants - 1 star by RHS standards, so I found many "new" plants on the tour.

After that tour, we drove the 4 miles to James' house - it was a drive through one of the most picturesque regions of Ireland, and his house was situated with a spectacular view of the "Glens of Antrim".
James Garden? My wife and I had the same reaction - absolutely brilliant.
Plants, garden features, this garden had it all.
After the visit, I suggested that the garden should be featured on TV. James replied that he'd been asked a few times, but so far has declined.
 
The weather was a bit unsettled. The overcast skies were a little darker than my preferred photographic conditions, but as it happened, I managed to capture a very good set of photos.
We had light drizzle at times -  I was so enthralled, I don't think I noticed.

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the day out.

Two Ideas Genie Pro WPG sets to follow. Watch this space...

[NightHawk]

I have posted some comments in the James Wharry thread you started about this encounter. 

It's amazing what can develop from a chance encounter.

Looking forward to your web sets. 

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

Finally, with the help of the new Ideas Genie 6 web page generator (WPG2!) , here's the results of a few minutes work this morning:
http://www.ideasforgardens.com/Garden-Pictures/Glenarm-Castle-Ireland/
If you view today, its what the software does with very little manual intervention using the "automatic" features of that program.
There are 9 pages of photos generated, as Ive allowed the program to produce web pages for every photo in the folder.
The Date taken is derived automatically (Ideas Genie extracts that from the EXIF details of the photos).

The thumbnails and the big photos are resized automatically by IG 6.

I'll edit this after you folk have seen the "rough cut" which is produced on the first pass.
 

[NightHawk]

Very promising results George, and bodes well for a brilliant enhancement to an already great program.

Definitely worth waiting for, and even more so for those users who are not confident, or knowledgeable, enough to design their own websites.

What better way to do it than straight from your favourite gardening program, to show off all your wonderful plants without even breaking a sweat   

[ideasguy]

Its been a long hard grind, Laurie.
When developing, I work with a demo database and repeat countless times to test the program.
Today was the first time I sat down and did a full run through.
Ive developed so the thumbnails and web projects can be saved to an external drive, flash drive or to a server. I used my Linux server for that project and was very pleased how it all worked.

[Eric Hardy]

It looks a great place, George. How I envy the stone walls. I miss them in Bucks. My father's garden in Teesdale was bounded by beautiful stone walls and the south facing one was a treat for growing things on.

Eric H

[ideasguy]

I love stones, full stop. I'm also a hoarder
My father bought "our" place with an old dwelling house which he had demolished and did a rebuild.
There were lots of large stones buried, and when I started to create this garden I unearthed many treasures.
I built a number of features using them and Ive been tripping over the remainder for years (pending another project of course).

Ive been talking to young James and he is showing interest in Geology
We visited the Giants Causeway (Co Antrim, N Ireland) earlier this year and we brought some rock samples home

How about a new topic on features created using natural stone?
I'm sure our members have a few photos

[NightHawk]

How about a new topic on features created using natural stone?
I'm sure our members have a few photos

I think that would prove to be a very interesting topic George.

It would showcase the ingenuity and creative prowess of our members.

I don't have any rock features in our garden to get it started, but I'm sure there are going to be plenty out there.