It was lightly raining, more like a heavy mist, when we visited Derreen Garden in Lauragh, Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland. The history of this garden is interesting. In the 1870s, the fifth Marquess of Lansdowne, the owner of the land, decided to transform a bare rock and scrub oak hillside into a luxurious, sub-tropical garden. He planted a collection of shrubs and specimen trees brought back from his sojourns serving in the colonial empire (he was the viceroy of India among other appointments).

Today, the most famous feature of the 60 acre garden are the large tree ferns from Australia and Tasmania. I also enjoyed the plentiful rhododendron, which were in glorious bloom. As a whole, the garden conveys an intoxicating mix of the wild and the cultivated, and melds in a wonderful way with the larger landscape of County Kerry.