“Private gardens were the great unseen asset of the city”

At the start of the Georgian era, gardens were rigidly formal in style, but with the passing of the years, these formalities became more relaxed both in plan and layout as interest turned more and more towards the plants themselves rather than towards the creation of a classical style, with gardens eventually being based upon the principles of the landscape and picturesque movements.

The Georgian Garden at No. 2 Pery Square is the only example of such a restored urban garden open to the public in Ireland. Belinda Jupp designed the layout and the planting plan of the Georgian garden gives the background to the restoration:

At the time when the restoration began at No. 2 Pery Square the garden behind the house was maintained and planted with vegetables. The soil was black, rich and productive. The only features were a concrete path, leading from the house to the disused coach house and an iron pergola near the entrance to the coach house. However this lay-out was not original, as the arrangement of the path and planted areas differed from that shown on the first edition Ordinance Survey Map of 1840.

An archaeological survey of the garden was carried out at No. 2 Pery Square under the direction of Damian Shiels. The shape of the garden is a long narrow rectangle, running to the north west, behind the house. It connects to the coach house at the far end of the property. The path circuit through the garden would have been used by the owners and their family; as well as by employees. It was not merely for visits to the garden but a functional route to and from the coach house and was probably also used as access for deliveries to the house.

Very little is known about what use private town gardens were put to, especially modest ones such as at Pery Square. Wealthy families, who had a town house as well as a demesne in the country, could be provided with fruit and vegetables whey they were in residence in town from their country walled gardens. There was no necessity to grow vegetables in the town and the garden could be purely decorative, with lawn, flower beds and perhaps a seat. A middle-class family, for whom the house in the town was their only residence, may have had fruit trees planted along the walls and frown culinary herbs as well as ornamental plants.

As far as possible the plants in the Georgian Garden at Pery Square are species and varieties known to have been grown in the late eighteenth century. However some plants are difficult to source today as they have been replaced with new varieties. For example, the common “Firethorn” Pyracantha coccinea, introduced from southern Europe in 1629, has largely been superseded by more disease-resistant varieties. Plants were traced from nurseries all over Ireland and from England.

At the beginning of the century, town houses had nothing but paved yards, but at its close, shrubs and flowers in beds and borders in a back garden had become de rigueur for the upper classes. Indeed, Georgian cities eventually came to have three main types of garden: private ones behind individual houses for the sole use of the occupiers; semi-public ones to be enjoyed by those whose properties overlooked the squares in which the gardens were planted; and public gardens which had survived from earlier times and were available to everyone.

During the eighteenth century, the range of available flowers and plants grew rapidly to keep pace with the increasing interest in botany. Moreover, plant hunters were starting to bring back new and exotic species from foreign parts. Plants were often over-wintered under glass in large containers, where they were allowed to flower and then removed into the garden once the dangers of frost had passed. Rhododendrons, hydrangeas, and Kalmias were popular, as were honeysuckle, Rose of Sharon, and flowers such as hollyhocks, China asters, phloxes, chrysanthemums and dahlias.