ROCK GARDEN
The Rose Arbour footpath leads on past the glasshouse complex towards the trout stream. The gentle sloping walk takes the visitor into the leafy shade of venerable old trees and soon the sound of babbling water can be heard and curiosity draws visitors onward. The rock garden comes into view with its humpy dumpy rockwork, its narrow winding rocky paths and its eclectic plant collection. You can see the Rock Garden as you look back to your right. You’ll get a great view of the unique pathways and the Rock Garden from the opposite side of the river.
The Rock Garden, having been smothered in gross vegetation, weeds, and self-sown saplings for many decades, has been cleaned out. Its rockwork is exposed to view once more and replanting is ongoing. Rock gardens have changed little since this one was first laid out. Gardeners still randomly place chunky rocks and stones to create little pockets and gritty crevices into which alpine plants, hardy perennials, dwarf shrubs and shrubby trees are placed; spring and autumn bulbs are also planted to fill spaces in between. All can form tufts, clumps, colonies with dwarf shrubs, or Japanese maples, adding height. Some species like to creep over the rocks and others are happy to thrive in their allocated spaces. Little narrow paths are laid out to twist and turn and rise and fall; al designed to create the overall effect of a miniature mountainy landscape. Spring and early summer the rock garden would be brimming with flowers, just in the perfect time to be seen at its best for the Annual Garden Fetes that once were held.
Lady Clanwilliam was a leading figure in local gardening circles. For about a decade from 1929, the gardens at Montalto were opened for an annual garden fete in aid of local charities.
In 1933, the fete featured in the newspapers which reported that the gardens ‘were looking delightful and have improved immensely since last year’. Photographs of the period show a rock garden brimming with alpine plants and hardy perennials of all sorts, a feast of beautiful plants and ladies on a preamble through it, no doubt admiring and perhaps envying her beautiful rock garden in such a naturalistic setting.
It is recorded by one newspaper that the first meeting of ‘The Alpine Garden Society’ (Ulster branch) was held in Montalto, which surely was an acknowledgement of Lady Clanwilliam’s gardening abilities in an area of the country that had many alpine other enthusiasts. The Alpine Garden Society still has a strong and active membership to this day.
The Annual Garden Fete was a big social event, judging by the newspaper reports of the time. The opportunity to help charitable causes, modestly boast a wee bit and show off the delights of the garden was a successful cocktail and obviously a magnet for ‘ladies who lunched’ and rubbed shoulders with the cream of the gardening fraternity.
The 1938 Fete at Montalto included an Alpine plant show, with about a hundred entrants, judged by Mrs Leatham of Mountnorris, Newcastle and Hugh Armytage Moore of Rowallane and where prizes included the Alpine Plant Society of Great Britain local show medal, with Miss Webb and Mrs Malcomson joint winners. The show was significant in helping to establish the Ulster branch of the Alpine Society, with tribute being paid especially to Lady Clanwilliam as an organiser of the first show, facilitating it at Montalto and which ‘resulted in a very gratifying increase in members’. Lady Clanwilliam herself was placed fourth out of seven in the amateur category. It is recorded by one newspaper that the first meeting of ‘The Alpine Garden Society’ (Ulster branch) was held in Montalto, which surely was an acknowledgement of Lady Clanwilliam’s gardening abilities in an area of the country that had many other alpine enthusiasts. The Alpine Garden Society still has a strong and active membership to this day.
In 1939 a party of 450 joined the Cripples’ Institute annual outing on a motor drive to Montalto however the outbreak of World War II almost certainly brought an end to the tradition, and it appears that after the war, and the deaths of Lord and Lady Clanwilliam, in 1952 and 1953 respectively, the kitchen gardens and glasshouses were effectively abandoned.
(Excerpts from Kevin V. Mulligan’s Historical Report)
Rock gardens came into vogue when wealthy gentlefolk enjoyed the pleasure of travels abroad to the Alps, Dolomites, and Pyrenees. The desire to enjoy the beauty of alpine scenery and the myriad wildflowers inhabiting the rocky cliffs and crevices and alpine upland meadows created new tourism to places not previously visited for pleasure. Sublime landscapes in mountainous areas of Europe, Asia, China and Japanese gardens influenced the making of rock gardens and soon they became fashionable additions to pleasure grounds. Plant collectors and garden owners vied for new and ever more rare and beautiful wildflowers to adorn their rocky landscapes.