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Irish Times
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Stay with a Chelsea Flower Show gold-medal gardener at his seaside retreat in Kerry
Who lives in a house like this? A large set of hand-forged gates, ornately decorated with galvanised fern leaves that creep up their posts, featuring intricately detailed croziers, unfurl to reveal a magically landscaped spot in the space beyond. The ferns are the clue to the owner – Billy Alexander, the multi gold medal-winning gardener, who has just won his third gold medal at this year's Chelsea Flower Show – and who lives in Kells Bay House and Gardens, at the end of this secluded drive. The set of hand-forged gates, ornately decorated with galvanised fern leaves that creep up their posts, at the entrance to Kell's Bay House and Gardens. Located about 15km west of Glenbeigh on Co Kerry 's Iveragh peninsula, the property includes a Victorian house and a subtropical botanical garden and grounds that overlook Dingle Bay. A river runs through it and, along with the waterfall, the rushing water provides a soundtrack to the lush greenscape. On the shores of the Wild Atlantic Way , the 60-acre property has access to a secluded beach and is surrounded by mountains on every other side. READ MORE Kells Bay House and Gardens: A river runs through the 60-acre property Chelsea winner These and other Chelsea Flower Show awards are displayed proudly on the walls in the diningroom. Set into cards, the medals themselves have to be paid for – he thinks they cost about £150 each. On this same gallery wall are photos of him receiving one of the golds from the late Queen Elizabeth II back in 2018. She's wearing a sunset pink opera coat. He's sporting a smile as wide as the Atlantic that crashes below the house. There are photos too, on the walls, of her son King Charles, who presented Alexander with this year's gold medal. Billy Alexander with his gardening awards. A watercolour by the late Pauline Bewick hangs on another of the walls, commissioned by Alexander, and botanical prints from specimens in the garden, illustrated beautifully by Susan Sex, cover the entrance hall walls and stairwell and are also in every bedroom. This is a plantsperson's retreat, with 60 acres of grounds and gardens to explore. Kells Bay House and Gardens: The property sits on the coast, 15km west of Glenbeigh on Co Kerry's Iveragh peninsula The conservatory area where guests and daytrippers can enjoy a coffee or tea. The driveway is lined with mature trees soaring 100 feet up into the air. Scots pines, Douglas firs and rhododendron, fashionable in Victorian times, were set as a wind belt by an earlier owner of the property – previously called Hollymount Cottage – possibly Rowland Ponsonby Blennerhassett, Home Rule MP for Co Kerry between 1872 and 1885. It was he who established what is now called the ladies' walled garden, adjacent to the front of the house, reportedly for his wife Lady Mary. Blennerhassett also extended the property and renamed it Kells Bay House. Kells Bay House and Gardens The property includes a main house and other own-door annexes. Virginia creeper climbs the front of the property. A terrace of pink sandstone runs from the front steps down to a cafe area. Entrance hall with its two doors, one on either side. The porch has an entrance on either side, one to the east and the other to the west, to try and keep out of the prevailing winds. The porch and entrance hall have been turned into one long space that extends to about six metres (20 feet), and leads through a door to the main staircase. The public spaces of the house feature dado-level panelling throughout, all painted a warm sandy white called Boathouse by Colourtrend. The walls above are coated in soft serene colours, all by the Irish paint company. Billy Alexander with his award winning ferns. Life on our planet Alexander believes the first tree fern on the property was planted in the 1890s, the so-called mother of all the tree ferns that now inhabit what is termed the primeval forest, a space that looks like a set for Jurassic Park. Indeed, the location featured in the 2021 filming of the Netflix series, Life on Our Planet, which brought extinct creatures back to virtual life in video footage. The clip shows a giant millipede, Arthropleura, which measured over 2.5 metres long – the size of a small car. [ Remarkable 45-hectare estate worthy of Gatsby in Co Westmeath for €8 million Opens in new window ] The tree fern is a plant with which Alexander has had an affinity since his early 20s when his aunt Cora, a family friend of his mother's, bought him his first Dicksonia antarctica. It prompted him to start a hobby business selling plants, while not yet ready to give up his then day job at AIB. It was this side hustle that first brought him to Kells Bay, delivering stock to its then owners. The setting blew him away. He made his first offer on the house, of €2 million, around 2006. It was rejected. About a year later the agent came back saying the owners would accept it. At this point he didn't have the €2 million, and offered a lower price, of €1.5 million, which was accepted. The property needed serious upgrading. 'I started with the roof, taking it down and replacing it,' Alexander says. He thinks this cost about €150,000. To eliminate damp, he dug down into the ground floor to insulate it and lay an underfloor heating system, geo-thermal-operated. Underfloor heating works really well in old houses, especially coastal ones. The dual aspect drawing room with an open fire. Kells Bay House and Gardens: The property has 11 bedrooms in nine different spaces Kells Bay House and Gardens: Penn Alexander serves up Thai cuisine for guests in the Sala Thai restaurant The property was a building site for seven or eight years, with Alexander travelling down from Dublin on a Thursday, meeting with builders on the Friday morning, and then doing the long five-hour drive back to Dublin on a Sunday. On the terrace outside the house, where day-tripper visitors to the 60 acres of gardens can enjoy coffee and tea with a view, there are potted palms four to five metres in height. These form part of the theatre of the place and are transported from the polytunnels by forklift for the season, to help fill out the backdrop. 'They give a more tropical feel,' he explains. Cordylines fill the middle distance, with fuchsia below, and you can see the sea beyond. Thousands of people visit the gardens every year. Groups of children come on school tours before term time. And yet you cannot see any of this traffic from the house, because he had the location excavated to ensure it would be at a level below at a cost of about €40,000. His happy place, though, is with his beloved Dicksonia antarctica in the nursery, where he estimates he has 600 or 700 specimens at varying levels of maturity. A view of the nursery through the poly tunnel. He surveys the grounds daily, either in the early morning or early evening, when guests are still readying themselves for the day or having dinner or pre-dinner drinks. He likes to inspect the polytunnel and nursery and take the sky bridge, a rope bridge that crosses one of the moss-clad gorges. Throughout the property, timber sculptures of dinosaurs and lizards stand life-size, designed by Pieter Koning and Nathan Solomon. Inside, he reconfigured the layout slightly, installing a commercial kitchen to the back and a large office – the control room of the operation, where he spends most of his days. The food and beverage and accommodation at the house accounts for 60 per cent of its revenue. The other 40 per cent comes from the garden cafe, the sale of plants and entrance fees to the gardens. Entrance is €9.50 per adult, while a family of five, two adults and three children, costs €30. [ Wisteria-clad home with American-style luxury interiors on 14-acre estate outside Naas for €4.95m Opens in new window ] Residents are served Thai cuisine, featuring local fish cooked by his wife, head chef Penn Alexander. They met in Phuket, Thailand, where Barry was holidaying to escape the madness of Italia '90. They kept in touch by old-fashioned letter, as Penn's English was only rudimentary, and the following year he took a three-month leave of absence from his bank job, and they travelled around Thailand. They've been together 35 years and moved down to live at Kells Bay about 11 years ago. Previously, Penn had been working in a restaurant in Dalkey but wanted to set up her own place. 'The cost of leasing alone would have been €150,000 just to get going. Now we have a premises,' he explains. They opened their doors in 2014; it took a full year before they were operating seriously. The wall in the dining room where Alexander's awards have been hung with pride. Actor Colin Farrell paid the spot a visit while filming The Lobster in nearby Sneem. 'I didn't know who he was. He requested, 'Your best Thai green chicken curry, as spicy as you can make it!' and gave his approval a short while later, saying this was 'the best f***ing spicy Thai green curry' he'd ever had.' Domhnall Gleeson dined there while filming Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Taoiseach Micheál Martin is a repeat guest – making use of the direct access to the beach to take a morning dip when in residence. Accommodation wise, the property has 11 bedrooms in nine different spaces. Four are upstairs in the main house. Three of these are ensuite. The fourth has exclusive use of the adjoining bathroom, a concept he says he has to explain to some visitors as they cannot get their heads around it. In addition to the rooms in the house there are five own-door units in the annex. Two of these have two double bedrooms. While children are welcome to visit the estate, overnight stays are adults-only. The rooms are booked out through July and August. A weekend night in September costs €150 per room, with breakfast from €12.50-€16. Dinner at Sala Thai restaurant is a la carte, and almost all the main courses are less than €25.
Irish Times
20-05-2025
- Irish Times
The best ferns for Irish gardens: Chelsea gold medalist Billy Alexander's best picks
In the world of gardening , plant collectors are something of a breed apart, with an endearingly boffinish passion for their chosen subject that can often border on the obsessive. In the case of Billy Alexander, owner of the otherworldly Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry , this genial, deeply knowledgeable horticulturist is what the Victorians would once have described as a 'pteridomaniac', a man whose decades-long, unwavering fascination with ferns has shaped his life in countless ways. It was pteridomania ('fern fever') that first brought him to Kells Bay, a 19th-century hunting lodge overlooking the Iveragh Peninsula with a historic 10-hectare subtropical garden. Home to an extraordinary collection of naturalised tree ferns, its oldest specimen of Dicksonia antarctica – affectionately known as the garden's 'mother tree fern' – is believed to have single-handedly spored the hundreds of others that now flourish in the protected microclimate of Kells Bay's primeval forest. Originally owned by the Vogel family (and the Blennerhassett family before that), Alexander fell in love with the property on sight and determined to buy it when it came up for sale in 2006. Over the ensuing two decades, he's slowly but surely transformed what was a beautiful but dilapidated building and its overgrown garden into a world-class attraction that now includes a specialist plant nursery, new plant centre, country guest house and restaurant. [ Collecting ferns was like an addiction, I just kept collecting Opens in new window ] His passion for ferns – or monilophytes, as this ancient class of non-flowering plants is also known – has brought Alexander all over the world, travelling through often-remote parts of North Africa, Europe, Canada, the US, South America and Asia in search of rare and unusual species. Highlights include the Juan Fernández islands in search of the cycad-leaved tree fern; southern Chile in search of the diamondleaf fern; Washington state in search of the American sword fern; and New Zealand's South Island in search of species of Dicksonia and Cyathea. READ MORE That same consuming interest has increasingly brought him international acclaim. Just last week, he returned to the hallowed grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in southwest London to begin the painstaking process of creating an exhibit of some of his choicest plants for this year's Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show (May 20th-24th).* It's Alexander's fourth time taking part in what's widely regarded as the world's most prestigious gardening show. In 2018 he won silver gilt, followed in 2021 by gold for an outstanding display of ferns in Chelsea's legendary Great Pavilion (a vast marquee famed for its remarkable displays by some of the world's very best nurseries). In 2023, he won gold again, along with Best in Show, plus the prestigious Lawrence Medal awarded for the best exhibit displayed in any RHS Show over that entire year. For this year's show, he's creating what he reckons is his best yet – ' a seismic step forward' – which is a 120sq m display of over 100 different species of ferns. Every plant in it was lovingly transported to the London showgrounds from Kells Bay last week, after being carefully nurtured for many months in a polytunnel by Alexander to ensure they're in peak condition for their brief moment in the international spotlight. Entitled Wilde Kells Bay, the display includes tiny, low-growing ground cover species such as Deparia drynaria and the alpine water fern, Blechnum penna-marina. Others, such as the golden tree fern, Dicksonia fibrosa; the New Zealand tree fern, Dicksonia squarrosa; the black tree fern, Cyathea medullaris; and the Norfolk tree fern, Cyathea brownii are towering giants with dramatically arching, shuttlecock fronds so tall that some had to be loaded into the lorry at a perilous angle in order to make them fit. (Hannon Transport was the firm entrusted with the task of getting this precious living cargo safely to London without damage.) Billy Alexander's Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry Billy Alexander's Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry Over the course of this week, Alexander and his four-person team have been putting in 12-hour days to complete the exhibit, which will be formally judged very early next Monday morning on what's known as Press Day. The culmination of several years of meticulous planning and expert plant husbandry on Alexander's part, it's nail-biting stuff. That's all the more so given that this year he's also been invited by the society to take on the role of RHS judge of some of the other displays (not in the Great Pavilion), a job that will require him to race into the London showgrounds shortly after dawn to carefully water his own exhibit before putting on his judge's hat. Will he equal or even surpass his 2023 achievement ? Alexander's far too modest to say, but like most, I'm predicting another triumphal result. *Billy Alexander was awarded a gold medal for his fern collection at the Chelsea Flower Show on May 19th, 2025. The headline was changed on May 20th to reflect the win. Great ferns for Irish gardens: Billy Alexander's top 5 picks Billy Alexander is a rare tree fern cultivator and owner of Kells Bay Gardens in Co Kerry Polystichum polyblepharum: 'This fern is just such a great all-rounder; it's evergreen, exceptionally tough and hardy, and with such an exceptionally long season of interest that it somehow manages to look superb for at least 10 months of the year.' Blechnum novae-zelandiae: 'A fantastic, damp-loving, evergreen fern that's native to New Zealand, Chatham Islands and the Kermadec Islands. At Kells Bay we grow it very close to the garden's waterfall, where it flourishes in the moist conditions created by the water spray.' Todea barbara: 'A clump-forming, statuesque, evergreen species commonly known as the crepe fern or king fern, it's the Southern Hemisphere's equivalent of our own native royal fern, Osmunda regalis, and yet at the same time it's so different. At full height, it can reach up to five feet tall and is a majestic species.' Polystichum neolobatum: 'A very hardy, very beautiful, clump-forming, slightly tropical looking fern native to parts of the Himalayas, Japan and Taiwan, this thrives in light shade and a moisture-retentive but free-draining neutral to acid soil. Well-established plants will also cope with somewhat drier growing conditions.' Athyrium niponicum var. pictum 'Red Beauty': A deciduous, very ornamental variety known as the painted lady fern that's happy in shade and a moist but well-drained, humus-rich, neutral to acid soil, this is particularly early to emerge and is a fantastic choice for a spring garden. I love it for its colourful, delicate fronds, which become flushed with silver and burgundy as they mature.' This week in the garden Continue to harden off tender, heat-loving plants in preparation for transplanting them outdoors at the end of this month, taking care to bring them back under cover if night frost is forecast, or the weather is unseasonably cool and windy. Unless you want to encourage them to self-seed, it's best to deadhead the faded flowers of spring-flowering bulbs to encourage a good flowering display next year. For the same reason, avoid cutting back their foliage until it's very well faded, which allows the bulbs to gradually draw back down the energy and nutrients stored within them. Dates for your diary: An Fómhar Fiáin; Ireland's Wildfood Plants , an exhibition of botanical art by the Irish Society of Botanical Artists, on display at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, from Saturday, May 17th (from 2pm) until Sunday May 25th. . National Biodiversity Week Ireland 2025 , until May 24th, with a fantastic range of activities taking place around the country including talks, workshops and field trips. . Grow Wild, the RHSI Russborough Garden Show , Sunday, May 18th, Russborough House & Gardens, Blessington, Co Wicklow. With garden tours, practical demonstrations, plant stalls, and garden talks. .
Irish Times
17-05-2025
- Irish Times
The best ferns for Irish gardens: Fern man Billy Alexander's best picks
In the world of gardening , plant collectors are something of a breed apart, with an endearingly boffinish passion for their chosen subject that can often border on the obsessive. In the case of Billy Alexander, owner of the otherworldly Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry , this genial, deeply knowledgeable horticulturist is what the Victorians would once have described as a 'pteridomaniac', a man whose decades-long, unwavering fascination with ferns has shaped his life in countless ways. It was pteridomania ('fern fever') that first brought him to Kells Bay, a 19th-century hunting lodge overlooking the Iveragh Peninsula with a historic 10-hectare subtropical garden. Home to an extraordinary collection of naturalised tree ferns, its oldest specimen of Dicksonia antarctica – affectionately known as the garden's 'mother tree fern' – is believed to have single-handedly spored the hundreds of others that now flourish in the protected microclimate of Kells Bay's primeval forest. Originally owned by the Vogel family (and the Blennerhassett family before that), Alexander fell in love with the property on sight and determined to buy it when it came up for sale in 2006. Over the ensuing two decades, he's slowly but surely transformed what was a beautiful but dilapidated building and its overgrown garden into a world-class attraction that now includes a specialist plant nursery, new plant centre, country guest house and restaurant. [ Collecting ferns was like an addiction, I just kept collecting Opens in new window ] His passion for ferns – or monilophytes, as this ancient class of non-flowering plants is also known – has brought Alexander all over the world, travelling through often-remote parts of North Africa, Europe, Canada, the US, South America and Asia in search of rare and unusual species. Highlights include the Juan Fernández islands in search of the cycad-leaved tree fern; southern Chile in search of the diamondleaf fern; Washington state in search of the American sword fern; and New Zealand's South Island in search of species of Dicksonia and Cyathea. READ MORE That same consuming interest has increasingly brought him international acclaim. Just last week, he returned to the hallowed grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in southwest London to begin the painstaking process of creating an exhibit of some of his choicest plants for this year's Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show (May 20th-24th). It's Alexander's fourth time taking part in what's widely regarded as the world's most prestigious gardening show. In 2018 he won silver gilt, followed in 2021 by gold for an outstanding display of ferns in Chelsea's legendary Great Pavilion (a vast marquee famed for its remarkable displays by some of the world's very best nurseries). In 2023, he won gold again, along with Best in Show, plus the prestigious Lawrence Medal awarded for the best exhibit displayed in any RHS Show over that entire year. For this year's show, he's creating what he reckons is his best yet – ' a seismic step forward' – which is a 120sq m display of over 100 different species of ferns. Every plant in it was lovingly transported to the London showgrounds from Kells Bay last week, after being carefully nurtured for many months in a polytunnel by Alexander to ensure they're in peak condition for their brief moment in the international spotlight. Entitled Wilde Kells Bay, the display includes tiny, low-growing ground cover species such as Deparia drynaria and the alpine water fern, Blechnum penna-marina. Others, such as the golden tree fern, Dicksonia fibrosa; the New Zealand tree fern, Dicksonia squarrosa; the black tree fern, Cyathea medullaris; and the Norfolk tree fern, Cyathea brownii are towering giants with dramatically arching, shuttlecock fronds so tall that some had to be loaded into the lorry at a perilous angle in order to make them fit. (Hannon Transport was the firm entrusted with the task of getting this precious living cargo safely to London without damage.) Billy Alexander's Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry Billy Alexander's Kells Bay House & Gardens in Co Kerry Over the course of this week, Alexander and his four-person team have been putting in 12-hour days to complete the exhibit, which will be formally judged very early next Monday morning on what's known as Press Day. The culmination of several years of meticulous planning and expert plant husbandry on Alexander's part, it's nail-biting stuff. That's all the more so given that this year he's also been invited by the society to take on the role of RHS judge of some of the other displays (not in the Great Pavilion), a job that will require him to race into the London showgrounds shortly after dawn to carefully water his own exhibit before putting on his judge's hat. Will he equal or even surpass his 2023 achievement ? Alexander's far too modest to say, but like most, I'm predicting another triumphal result. Great ferns for Irish gardens: Billy Alexander's top 5 picks Billy Alexander is a rare tree fern cultivator and owner of Kells Bay Gardens in Co Kerry Polystichum polyblepharum: 'This fern is just such a great all-rounder; it's evergreen, exceptionally tough and hardy, and with such an exceptionally long season of interest that it somehow manages to look superb for at least 10 months of the year.' Blechnum novae-zelandiae: 'A fantastic, damp-loving, evergreen fern that's native to New Zealand, Chatham Islands and the Kermadec Islands. At Kells Bay we grow it very close to the garden's waterfall, where it flourishes in the moist conditions created by the water spray.' Todea barbara: 'A clump-forming, statuesque, evergreen species commonly known as the crepe fern or king fern, it's the Southern Hemisphere's equivalent of our own native royal fern, Osmunda regalis, and yet at the same time it's so different. At full height, it can reach up to five feet tall and is a majestic species.' Polystichum neolobatum: 'A very hardy, very beautiful, clump-forming, slightly tropical looking fern native to parts of the Himalayas, Japan and Taiwan, this thrives in light shade and a moisture-retentive but free-draining neutral to acid soil. Well-established plants will also cope with somewhat drier growing conditions.' Athyrium niponicum var. pictum 'Red Beauty': A deciduous, very ornamental variety known as the painted lady fern that's happy in shade and a moist but well-drained, humus-rich, neutral to acid soil, this is particularly early to emerge and is a fantastic choice for a spring garden. I love it for its colourful, delicate fronds, which become flushed with silver and burgundy as they mature.' This week in the garden Continue to harden off tender, heat-loving plants in preparation for transplanting them outdoors at the end of this month, taking care to bring them back under cover if night frost is forecast, or the weather is unseasonably cool and windy. Unless you want to encourage them to self-seed, it's best to deadhead the faded flowers of spring-flowering bulbs to encourage a good flowering display next year. For the same reason, avoid cutting back their foliage until it's very well faded, which allows the bulbs to gradually draw back down the energy and nutrients stored within them. Dates for your diary: An Fómhar Fiáin; Ireland's Wildfood Plants , an exhibition of botanical art by the Irish Society of Botanical Artists, on display at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, from Saturday, May 17th (from 2pm) until Sunday May 25th. . National Biodiversity Week Ireland 2025 , until May 24th, with a fantastic range of activities taking place around the country including talks, workshops and field trips. . Grow Wild, the RHSI Russborough Garden Show , Sunday, May 18th, Russborough House & Gardens, Blessington, Co Wicklow. With garden tours, practical demonstrations, plant stalls, and garden talks. .
