Emma Townshend: 'I'm gripped by a new book that reveals Ireland's wild beauty'

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Our little bunch of islands – sitting in an odd blast of the Gulf Stream that comes to us straight after bouncing off Florida – possess top-notch conditions for gardeners. And we hear a lot about the effects – the early narcissi of the Scillies; the northern palm trees of subtropical gardens near Glasgow; the frondy luxuriance of Bodnant in North Wales. But Ireland, that mysterious, alluring isle across the waves, whose very colour is green? Not so much. Perhaps because of the political lines that have beset us over the years, and perhaps because of a reticence on the part of the island's great gardeners, we have not heard enough of their horticultural passions and heights.











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