Another weekend and another visit to a private garden opening under the auspices of the National Trust's open garden scheme. This time the garden was situated midway between Ballymena and Larne at Ballynashee Road, Glenwherry. It has been twenty years in the making and this has been the first time that it has opened its portals to the eyes of the public.
It is a large country garden extending over five acres and it has the benefit of two large ponds fed from an old mill race. The larger of the ponds is almost half an acre in extent and certainly adds interest to the garden, surrounded as it is with aquatic marginals and containing largish patches of water lilies. The owners, (a Mr & Mrs Rafferty), must spend all of their waking hours keeping nature in check. It is hard to imagine when they have time to actually enjoy their garden.
In the wilder areas of the garden they have planted many hundreds of broadleaf trees and created walkways along the adjoining river. Another twenty years and these trees will be reaching maturity and a true woodland will have been created. Even now you can imagine what it will ultimately be like. Hopefully the owners will live sufficiently long to see their garden plans come to full fruition.
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