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The glasshouse ranges at Joly's, benches in full leaf

Ballinacoola, Glenealy · open Wednesday to Sunday

A yard for people who are serious about plants.

Willie and Hazel’s glasshouses, twenty years deep in the trade: proper plants, honest advice, dogs welcome, and the Potting Shed Cafe in the middle of it all.

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Closed Monday and Tuesday. We would rather tell you here than on the gate. Ring 0404 46580

The tomato wall is on.

Heirloom varieties in the glasshouse: pink Brandywines, smoky Cherokee Purple, the pleated Florentine sauce tomato. When they are gone, they are gone until next June.

Meet this summer’s wall
  • BrandywinePink, vast, and worth the wait. One slice is a sandwich.
  • Cherokee PurpleDusky shoulders, smoky sweetness. The one people come back asking for by name.
  • Green ZebraRipe when the stripes turn gold, sharp like a good apple.
  • Costoluto FiorentinoThe pleated Florentine. Ugly on purpose, and the best sauce in the glasshouse.

Plan the border from the fire.

The shop works all winter: look up what fits that gap, what flowers in February, what the frost cannot touch. The winter bench is scented and stubborn, and the kettle is on.

Open the yard shop
  • Skimmia ‘Rubella’Red buds all winter, opens April
  • Viburnum ‘Dawn’November to March, scented
  • Sweet boxDecember to February, scented
  • Lenten roseFebruary to April

The Christmas market is on.

Real trees, wreaths made here, the glasshouse full of lights and the cafe doing the mulled things. Gift vouchers for the gardener who has everything except room.

Market days and hours
  • Real treesIn the yard from late November
  • WreathsAnd garlands, while they last
  • VouchersThe present that becomes a garden

The benches are filling.

Planting weather. The first perennials are hardened off and the seed potatoes are in crates by the door. Ask Willie what is ready for your soil, not just what is pretty this week.

See what is on the bench

This week in the yard

Grown here, picked over daily.

Boxes of heirloom tomatoes picked in the glasshouse
The glasshouse crop heirlooms by the box, August only
Lupins and alliums in flower on the outdoor benches
The benches what is flowering right now
Hanging baskets and terracotta on the yard wall
The walls baskets, terracotta, the good stuff

Shop the yard

Put it aside from the couch, collect it from the bench.

Shop the benches
Shrubs and roses Perennials House plants The tomato wall Trees and climbers

The plant dictionary

Every plant, on a written label.

Height, spread, sun, soil, when it shows off, where it sits in a border and what to plant beside it. Written the way the yard writes labels, and kept honest by the people who water them.

Look a plant up

Geranium ‘Rozanne’

Geranium hybrid

  • Grows to 50cm, spreads 80cm
  • Likes sun or part shade · any reasonable soil
  • Shows june to november
  • Sits at the front of a border
  • Beside rose, alchemilla, grasses

Blue saucers from June to the frosts. The hardest working plant we sell.

€9.50 Plenty on the bench

Lenten rose

Helleborus orientalis

  • Grows to 45cm, spreads 45cm
  • Likes happy in shade · heavy, rich, limey fine
  • Shows february to april
  • Sits at the front of a border
  • Beside snowdrop, ferns, pulmonaria

Flowers when nothing else dares. Cut the old leaves at Christmas and it shows off.

€11 In the yard: 20
Candlelit tables inside the Potting Shed Cafe

The Potting Shed Cafe

The pink shed with the kettle on.

Coffee, bakes, soup and sandwiches in among the plants, candles lit by afternoon. Dogs welcome through the yard and in the cafe: “paws welcome, tails wagging” is their line, and they mean it.

Hours, the cafe and finding the yard

Out the Glenealy road.

Ballinacoola, Glenealy, Co. Wicklow, A67 X940. Wednesday to Saturday 9 to 5, Sunday 11 to 5. The kettle stops shortly before the gate does.

Plan the visit The yard posts most days: @jolys.ie