U2's Adam Clayton may be better known as a world-class bass guitarist, but he's also an avid gardener. It's fitting then that he has a magnolia named after him.
That honour is courtesy of Waterford's Mount Congreve garden curator Michael White.
With the formal reopening of the stunning 70-acre garden at the Waterford Estate last month, it was fitting that the U2 star should pay a visit to see his namesake in bloom.
Last Sunday Clayton joined White for a tour of the gardens situated in the sloping acres that look over the winding River Suir.
White reportedly named the magnolia in honour of the musician due to Clayton's fondness for the spring-flowering genus.
Clayton is an avid gardener himself. In 1988, aged 28, he purchased Danesmoate estate, in the foot of the Dublin mountains, after the band had rented the house to work on The Joshua Tree album.
Since then, he has reportedly transformed the historic estate's 17 acres of gardens and landscape over the years. In a feature with Country Life magazine last month, it was reported that there are 50 varieties of magnolias at Danesmoate, many planted in multiples. "We went a bit bonkers on the magnolias," he told the magazine.
As to the Mount Congreve gardens, they have been described by Irish garden historian Paddy Bowe as one of the four great gardens made in Ireland in the latter half of the twentieth century – the other three on Bowe’s list are the gardens of Birr Castle in Co Offaly, Glenveagh in Co Donegal and Malahide Castle in Dublin.
The estate left in trust to the State by its former owner and creator Ambrose Congreve, a man who was friends with the cream of high society from business and the arts, and someone with an abiding fondness for gardening.
Since 2018 the house and garden have been under the management of Waterford County Council, which has subsequently undertaken major redevelopment work on the estate.
Waterford County Council have also teamed up with Waterford Wexford Education and Training Board to run a Masters QQI Level 5 hands-on gardening course in a new school of horticulture, headed up by garden designer Gerard Mullen, to be based in the west wing of Mount Congreve house.
