Welcome to the Robinson Garden at Earlscliffe, Baily, Co. Dublin, Ireland

Where subtropical plants flourish at 53.3° North latitude

This website is dedicated to the memory of David Robinson (1928-2004).

The Robinson Garden at Earlscliffe is on the Howth peninsula just north of Dublin city at a latitude of 53.3º N. This means that it is further north than Newfoundland and on the same latitude as Manchester England, Hamburg Germany, the southern part of the Hudson Bay and Edmonton Canada and Minsk in Russia. Yet despite being much nearer to the north pole than to the equator, bananas, tree ferns, South African Erica and a range of palms flourish outside without any winter protection. 

This is not simply the result of skilled plantsmanship but owes a lot to the unusually favourable microclimate. The garden slopes to the south and benefits by being close to the sea and also from the 180 metre high Hill of Howth on its northern side. With the advantage of the warm current from the Gulf of Mexico almost encircling Howth, it seems that the peninsula can grow a wider range of plants than any other place of similar latitude.

Advantage is taken of the auspicious situation to test the climatic hardiness of plants from all five continents. No plants are protected artificially even in the coldest weather so that realistic information on hardiness can be obtained. 

The Earlscliffe house itself been owned by an variety of people with links to a number of episodes and events in Irish and world history. 

This site is continuously being updated to include both scientific data and information for the general enthusiast. If there is anything in particular that you would like to see in greater detail, please contact us.

Please note that the garden is not currently open to the public and there will be no formal garden tours around Earlscliffe in 2012. For further details, contact

What's New?

• Fiacre's Fell, a four bedroom house situated in the grounds of Earlscliffe, is available for rent from Jan 2012! See here.
• The latest David Robinson Memorial Lecture took place at University College Dublin on the 25th Oct 2011. The subject was Planting as an art form: ecologically-tuned, aesthetically aware. Planting as an essential: creating healthy cities and liveable places and was written and delivered by Dr. Nigel Dunnett from the University of Sheffield.
• Weather data from Earlscliffe is now available pre-formatted for your iPhone or Android mobile phone! Open a browser on your phone and navigate to http://earlscliffe.com/iwdl/
• Winter 2010/11 has been the worst in living memory. From the end of November 2010 to Christmas was the coldest and snowiest on record. We had over a foot of snow on the ground at Earlscliffe for a long period, with temperatures hardly getting above freezing for days, which is bound to have had a severe effect on some of the tender plants. We won't, of course, fully know until the spring.
• During autumn we had some further good news on the plant front. A large Brugmansia sanguinea which had died over the winter has finally started to sprout from the base of the plant. We will keep an eye open to see whether it further improves.
• Over the summer we also had some good news. The Red Flowered Yellow Gum (Eucalyptus leucoxylon var. macrocarpa) and Echium candicans which we thought had died over the winter have both show signs of life. The eucalyptus has started to sprout again from the base, and a number of the Echium candicans have bloomed magnificently!
• The big freeze hit Earlscliffe in the winter of 2009/10! The temperature went been down as low as almost 5 degrees below, and this was the worst winter at Earlscliffe in living memory. We lost a lot of tender plants. The main losses included Leucadendron argenteum (Silver tree) from Table Mountain, South Africa, and Protea lacticolor (which had previously survived  the cold winter of 2000/1).
• The Wollemi Pine arrives at Earlscliffe! More to follow...
• Furcraea longaeva from Mexico flowered at Earlscliffe in 2009. The flowering spike grew around 4.26 metres in about 60 days and at its fastest was growing at over 12cm a day! The plant plus spike ended up at around 6.36m tall (nearly 21 feet) and produced bulbils and seed. See the news section.
• Have found some more interesting facts about the previous owners and occupants of Earlscliffe. Check out the History of the House.
• Had a visit from William Martin Murphy's daughter, Jane with her husband Patrick on Wednesday 29th April 2009. The Martin Murphy's lived in Earlscliffe from 1945 to 1949. Apart from a visit in 1952 when the family friend Dr Robert Rowan Woods moved into Earlscliffe, Jane has not been back to Earlscliffe for over 57 years.
• Had a visit from Sir John Lumsden's grandson, John Radcliffe and his wife Sheila on Thursday 23rd April 2009. John had some great stories to tell of the Lumsden family and was interested to see some copies of photographs we have from a Lumsden family album which we believe might have come from Sir John's daughter, Betty L'Estrange. John Radcliffe has kindly volunteered to identify the people in the photos and I will publish them here.
• Had some great communications with the Martin Murphy family and have included some details of their time at Earlscliffe as part of the history of Earlscliffe.

Content on this site - please note

This is a non-commercial site and its contents (including images) are copyright of the site owners (unless otherwise stated) and cannot be reused (in any form) without permission. If you wish to reuse any of the content, please contact  who will be happy to discuss this with you. Any reuse, though, must be for non-commercial purposes.

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Where we think it will be relevant to visitors to this site we may refer to publications that we consider of value. This will not be a recommendation of that publication or publisher. All links are for information only.

Any horticultural or scientific advice is included on this site for information and educational use only and the site owners will not be liable for any damage caused by following any advice given in these pages.  However, we would gladly appreciate your feedback!

We welcome your feedback on either the Robinson Garden at Earlscliffe or on this web site. Please contact    or use the contact page.

This page was last updated on 06-Jan-2012.

Ireland's largest and most spectacular gardening event	For more information on some of the plants grown at Earlscliffe
To find out about one of the longest established horticultural societies on Dublin's north side, visit the Howth & Sutton Horticultural Society	Visit the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin to see some of the plants growing at Earlscliffe

For more information on exotic plants growing under temperate conditions along with a variety of other related web pages please visit other sites on the web ring below

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* If you spot a news article that doesn't actually relate to gardening, please send us an email via the contacts page!