Wednesday 3 May 2023: Visit to the President’s Garden
President Hugh Ward and his wife, Kathleen, are the owners and custodians of a magnificent property located at 115 Doogary Road, Omagh. This year their home features on the front cover of the booklet published by the National Garden Scheme to promote “Gardens open for Charity, Northern Ireland 2023”. Inside the booklet, their home, Tattykeel House, enjoys the following description.
A country garden of approximately 1.5 acres, crated over a 30year period, planted with conifers, shrubs, roses and perennials. There is a sheltered seating area, a Japanese influenced area, interesting features and a collection of well grown climbers on the house. The garden underwent numerous exciting and significant improvements in early 2022.
On arrival club members were treated to tea, coffee, scones and traybakes in a gazebo erected on the patio where Hugh passed around photographs of his garden taken first when he and Kathleen moved in and in the years since to chart how the garden has grown. Members were then shown round by Mrs Ward, Hugh claiming modestly that he only cuts the grass and does some weeding. This claim was belied by the number of elegant structures fashioned by Hugh to add height and character to the garden. In the lower part a stream babbles sweetly over boulders all lovingly created to induce an atmosphere of calm and wellbeing.
Th tour ended in Hugh’s “man cave”, a barn coming down with garden tools, ride-on lawn mowers, cultivators, hedge cutters – all that is needed to maintain a large garden and provide an escape area for the man of the house. Afterwards all were invited into Kathleen’s studio, there to marvel at her paintings, screen prints and other examples of her craft work. On leaving members were delighted to make a contribution to the “Children’s Heartbeat Trust”, the Ward’s chosen charity for 2023.
