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Day Tour from Dublin: Wicklow Best Gardens and Countryside
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From €5 per person
County Wicklow earned its “Garden of Ireland” reputation honestly, and this 8-hour private guided day trip from Dublin takes you to three of the gardens that make that case. You’re collected from your hotel, so there’s no car to worry about and no navigating Wicklow’s backroads - just gardens, good food, and countryside.
The three stops are genuinely different in character. Powerscourt Gardens in Enniskerry is the grand formal statement: 47 acres of Italian terraces built in the 1840s, a Japanese garden laid out in 1908, and Sugarloaf Mountain framing Triton Lake. National Geographic ranked it third in the world behind Versailles and Kew. Mount Usher Gardens in Ashford is the counterpoint - 22 naturalistic acres along the River Vartry, shaped by four generations of the Walpole family from 1868 in the Robinsonian style, where Chilean fire trees, Japanese maples, and Himalayan rhododendrons thread together as if they chose to be there. Kilmacurragh Botanical Gardens, part of the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland, rounds it out with 180 rhododendron species and rare conifers and magnolias from Chile, Tasmania, and the Himalayas - all thriving in Wicklow’s sheltered microclimate.
Dublin hotel pickup Collected from your central Dublin accommodation.
Powerscourt Gardens, Enniskerry Italian terraces, Japanese garden, walled kitchen garden, and Triton Lake with Sugarloaf Mountain as backdrop. Allow 90 minutes - there’s more here than the main terrace.
Mount Usher Gardens, Ashford Twenty-two naturalistic acres on the River Vartry, planted by four generations of the Walpole family from 1868. A gentler, more naturalistic contrast to Powerscourt.
Avoca Cafe, Avoca Village Lunch at the cafe beside Ireland’s oldest working weaving mill. The looms are often running - worth a look.
Kilmacurragh Botanical Gardens Victorian-era collection: 180 rhododendron species and rare conifers and magnolias from Chile, Tasmania, and the Himalayas.
Return to Dublin
Don’t skip Powerscourt’s Japanese garden. It sits apart from the main terrace and a lot of visitors miss it. Laid out in 1908, it has a quiet, enclosed character that contrasts with the grand sweep below. The walled kitchen garden is similarly easy to walk past.
Kilmacurragh rewards a slow walk. It’s the least visited of the three stops. The rhododendron walks and the old walled garden are best without hurrying, and the plant collection is more impressive than its lower profile suggests.
The Avoca mill looms are worth a look. The cafe in Avoca village sits at the original 1723 mill. The looms often run during the day, and a short walk along the River Avoca takes five minutes.
The Powerscourt Waterfall is nearby but separate. Six kilometres from the main gardens by a different road, the 121-metre waterfall is not on this tour’s route but is worth noting for a return visit to Enniskerry.