The right plant, right now – why early summer is the season to think big
Founded by award-winning garden designer Dermot Kerins - The Plant Collector is Ireland’s first and only specialist plant centre
Print9 June 2026
There is a particular kind of gardener who refuses to wait. Who understands that a garden should feel considered and complete from the moment the last plant goes in, not in five years’ time, when everything has finally bulked up. If that sounds like you, or your clients, then there is one name worth knowing this summer: The Plant Collector.
Founded by award-winning garden designer Dermot Kerins, The Plant Collector is Ireland’s first and only specialist plant centre, supplying show-stopping specimen plants and mature trees to some of Ireland’s most beautiful gardens.
Dermot’s credentials are formidable, he grew up on a family nursery in Kenmare, County Kerry, spent thirty years designing and building high-end gardens across Ireland and Europe, and earned a Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medal along the way.
It was that depth of experience, and a growing frustration at being unable to source plants of true quality and maturity for his own design projects, that led to the creation of The Plant Collector.
The result is something genuinely rare in the Irish market: a six-acre nursery in Celbridge, Co. Kildare, stocked with the most unique range of specimen plants available on the island, all grown or sourced specifically to thrive in the Irish climate.
Warm soil means newly planted specimens establish quickly and confidently. Plants are in full leaf and often in flower, so what you see is exactly what you get. There is none of the guesswork of bare-root season, just beautiful, characterful plants in their prime, ready to go straight into the ground and make an immediate impression.
The Plant Collector’s Osmanthus burkwoodii are a particular highlight – dense, dark evergreen structure combined with clouds of intensely fragrant white blossom. It is the kind of backbone plant that serious garden designers return to again and again, and the nursery carries it at a scale that delivers real impact from day one.
Their Cornus kousa are equally arresting in early summer: a mature kousa dogwood in full flower, with its extraordinary creamy white bracts held against tiered branches, is one of the most dramatic sights a garden can offer.
For collectors and designers seeking elegance and year-round character, the nursery’s range of Acer palmatum, many in sculptural multi-stem form, represents some of the finest Japanese maples available in Ireland.
Multi-stem trees and shrubs are something of a Plant Collector signature: that naturally branching form brings an immediate sense of age and authenticity to even a newly planted scheme. The Prunus angustifolia currently in stock offers the same quality, slender-leafed, graceful, and quietly beautiful.
The nursery is also widely regarded as Ireland’s leading specialist in garden screening. Where a fence or wall feels harsh and immediate, a carefully selected combination of mature plants creates privacy that looks as though it has always been there.
The Plant Collector team brings the expertise to specify, supply, and install exactly that — and their track record speaks for itself.
Whether you are a garden designer sourcing specimens for a major project, or a homeowner ready to stop planning and start planting, a visit to Celbridge this summer is time very well spent.
Visit their website here.
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© 2026, Growtrade.ie by Patryk Goron
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