Art at Howbert & Mays Clare Street

May 2021 When we opened our Clare Street shop - formerly Greene's Bookshop - we knew that it couldn't be just a plant and garden shop. The building was too special for that. Of course, we love plants and everything to do with them, and they are a main theme for this shop. But with our proximity to the National Gallery, as well as a number of other galleries as our neighbours, it made sense to use the high ceilings and lovely light for displaying and selling works of art.

Our Monkstown garden centre is now open

Finally, on 4th of May we reopened our Monkstown garden centre.

Monkstown garden centre dublin.jpg

Native plants in your garden?

'Native plants' is a term that means plants that are indigenous to a location, that are there without human introduction. In Ireland, we have plants that are native to specific locations, such as native woodland plants, native coastal plants, native bog plants, and so on. Together, they are all native to the island of Ireland as a whole. Being next to the UK and Europe, many of our native plants are also their native plants. In fact, because the UK is bigger than Ireland, and Europe is bigger than the UK, we have far fewer native plants than they do.

Should you oil your new teak furniture?

We sell quite a few pieces of garden furniture that are made from teak, or have some part of them from teak. Many of our customers ask us if they should treat the wood in any way. We have done a bit of research into this, so here is what we have learned.

teak bench dublin.jpg

Dunboyne and Dundrum garden centres are OPEN

Just to clarify, our garden centres in Airfield Estate, Dundrum, Co Dublin and at Avoca, Dunboyne, Co Meath are both open. There is ambiguity around whether or not garden centres should be open. Our interpretation of the legistlation was that they should be closed. However, pretty much every other garden centre interpreted things differently, and have remained open throughout this period of 'Level 5' lockdown. This is why we have reopened our Dunboyne and Airfield shops.....