BLOOD SPORTS AlexT his statue is the Goddess Diana. Here I want to tell you about the challenge of maintaining these gardens. Sarah Diana was known as Artemis by the Greeks. She is the Goddess of chastity, the hunt, the moon, and the natural environment. Anthony Diana and Apollo are Powerscourt’s guardian spirits. Sarah That deer is probably the hunter Actaeon. She turned him into a deer for making advances. She then set his own pack of hounds on him. They tore him apart. Alex Nonetheless, I love Diana. I feel she protects all of the birds, animals, trees and plants here. ALEXS CHALLENGES Anthony So Alex, what are your biggest challenges maintaining these gardens? Alex I strive to keep the quality of the gardens at their peak at all times. Time management is crucial. Even simple tasks take a lot of time given the size of the gardens. Sarah A rose bed here is four times as large as one from an average garden. Alex High maintenance areas include these Italian gardens. We are constantly cutting the grass here! Once these slopes were mowed with a lawn mower at the end of a rope. Today we have a mower designed to cope with slopes which gets the job done much faster. Anthony What advice would you give to other gardeners? Alex The best advice I can give would be to have patience. The Powerscourt Lords put a lot of thought into their vistas and gardens. They knew they would have to wait a long time for their creation. It wouldn’t be possible to achieve all that has been created at Powerscourt over one season, a year or even a lifetime. We are creating today for the people of tomorrow.