ALAN POWER: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast.

In this mini episode we'll be learning about the power,

poisons and pleasures of purple through the amazing plant

collection at Mount Stewart.

One of the characters we're going to hear about today is

Edith Lady Londonderry, whose imagination and passion shaped

this place in the 1920s.

Our guide, Ellen Elder, one of Mount Stewart's volunteers

ELLEN ELDER: Purple. It's present in every corner of the

gardens. You can see Lilac, you can see Fox Gloves, you can see

Alliums, huge ones, the size of footballs and all sorts of other

plants in different shades of lilac and purple. It's really

lovely, especially the Irises.

Well, I think it was one of Lady Edith's favourite colours.

She wrote to her husband in 1931.

I do love this place so deeply. The view of sunset was quite

lovely. All gold and opal and deep purple. It is indeed the

land of heart's delight.

I think it was especially in times gone by. It was associated

with power, with royalty and with wealth and this was mainly

because of the intense and laborious process of making

purple back in the olden days as we would call them.

It took a total of a quarter of a million Mollusks to make one

ounce of purple.

The first recorded use of lilac as a colour name in English was

in 1775 although well connected botanists had to shrub in their

gardens at the end of the 16th century.

For those who know their onions, you'll have noticed that we have

a wealth of purple alliums in the Italian garden and around

the entrance way to the reception area. Allium

Giganteum, which is a common name for the giant onion is the

central and south western Asian species of onion but cultivated

in many countries as an ornamental border plant.

It's a ball.

Ours, of course, being at Mount Stewart are the size of a

football.

They're a beautiful purple colour and they consist of lots

of little petals making up the main flower and they're on a

very tall stem, of course. And when those are waving in the

wind, it's really spectacular.

Fox Gloves mainly to be seen up near the old dairy and the

walled garden. They come in purple, white and pink. The

scientific name means finger like and refers to these with

which a flower of Digitalis Purpurea can be fitted over a

human fingertip.

The flowers are produced on a tall spike, they're tubular and

they vary in colour. And although the entire plant is

toxic and led to the plants being called witches gloves or

dead men's bells.

Digitalis is used in drug preparations to treat congestive

heart failure. There's still a medical use there.

If you go up around the lake, you'll see some of our beautiful

Irises. And the worldwide success story of this flower

probably began in ancient times when King Thutmose of Egypt had

conquered Syria where Irises grew in great profusion

Being a gardener as well as a warrior.

The king ensured that Irises should be immortalized

And sculptures at Carnac. And I I saw those earlier on in the

year as well as in the Gardens of Egypt and drawings. They were

shown as symbols of the renewal of life. And they were named

after the Greek messenger of Gods Iris.

Who was said to have golden wings and to travel on a

rainbow.

Iris means rainbow and Greek fittingly representing the many

colours of the Iris flower. Here we have lovely purple ones to

fit the theme of purple and you can find them at the stream near

the Japanese bridges.

Well, I must confess that I'm now old enough to wear purple,

so I do wear it during the winter, but I love it. It's a

beautiful, rich colour.

And I think when Lady Edith called Mount Stewart, her land

of hearts delight, she was right. This was a song from the

Franz Lehár operetta Land Of Smiles. And our idea here at

Mount Stewart is to send visitors away with a smile on

their face.

ALAN POWER: Thanks for listening to this week's National Trust

mini episode.

Join us next week to learn about the tales behind the topiary in

Mount Stewart's Shamrock Garden. Until then from me, Alan Power.

Goodbye.