U2 BASSIST ADAM Clayton has spoken about his journey from recording The Joshua Tree to growing magnolia trees in the grounds of Danesmoate House, his Georgian mansion in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin.

The 64-year-old rock star gave the BBC a backstage pass to his garden for the latest episode of the long-running Gardeners’ World programme.

The musician explained how he had attended boarding school next door to Danesmoate. Clayton started secondary school at St Columba’s College in Rathfarnham, before transferring to Mount Temple, where he met the other members of U2.

He said that while at boarding school he used to look at the garden over the wall – and come in in “the early days of smoking cigarettes and having a drink”. 

In 1986, he returned to Danesmoate, after U2′s management picked it as the location for recording The Joshua Tree, the album that catapulted the band to global superstardom.

“At the end of the recording, the owner said, ‘Look, if any of the band want to buy the house…I’d be up to taking the cost of the rental off the house’. And I thought, ‘Oh, there’s a bit of a deal there’,” Clayton recalled.

He added that the band “had an inkling” of the succes their fifth studio album could bring them.

“I knew that whatever happened after The Joshua Tree, I did not want to be walking out my front door into a street,” he told BBC presenter Adam Frost.

A garden swing in Clayton's garden. BBC Studios BBC Studios

Clayton reportedly bought Danesmoate for €380,000 in 1988, when he was 28 years old.

He told Frost the garden was “seriously over-mature” and had been “let go” when he took it over. He set about clearing laurel which was “suffocating” some areas and went on to plant over 4,000 trees, many of which are now 30 years old. His trees include over 50 varieties of camellia, as well as many magnolias and rhodedendrons. 

The 17 acres includes a formal garden and a woodland area. Although he started his garden project 30 years ago, Clayton sees it as only an “adolescent garden”, adding that he can “just see what its going to be” at maturity.

BBC presenter Adam Frost and Danesmoate head gardener Darragh Stone. BBC Studios BBC Studios

Of course, Clayton has help. His head gardener, Darragh Stone, was also interviewed, telling the BBC the garden’s river and heavy rainfall creates a microclimate that means the plants grow really well. 

Asked what gardening means to him, Clayton said: “It just it takes my mind out of myself.”

“I start to see the colors, I start to see the form, I start to note the time of year, and I just I just go into a different world.”

He added: “I think the garden tells you what it needs. And you just have to pay attention. And I do look at gardening the way the painters do you know its shape, form, color, and perspective depth. So I just bring all those things to it and I just let the garden lead me.”

Monty Don, the main presenter on Gardeners’ World, said this was “fantastic advice” for gardeners, and something that resonated with him.

A tributary of the Dodder, crossed by a wooden bridge, runs through the garden. BBC Studios BBC Studios