Well not quite Scot free, but it’s a good title. I spent last week in Scotland. It’s over 30 years since I was there, so I guessed it was time to re-visit. Actually apart from Oban, last time I did not do Argyll and Bute, so this was a new adventure.
Despite heatwaves abounding everywhere else, this part of Scotland was wet, windy and grey. Just what you need for a garden tour, especially with the ferries between the isles (the less said the better about ferry crossings). It was not helped by the coach driver stating frequently that he was there two weeks previously and the weather was glorious. This part of Scotland is known for its balmy weather generated by the Gulf Stream. Has anyone else noticed that tour companies (apart from my own that is) almost always choose the wrong time to visit a garden? The Rhododendrons had finished flowering and there was not a bundle happening elsewhere. The flowers were probably frightened by the torrential downpours.
My first garden visit in torrential rain was Mount Stuart. Oh what a house, so incredible, I have not seen much like this before. No photos I’m afraid as photography was not allowed. The rain was just stopping and I was ready, as were my fellow travellers to do the garden when the coach driver changed the itinerary and marched us all off to Rothesay for lunch, despite the fact that we had lunched at Mount Stuart. So sadly no photos of the garden either. Good start eh? I waited twenty years to see this garden – finally got to the place but saw so little of the garden.
The next trip was to Crarae, a magnificent garden with many steps (rather dangerous in the wet), waterfall, conifers, rhododendrons and more. It has a National Collection of Nothofagus, southern beech. Built into a steep sided burn is this amazing Himalayan garden. In the right season with the Rhododendrons in flower, it must be breathtaking, but with virtually nothing in flower in the rain, it looked pretty dismal. Grey skies do something to me, for I am sure I should have enjoyed this garden more. One sunken area had a few plants in flower including a Prostanthera, mint bush that was scenting the garden. Lush and green (all that rain no doubt) I photographed a Palm, fern, what I thought was Metasequoia and the huge leaves of Lysichiton after flowering before the rain came down like the heavens had burst open and the camera went away.
At Benmore Botanic garden at last I caught a glimpse of something I had longed to see in a natural setting, a few blue Meconopsis were hanging on around the pond that has a Himalayan planting once more, but one with flowers such as Primula viallii and drumstick primula too, Arisaema and a gorgeous Paris. I’ve tried the blue Meconopsis a few times, to no avail. I have heard that it is best not to let them flower in their first year but I’m not game enough to take off the flowerheads of something so astonishingly beautiful. Elsewhere there were many Cornus , dogwoods and a fantastic blue-leaved Rhododendron, just one of the 300 species grown here. The Redwood Avenue is wonderful, it’s very special to walk amongst such giants of the plant world. Like Crarae, the setting of Benmore is fabulous. Both gardens are quite large and deserve much more time to appreciate them than we were given to view them. I only saw a fraction of each garden, which just means that I shall have to return – and I cannot possibly wait another thirty years – I might not be here! All photos copyright Karen Platt 2010.
