Attitude, not latitude
Ursula Buchan
Gardeners are not often happy with their lot. Even if they have bought a house specifically for the garden that surrounds it, nothing will be quite right. The soil will be too light or too heavy, too stony or too chalky, too moisture-retentive or free-draining, too acid or too alkaline. If there is an aspect, it will be too windy; if it is sheltered, there will be no view. As for the climate: if you live in London, the season starts too early but August is a write-off; in Devon, there is not enough frost to suit the rhubarb; in Essex there is not nearly enough rain, while in Argyll there is far too much. Whenever two or three gardeners are gathered together, there is likely to be an organised, harmonised whinge.
I am no different from anyone else. After all, my garden is on heavy clay and situated in north-east Northamptonshire. Enough said. The advantage of whingeing, of course (even if it is wearisome to the listener), is that any successes are gained against the odds, and are all the more impressive as a result. Just occasionally, however, even I am forced to shut up complaining, when faced with the real difficulties other gardeners encounter.
This August I spent a few days in Sutherland and, while I was there, I visited most of the gardens which are open to visitors in that most thinly populated of all counties, as well as in next-door Caithness. It was a salutary lesson. For, in Sutherland, on a more northerly latitude than Moscow, the growing season is at least four weeks shorter than that in the south of England, with the possibility of frosts in every month except July. The minimum winter temperature is -5 to -10C and average annual rainfall 30 to 40 inches. There are ferocious winds to contend with, as well as sea mists ('haars'), which roll in from the sea fre
quently and rapidly, sending temperatures tumbling.
So how does anyone make a good garden there? In times gone by, Scots perfected the building of walled gardens, setting them on south-facing slopes if they could, and putting open-slatted garden doors at the bottom which would let the frost drain away. Walls cannot keep out fogs, of course, but they can create favourable microclimates. At the House of Tongue, at Dunbeath Castle and at Langwell, for example, tall walls enclose the gardens, making it possible to grow a surprisingly wide range of plants, especially fruit, vegetables, hardy shrubs and perennials, as well as providing back walls for glasshouses, where even figs and apricots may ripen.
Within these walls, borders, often hedge-backed and laid out with care, are as colourful and full of variety in July and August as they are a month earlier in the south of England, with sweet peas, annuals, massed ranks of herbaceous perennials and roses. The raspberries and cabbages were as fine as any I have seen.
Not all the gardens are large ones, created by Scottish landowners and timed to be at their best in the grouse-shooting season, of course. Mrs Elizabeth Woollcombe, an accomplished plantswoman, has lived at West Drummuie, half a mile from the Dornoch Firth near Golspie for 34 years and she has no walls, except those of the house. Her solution has been to shelter the garden from the salt-laden east winds with Griselinia &torahs, escallonias, olearias and hebes, many of them brought back as seed from New Zealand. Hers is an intimate, informal, woodlandy garden on a south-facing slope, where every plant is known and cherished. Mrs Woollcombe will be 90 in November, but is as lively, curious and interested as can be, and spends most of each day in the garden.
She conducted me round the garden, where we stopped at many a rarity, and, with the true gardener's generosity, gave me seeds and plants. She excitedly showed me a Callistemon (Australian bottle brush) grown from seed 25 years ago, which was flowering for the first time. On our way back to the house, she pointed to some adjacent land which she said she was hoping she might be able to take in and make a garden for children to enjoy. Attitude, not latitude, is what matters, it seems. I take my hat off to all hardy northern Scottish gardeners, who do their best with what they are given. And don't complain about it.
All these gardens are open by appointment, and/or for Scotland's Gardens Scheme, in the season. Refer to The Daily Telegraph Good Gardens Guide or Scotland's Gardens Scheme Yellow Book for details. Other gardens worth seeing in the region are Ken-achar. Castle of Mey, Dunrobin Castle and Sandside House.
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