Gardens
What I did in the holidays
Ursula Buchan
If there is one thing worse than going on holiday, it is coming home again. No gar- dener likes to leave behind the maturing fruits of so many months of effort, still less return to stringy beans and towering sowthistles.
This year, however, things were not as bad as usual. The rain which fell on the west coast of Scotland fell too on the dry East Midlands, so that, although the beans were stringy and the weeds dreadful, I returned to a more floriferous garden than I could confidently have expected. It was an instructive lesson in the way vain hope can sometimes triumph over compelling experience — but not half so instructive as visiting woodland gardens in Argyll at the `wrong' season.
There are no other gardens in the British, Isles thought so exclusively to be `spring' gardens as those to be found on the west coast of Scotland and, in particular, Argyll. The almost frost-free climate, the 60 inches of rain annually and the acid soil combine to suit pre-eminently the Asiatic rhododen- drons; and most rhodies flower between April and June. (There are a few excep- tions: Rhododendron dauricum and its off- spring praecox can be out in January, while `Polar Bear' swelters in August, but the general point remains true.) There are almost a score of these gar- dens and even their names have a potent romance for a holiday Scot like me: Ardu- aine, Ardanaiseig, Achamore, An Cala, Ardmaddy, Achnacloich, Ardchattan, Bar" guillean, Crarae, Strone. One year in May I visited some of them and was forcibly struck by their rugged and foreign 9
grandeur, as I wandered in 'Himalayan glens amongst huge tree rhododendrons so covered in flowers that you could not get a
penknife blade between each one. I came home with traveller's tales of leaves 18 inches long (R. sino-grande) and trusses of flowers the size and shape of a football (R. tnacabeanum).
I did not expect a repeat of such excite- ment during an averagely wet and windy Argyll August. Certainly I visited some gar- dens, but more out of respect and force of habit. I had a mild curiosity to see those traditionally Scots walled enclosures, where vegetables, fruit, cut flowers and a wind- swept herbaceous border or two might compensate for the lack of springtime flo- ral fireworks. In the event, these were Interesting — especially for the variety and quality of the cabbages grown — but it was plain that the climate is unkind to domestic gardening here.
The big surprise was how impressive still were the `wild' parts of these gardens, even when largely out of flower. This is the lega- cy of close care taken by long-dead Glas- gow magnates and Campbell lairds over layout and construction, and the full use they made of natural feature and setting. However substantial the shelter-belt, there Is always in these gardens somewhere where you can catch a glimpse of Loch Etive, Loch Melfort or the island-studded Firth of Lorn.
Even keen gardeners are too ready to be charmed principally by flowers, when we know quite well that these are only the thin icing on a very rich cake. In spring, I might well have missed the fox-red indumentum (hairs on the undersides of the leaves) of R. exirnium, or the cinnamon bark of R. thorn- 'cola And, in spring, I should hardly have glanced at the handsome and lofty trees which provide the shade and protection so necessary to rhododendrons. In any event, it would be misleading to say that there was nothing 'out'. August has its own, albeit limited, range of flowering shrubs, some of which thrive in a warm, wet climate. Hydrangeas of every kind look far better here than in dusty front gardens in southern towns: the hortensia flowers turn a bright litmus blue when grown in acid soil. More than once on a garden tour I startled my family with a cry of Eucryphia', and they were left to wonder why they should be cryphing and where. If a tall, stately, white-flowered shrub-tree like Eucryphia glutinosa could be persuaded to grow in any soil or climate, it would be as populous in the south as laburnum and a great deal more welcome.
Gardens on the west coast of Scotland which open to visitors usually donate at least part of their takings to Scotland's Gardens Scheme, so information on them may be found in Scotland's Gardens, the Scheme's Yellow Book, published annually. Most get far fewer visitors than comparable gardens in the south. So, not only can one come across unfamiliar plants growing with great vigour and dash in a beautiful setting, but one often has the place to oneself whatever the time of year.
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