Arduaine Gardens

A discrete sign by the side of the road whispering, “Scottish snowdrop festival,” tempts you down the path to this woodland garden. At the bottom of the hill, a louder, multicoloured sign confesses that the snowdrops are struggling but promises early blooming Rhod. nobleanum and Rhod. mucronatum.

You’re hooked and enter the garden. The sheltered hillside is planted with a vast collection of rhodies, camellias, azaleas and other exotics. Even on a bitter February day this creates a fabulous patchwork of textures and shades of green that stop you in your tracks.

Tranquil ponds reflect the sky and sea which you glimpse just beyond the trees.

And everywhere there is a promise of Spring.

The path leads you into denser woodland.

The canopy closes over your head and you marvel at the height of the tree rhodies, their elegant, crenellated leaves and the beautiful contrasts of bronzes and greens.

Are you feeling claustrophobic?

Don’t worry just around the corner a viewpoint opens up a breathtaking seascape.

Back into the wild and woolly wood. The damp climate means many of the older plants are draped with moss and lichen.

Huge plate like leaves capture and hold fallen pine needles.

The incline is so gradual you don’t realise you have climbed half way up the glen until a break in the wall of green shows a tree rhodie just coming into bloom.

A gentle stroll brings you to the top and the garden spreads out beneath you.

A rustling at your feet makes you jump. You look down and see a blackbird rootling industriously through the deep leaf litter. He glances up for a moment to meet your eye but he is used to visitors and returns, unconcerned, to his work. You are conscious, for the first time, that the garden is filled with bird song. Spring is round the corner and they have territories to defend. What a gorgeous habitat.

Now the path meanders down the hill, the rock faces are covered with a living tapestry of greens.

You’re almost back at the car park. You turn to take a last look. It could be a long goodbye.

The future of Arduaine is uncertain. The garden is over 100 years old and houses a unique collection rhodies and azaleas. It was gifted to the public, in the care of the Scottish National Trust, by its owners in 1992. Last year the trust announced it could no longer afford the upkeep and proposed closing the gardens. Protesters won a one year reprieve and are trying to raise funds to support Arduaine.

Arduaine Garden

National Trust

The third tier

The last post was far too long and boring so I’m going to gallop through the rest of the garden. Up the steps to the third tier, summerhouse on the right, which is slowly being stripped to the wood by effing wasps looking for nest building material; a decking area, perfect for sitting in the sun watching the loch; red gravel area, don’t know what the original purpose was but I was thinking of putting in raised veg beds, only problem is the salt wind which, when in the mood, blasts across the top of the garden. On the left, lawn and a higgedly-piggedly line of conifers whose burnt brown patches show they are not at all happy with the salt wind. Up another small flight of steps, more lawn on the left, small stream in upper left corner surrounded by nettles and brambles, more conifers. To the right a mossy flat, a large stand of hebes in the corner and a hugely overgrown leylandii hedge marks the right boundary.

The second tier

This is, at present, the most functional and least interesting level of the garden. On the left is the drying green, on the right a sloping grass bank with several overgrown shrubs and behind them a line of very old fruit bushes. The first two pics show how it looked when I moved in and the second two how it looks today. Of course I arrived in the depths of a wet Argyll Winter and it is now the height of Summer, so not a fair comparison.

It is perhaps a bit harsh to call this level uninteresting. In the Spring the lower part of the bank is covered in bluebells which gives me an excellent reason for not cutting the grass. The shrubs, though they do all need the attention of an axe wielding maniac, are ones I would have chosen for my garden (apart from another blasted pampas grass). A variegated weigela dominates to the right. In late Spring/Summer it is bowed down with blossoms which vary from soft creamy pink to rich, dusky mauve. I have often sat at the summerhouse on the next tier, which brings my eye level to the top of weigela, and looked straight into the eyes of a caterpillar-carrying bluetit, returning to feed chicks in my nesting box. There is also a gold leaved spirea which the bumble bees adore and a well established azalea that is covered in vivid scarlet flowers in early Spring.

To the left, I have worked hard on the grass of the drying green. After much weeding, feeding and moss raking it is starting reward me with a smooth green carpet rather than the hummocky, midge-infested, trip hazard of last year. I'm trying to hand cut twice a week rather than use the electric mower. This means I get some aerobic exercise (booo hiss), save money on power (hurrah) and because the lawn is regularly cut I don't need to gather up the small amount of clippings but can let them mulch back in. It seems daft to me to fertilise a lawn and then, when the lush, green grass springs up, remove all that goodness just to tip it on the compost heap. By the boundary fence there is a beautiful camellia which throws such a profusion of white blossom in Spring you can't see the leaves underneath. Two ancient honeysuckles were trained in a woody, diseased tangle against the retaining wall. I have cut these back to the ground and am waiting to see if they survive. I planted a second camellia by the steps and think I may try to establish a line of these to hide the clotheswhirly from the house.

Garden tour: the first tier

I suppose, now I've wibbled on for a week, that some idea of the garden layout might be helpful. When I originally described the plot as a "tiered garden", I probably gave the wrong impression. That phrase, no doubt, conjures up vistas of beautifully landscaped Italian gardens, perched high on Tuscan hilltops, with tall poplars, exquisite statues, fountains and grottos. Ha! Not quite. In fact, this Argyll garden staggers erratically (very like its current occupier) up a wet hillside, lurching from bare rock, to bog, to brambles before eventually collapsing in a disorganised heap against some "stock proof fencing". Beyond that there's what was optimistically described, in the estate agent's details, as open farmland, a small, muddy paddock backing onto a belt of scrub that leads in turn to forestry planting.

Let's start at the bottom with the first "tier". The kitchen door opens onto a flagged walkway and immediately the first step up onto a mossy, stone-walled bank with a red gravel path. The steps carry on up the hillside, bisecting the whole garden. On either side, there are areas which, for want of a better word, I shall describe as "flowerbeds". When I moved in there was a lot of hard landscaping, bare rock and well-weeded bark mulch. There were some absolutely gorgeous rhodies, azaleas and camelias, a few struggling heathers, a couple of unhappy roses, and a robust pampas grass, but to my eyes there was an awful lot of empty ground and little, after the Spring burst, to encourage wildlife. I know you're not meant to do anything with a garden for the first year, just to see what pops up but it was so bare after the rhodies had flowered, I couldn't resist the odd dibble. Last year I added Mum's verbascum and wall flower, a sea holly, a weigela, some campanulas, slug resistant hostas and allowed wildflowers, in particular foxgloves, to self seed everywhere. The last two pics show the first tier today.