Scottish Gardens
stretches of shoreline, a Victorian Pinetum and a Rock Garden created by Thomas H Mawson, one of the 19th century’s most celebrated architects. Since then leading garden designers have played a part in creating the striking plantings around the contemporary visitor centre and in redeveloping the huge kitchen garden. At Lea Gardens on Shetland, owner Rosa Steppanova has designed every feature herself, including the many sculptures made from driftwood, fishing nets and other flotsam washed up on the shoreline, which lies just 200m away. This is gardening on the edge and for 30 years Rosa has been rewriting the rulebook on what will survive at the northern-most limit of Scotland.
photoS: © ScottiSh viewpoint/alamy
Above: Culzean Castle on the South Ayrshire coast. Right: Inverewe is famed for its exotic plants, despite being further north than Moscow
HEaDLanDs It is hard to believe that Scottish laird Osgood Mackenzie looked out over the barren, rocky peninsula of Am Ploc Ard in remote Wester Ross and decided that it was the perfect place for a garden. It took a lifetime of endeavour, during which soil was imported, a vast shelterbelt was planted and an extraordinary curving walled garden was created on a raised beach, for that vision to become a reality at Inverewe. But today sub-tropical species flourish on the 58th parallel, the same latitude as Hudson’s Bay and St Petersburg. The woodland is home to 2,500 species of trees and shrubs from around the world and water lilies cover a series of serene ponds. In recent years the garden has enhanced its South African collection and now Kniphofias, Watsonias and Osteospermums flourish. www.britain-magazine.com
If you were to throw a stone from the tower of the Castle of Mey it would land in the Pentland Firth, that wild stretch of water that separates Scotland from Orkney. The castle is the most northerly garden on the mainland and it was just a ruin when the late Queen Mother sighted it from the Royal Yacht Britannia and set about restoring it. The Shell Garden, with its climbing roses, pansies and nasturtiums would become her favourite spot and today visitors can buy produce from the vegetable garden and enjoy the smells, textures, tastes and colours of the beautiful Sensory Border. Meanwhile the Diamond Jubilee Rose Garden, which was planted to mark the tenth anniversary of her death, is now beginning to flourish. britain
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