Argyll’s wild beauty is safe in its rhododendron gardens

Press, 30 December 1988, Page 15

Argyll’s wild beauty is safe in its rhododendron gardens

The charm of many gardens lies in their unspoiled, peaceful nature. That is usually why they were created, and it is what visitors to them hope to find. But once we tramp, however respectfully, in great numbers along narrow paths, we threaten to destroy the very peace we seek.

As a gardening writer, as well as enthusiastic garden visitor, I hear the echo of Oscar Wilde’s gloomy words in my head: “Yet each man kills the thing he loves ... Some with a flattering word.” How pleasing it is to be able to say, therefore, that no such danger threatens the rhododendron gardens of Argyll. Real geographical remoteness, together with Anglo-Saxon insularity, see to that. The irony is that these extensive “wild” gardens could accommodate quite large numbers of visitors, were they ever to get them; trees tower above an understorey of rhododendrons, which mask the crowds and hush their noise, while the paths are rarely so manicured as to risk being broken by their passing feet. When my ancestral blood stirred me to head northwards at the end of April, I was half-inclined to think the beauty of the West Coast woodland gardens exaggerated. I was not prepared for the soft, poetic beauty of Achnacloich, the Himalayan grandeur of Crarae Glen, or the wild spendour of Arduaine.

tablished many of the best West Coast gardens at the end of the last century, or the early years of this. Most gardens are therefore now mature (in some cases, a shade overmature).

We gardeners, who cultivate alkaline soils, are inclined, in our ignorance, to dismiss all rhododendrons as fancy versions of that übiquitous weed that hit the headlines last week and is now taking over Snowdonia and Exmoor — the rampageous R. ponticum. But the variety, both of flowering season and flower shape, is enormous. By the end of a week, I had become an enthusiastic, though temporary, instant expert, recognising Rhododendron barbatum by the “beard” of bristles on the top of the leaf stalks, R. falconeri by its lemon-yellow bells, R. triflorum by its

Much can be put down to the climate. The influence of the Gulf Stream means hard frosts are almost unknown, while the average annual rainfall on the coast is about 1180 cm; the conditions arenas favourable for the growing of large rhododendrons and magnolias as any in the British Isles, provided there is effective shelter against the sat-laden westerly winds. But credit is also due to the imagination of the Scottish lairds and northern industrialists yho es-

URSULA BUCHAN visits the west coast of Scotland’s subtropical woodlands.

scented flowers, borne in threes and R. sinogrande by its huge 0.75 m long evergreen leaves. I was amazed by the stateliness of the many rhododendron trees.

Other shrubs, such as Griselinia littoralis and Pittosporum tenuifolium, are also trees in the garden at Arduaine (pronounced Ardooaney). Set on a promontory which noses into the sea-loch, Loch Melfort, this was a sub-tropical jungle when two middle-aged brothers, Harry and Edmund Wright, acquired it in 1971.

They were Essex nurseymen who had spent their holidays in Appin, and who gratefully sold up and moved north when this garden came on the market. One does not get the impression they regret it, even though there are still, after 17 years, some areas of the garden yet to

renovate. The 9ha garden was created by a Ceylon tea planter, Sir Arthur Campbell, after 1898. Among his triumphs was the first flowering of Rhododendron giganteum in the western hemisphere, in 1936. The Wrights’ knowledge and enthusiasm has helped Arduaine, after 30 years of neglect, to regain its reputation as a garden full of the rare and the enormous. Alan Mitchell, the tree expert, took some persuading that he was looking at the deciduous southern beech Nothofagus antarctica: the one in Arduaine was twice as tall as the current record-holder.

There has been much hard physical labour: fencing out the deer and cows, making paths, digging out ponds, and removing enormous windblown trees. At the same time, the Wrights have taken care to identify many of the trees and shrubs and fostered collections of small plants like meconopsis (Himalayan blue-poppy) and Asiatic primulas.

There are many other notable gardens in the region: Achamore on the island of Gigha; Ardanaiseig; Crarae Glen; the Younger Botanic Garden at Benmore; Torosay Castle on Mull, and, a favourite of mine, the magical garden at Achnacloich, on the southern shore of Loch Etive. Anyone who is not frightened of a little warm rain (so beneficial to the rhododendrons and primulas) could spend a very happy week in spring touring the scarcefrequented roads of Argyll. (The rhododendrons have been out for two weeks this year due to the warm spring.) What makes the idea even more attractive is the thought of the legendary Highland hospitality. The comfortable Creggans Inn, at Strachur on the east shore of Loch Fyne, for example, makes a speciality of planning tours of anything up to a dozen gardens in Argyll for individuals or small groups. — The London “Observer.”