A little gardening

We came to Glengarry via Inverness and the west shore of Loch Ness this time, in order to visit Abriachan Nurseries. Although it is late in the season their garden is still looking enticing, but we concentrated on the things for sale, which are good. There was an amazing geranium growing in a corner, said to be Salome: big pale mauve flowers with bold dark centres. Well, that is as may be. I have put one sold under that name at the edge of the border in front of Klarg. The one flower it is showing at present seems too small and dark. It is probably a bastard offspring.

Also in that border we now have a tall verbena bonariensis. I will have to surround it with bracken fronds in the cold weather. What I hope for ultimately is a tall, light screen of flowers there, if the verbena seeds, which it did for Christopher Lloyd. In front of that is a pale pink fuchsia: White Knight's Blush. Another one for coddling in the winter.

To the right of these, as one looks from the house, there is a very wet shallow groove of ground draining down to Allt na Minion. I walked in it up to my boot tops when it was covered by snow last winter, and had to be rescued by Livy. This will be one of the bog gardens near the house. I have just planted ligularia dentata Britt-Marie Crawford there - good dark leaves and big yellow daisies in due course; and astilboides tabularis, which used to be a rodgersia - large shield-shaped leaves and a plume of white flowers. A gunnera will follow; but there are few available at present because everyone's nursery stocks were knocked out by the cold last winter. I am also going to try growing some candelabra primulas from seed for these damp bits.

The general idea with all of this is that these things will be split and encouraged to spread. In a space this size it is no good just having one of something; you need lots and lots.

There are quite a lot of rushes in the earth put around the house by the builders - a disadvantage arising from the fact that the easiest soil for them to move was from the bog. I dig it up and throw it back into the bog when I come upon it, but it would be rather a major operation to get rid of it all. Yet another thing that visiting work parties will be encouraged to undertake, in the non-midge seasons.

On the scree bank behind the house, where there is already a lavender which I hope may cope with the cold better in very sharp drainage, I have put three sempervivums: Cantabricum Riano, Atlanticum and Blood Tip. They are in almost pure gravel. A whole slope of them would be something. Also in there is a gorgeous saxifrage: fortunei Blackberry and Apple Pie. It has thick shiny leaves about the size of a fifty pence piece, red underneath and green on top.

As I write I am taking a rest from planting, as the midges in the vegetation I am disturbing have been rejoicing in my presence. Still to plant are four more blue poppies (meconopsis sheldonii), which will join the two already at the top of the slope outside the kitchen window (which may be meconopsis betonicifolia); and an azalea luteum. It is a seedling from Abriachan and I am assured it has a good scent. I am not sure what shade of yellow it will be, though. I am going to put it under the birches near the meconopses.

I also have a Miss Jessop rosemary; but she is rather thin and weedy and I think it would be a kindness to keep her in a pot for a bit.