The green shoots of recovery

It seems that we have had an exceptional winter here at Torosay, with a lot more frost than normal. Fortunately there has been very little snow and it has been very dry which has been extremely good for us in the garden, enabling us to complete the hard landscaping of the entrance area to Torosay.

We have now moved on to a new area, just off from the statue walk, where there is a 'wee dell' that for a long while has not been doing very much. It's slightly boggy and contains some yellow Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus) a Royal Fern and some Darmera peltata (Peltiphyllum). As it does get very wet there, during the winter we have put some drainage in to the wetter low-lying areas which seems to be working very well.

The big job this week has been to put in a new path which will make the area even more accessible to the public. The current path has been extended and now carries through the Crinodendron hedge to the circular rockery. A very peculiar rockery actually, out on a limb, resulting in very few people visiting it. My hope is that this will now change with the addition of the new path.

I did say it was a very peculiar rockery and not without good reason. The rockery is in a rough circle, divided into four segments, so it is quite formal in appearance but the really strange thing is...whoever heard of a rockery being built in a hollow where it does not get a huge amount of light!?

Work on the rockery will be a future project.

Anyway, it currently houses some very nice Salix boydii, also a good Eucrythia milliganii, some Celmisia, Leptospermum prostrata and Podocarpus alpinus. Apart from the Willow there does seem to be a bit of an Antipodean theme which we may expand upon, perhaps we should call it the 'Southern Alps'.

Lets go back to the boggy dell. It is a fairly large area with very few plants in it and we thought as it is so sheltered it would be a great place for some Tree Ferns. There are already some existing specimens, but they are not well situated in this area. However it is the perfect growing environment for the Royal Fern, which is already thriving there alongside the Wollemi Pine and a large piece of Bog Oak. It actually looks like the beginnings of a bit of a primeval jungle down there.

There are a few more brave souls starting to flower in the garden; we have two very nice plants of Rhododendron 'Christmas Cheer' which are looking great, they don't look like the 'Christmas Cheer' that I remember down south, but I am no expert on Rhododendrons. The Hellebores at the top of the statue walk are now looking good with a little splattering of Aconites and the limey buds of Daphne laureola - things are looking very cheerful! Also to be found in these beds are some of the first Snowdrops but there are masses of them elsewhere creating a wonderful blanket effect. Going back to the aforementioned Daphne, we now have a small collection of Daphne bholua types and amongst them a very nice 'Alba' on the lakeside bank.