March Hares

Just before we got to the end of February, on the 26th to be precise, we had the first buds begining to open on one of my favourite Rhodo's. The reason that I like it so much is that it has more than one period of interest..the plant I am talking about is R. barbatum.

If you're not familiar with it, it has very dark scarlet flowers which tend to highlight the beautiful pinky bronze peeling bark. I always remember seeing several of these at Stourhead, I wonder if they have started to flower yet down in Wiltshire?

Another early bird Rhodo that started to flower in February is fargesii. Its pale rose flowers are suprisingly large for its size and abundantly produced.

Torosay has a large number of Daffodils around the gardens, some of them very old varieties, fortunately a number of them have started to flower. already. As one of my staff is Welsh it meant she was able to have a few blooms in the house for St Davids day.

We have had to start getting ready for what we hope are going to be lots of visitors. The 1st of April is rapidly approaching when we open the gates to the house, so lots of gravel has been spread about on the forecourt and the Tea room terrace to give the place a fresh new feel.

Talking of opening the gates we have had to do a bit of work on them aswell, rabbits and hares are quite a problem in the garden so keeping them out is of paramount importance. Rabbit netting is vital but on the gates it gets a lot of extra wear and tear so something tougher is needed for this purpose. We have been fixing some one inch square welded mesh sheets onto the gates so that should hopefully do the trick.

Down by the railway on the shore most days there are a pair of hares running around in their winter coats, pure white as driven snow. Just a couple of our many friends from the animal kingdom that reside on the Torosay estate.