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The west coast of Scotland is affected by the unpredictable Atlantic weather system. Dreich sky(Dreich Meaning damp, gloomy, miserable). But today was not one of them. We wandered along paths that exuded sweet scents, the sky was a bright blue, shimmering with every other hue of the rainbow, and the paths were lined with flowering trees, lawns, and bushes that glowed in the spring sunshine. The sound of music floating through the branches enhanced this moody setting. Somewhere not far away, someone was playing a bagpipe.
The “Impossible Garden” planted in the 1860s.Credit:
We’ll find out who it is later, but first we’ll delve into the botanical wonderland of Inverewe Gardens. Our Ponant cruise ship, North Hotelanchored beside Loch Ewe, a deep inlet off the Atlantic Ocean. During World War II, Loch Ewe was a busy area, serving as a rendezvous point for Allied Arctic convoys. But it seemed we were the only ones here this morning, save for the seals bobbing their heads above water as we sailed in the Zodiac towards Garden Pier.
Inverurie Gardens was created in the 1860s by a young Scotsman named Osgood Mackenzie. His mother bought him the then-barren land, which stretched across a promontory overlooking a loch and inland to Mount Torridon, one of the most precipitous peaks in the Scottish Highlands. Mackenzie, then just 20 years old, built a mansion and laid the groundwork for what critics called the “impossible garden”.
After planting native and Scandinavian pines to protect the site from high winds and sea spray, MacKenzie began experimenting with exotic plants from around the world. Over the decades, he discovered that species that normally languished in northern latitudes (like Newfoundland and Gothenburg) could thrive in more southerly climates, including British botanical hotspots like Cornwall and London’s Kew Gardens, thanks to the warm currents of the Atlantic Ocean.
During World War II, the town of Loch Ewe was very busy.
The sounds of butterflies and birdsong kept us company as we made our way through bushes of shimmering rhododendrons and azaleas. There are about 400 varieties of rhododendrons that bloom in Inverurie, some native to India, Nepal and China. (A different rhododendron blooms here every month, and in 2019 gardeners were surprised to see a colourful hybrid with bell-shaped petals in white, pink and yellow.)
You might also catch your eye at Himalayan blue poppies, Mediterranean rock roses, South African succulents, Chilean cherry tomatoes, Brazilian giant rhubarb, towering Californian redwoods and scurrying Scottish red squirrels, which dot the winding paths of the 21-hectare gardens, lovingly groomed by MacKenzie’s daughter Mary and later managed by the National Trust for Scotland in the 1950s.
Colorful – the garden includes plants from as far away as South Africa.Credit:
There are also Tasmanian ferns and eucalyptus trees, as well as the rare Wollemi pine, which was cultivated from a pine tree discovered in New South Wales in 1994 (and previously thought to have gone extinct two million years ago). One of the best places to linger is the terraced walled gardens, which run down to the lake and looked glorious when we visited in May, with emerald layers of plants covered with fruits, vegetables and flowers, including pansies and camellias.
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