Garden gates flung wide
DISCOVER lilies, agapanthus and hydrangeas in full bloom at a secret garden.
TUCKED away beneath the hill down to Peninver is one of Kintyre’s most magical kingdoms.
Last weekend visitors to An Ceardach, the home and garden of painter Christine Russell and her husband Livingston, following Art Map Argyll’s trail, would have seen superb seascapes and experienced the garden’s idyllic Kilbrannan Sound setting.
The rhododendrons may be past but late summer colour is everywhere with lilies, agapanthus and hydrangeas. Walking up immaculately mown grass paths on the east facing terraces, between trees, shrubs and at least three ponds in a tumbling water feature, it is hard to imagine the bracken, bramble and scrub wilderness which the Russells have tamed over the course of 30 years.
Red tomatoes are not the only fruits in the greenhouse. It was a revelation to find vines with bunches of plump grapes. In addition, a chair and easel by the window looking across the sea is one of Mrs Russell’s favourite places for creating artworks.
Naturally in Kintyre, water features in many ways in the garden. A stream runs through and, as if there is not enough, including the ever present sea, an ornamental globe fountain is mesmerising on a terrace in front of the house.
It is not all show, with a hedged-in vegetable patch and onions drying alongside just above a small hen house and field of black sheep. Further up the slope, pear trees provide the raw materials for chutney.
For many years the Russells have been popular speakers at SWIs and church guilds where they present a multimedia show of the work that went into the garden.
The weekend’s visits also raised £500 to pay for two seats at Campbeltown Picture House, which was Mrs Russell’s chosen charity.
Later this month the garden is one of the excursions on offer to National Trust for Scotland cruisers whose ship is due into the loch on September 15.