LI: A GARDEN ON THE WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND

Rough Bounds, £30 ISBN 978-1527238510

A sumptuous book that tells the story of the creation of a garden over more than 40 years in a remote and challenging Scottish landscape.

Reviewer Jane Perrone is a gardening journalist.

This book tells of a feat that is impressive – incredible even. Only a blindly optimistic young couple in their twenties would have contemplated taking on a derelict house on the remote Knoydart Peninsula, a boat ride across a loch from the nearest neighbours, with a baby and a toddler in tow. Everything was against them: the weeds, the weather, the lack of help (or electricity, come to that), a tiny budget for plants, and a lack of horticultural expertise.

And yet out of this harsh terrain, Hillary and Rick Rohde made something beautiful. First, they deer-fenced their land, planted trees, and survived – a vegetable patch was the first step towards gardening. Hillary began to nurture seedlings donated by the local postmistress, and it was poring over a Beth Chatto book that sparked her desire to design a garden.

The Rohdes record the development of the garden

season by season, weaving in diary entries that give a flavour of their existence. Exquisite photographs of lush banks filled with hostas and stands of parrot tulips are interspersed with more sobering images to remind you of the reality of gardening in such a place: Hillary dressed for gardening in a midge-proof outfit of veil, wellies and waterproofs, or the dramatic view across the loch as a storm whips up.

Few will see Li for themselves; it is a private space in a remote location that is not to open to visitors. Instead, the Rohdes have shared the story behind the garden in a self-published work. There’s always the danger that, without the judicious eye of an editor, a book about a garden becomes a vanity project. But Hillary and Rick are so honest about the missteps and mistakes behind the beautiful photographs that one cannot help but admire their achievements.