Scotland’s best woodland gardens

LARGE parts of Scotland are transformed when rhododendrons, camellias and a host of other flowering shrubs cover hillsides and woodlands in an extraordinary display of vivid colour every spring and summer. We like to think of this are one of our natural wonders, a ravishing show that has visitors heading west, to the mild and damp coastal areas where it’s at its best. But the plants that sustain it are, for the most part, native to other parts of the world, introduced by a hardy breed of Victorian and Edwardian plant hunters who risked their lives on remote mountain hillsides and among warring tribes.

Yet something extraordinary happened when these introductions got their roots into Scottish soil, they flourished more strongly than at home and gardeners with space to indulge their passion for these exotic arrivals embraced them on a large scale, creating a style of gardening that has gone on to inspire landscapes around the world.

Someone who knows these gardens and the stories behind them is Kenneth Cox, a third-generation plant hunter and nurseryman from Perthshire. In 1919 Kenneth’s grandfather, Euan Cox, returned from an expedition to Burma with the renowned plant collector Reginald Farrer, laden with seed of rhododendrons, conifers, perennial and bulbs. With these he established the woodland garden at Glendoick House, which is still the family home.

Kenneth’s father, Peter, founded Glendoick Nursery in 1953, specialising in rhododendrons and during the 1960s and 70s, when China and most Himalayan countries were closed to plant hunting, he headed east with his friend Peter Hutchison to the Caucasus and Arunchal Pradesh in north-east India.

As soon as China reopened in the early 1980s, Cox and Hutchison were back in the wild, with the 1982 Sinobritish Expedition to Cangshan the first of many sorties into Yunnan, Sichuan, Tibet and north-east India and by 1995 Kenneth was accompanying them.

Besides collecting and breeding plants, Kenneth has also found time to explore many of the finest woodland gardens around the world and his new book, Woodland Gardening: Landscaping with Rhododendrons, Magnolias and Camellias is the first to set out the origins of this style of gardening and track its global spread from these shores.

He said: “Scotland is one of the key countries in the story of woodland gardening; the cool damp climate is ideally suited to rhododendrons, Meconopsis and many other woodland plants.”

Notable gardens in the north of Scotland include Inverewe, Attadale and Blackhills. Central Scotland boasts Glendoick and Branklyn, while the south has Dawyck, Glenwhan, Corsock, Castle Kennedy and Logan.

If you want to visit them, go now while the rhododendrons are in flower, azaleas perfume the air and Meconopsis are unfurling silken petals in astonishing shades of blue. Here is Kenneth Cox’s pick of the best

Inverewe

Wester Ross

We may wonder what possessed Inverewe founder Osgood Mackenzie to attempt to garden on such an unpromising site as Am Plock on Scotland’s north-west coast. Inverewe’s story, told in Mackenzie’s autobiography A Hundred Years in the Highlands, shows him as a determined fellow with patience and the foresight to realise that, without shelter, nothing would grow. Over a 15-year period he planted three species of pine and Rhododendron ponticum, followed by alder, birch and rowans to establish extensive thick mixed windbreaks.

By the early years of the 20th century, woodland was well established, and the site was suitable for the new rhododendrons and other plants then being discovered in China by Ernest Wilson, George Forrest and Frank Kingdon Ward. Mackenzie particularly loved the “big-leaved” rhododendron species such as Rhododendron falconeri and R. hodgsonii, which he planted alongside everything else he could find room for: Agapanthus, tree ferns, cabbage trees, Watsonia, Correa, Abutilon, Oleander, Leptosperpum, Metrosideros and much more.

Inverewe can thank the Gulf Stream for its favourable climate, as it’s very far north – 57.8 degrees, north of Moscow, on a latitude with southern Alaska. Inverewe Garden, Poolewe, Achnasheen IV22 2LG www.nts.org.uk

Corsock House

Dumfries and Galloway

The 20-acre garden at Corsock House contains a collection of fine mature trees and rhododendrons, planted by three families: the Dunlops in the 19th century, the Mcewans in the early 20th century and the Ingalls since 1951. The top of the garden is bounded by a 40-acre loch created by damming the river which runs down through the curving wooded glen, at the bottom of which is a water garden with several ponds, a fountain, azaleas and

Japanese maples as well as a trellis pagoda as a focal point. Along the river are classical statues and follies and an unusual trompe l’oeil bridge which disguises the retaining wall of a dam. The fact that the plants are not allowed to obscure Corsock’s design is a key element of its success. Corsock has particularly good autumn colour. Corsock House, Castle Douglas DG7 3DJ www.scotlandsgardens.org

Dawyck Botanic Garden Scottish Borders

One of the three outstations of Scotland’s Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (Logan and Benmore are the others), this is an outstanding