Prince Charles’ garden is royally magnificent
LIVING in South Ayrshire, I have some very fine gardens on my doorstep.
One is Dumfries House, the Robert Adam mansion near Cumnock.
This hit the headlines in 2007 when Prince Charles and his charities stepped in to buy the house to prevent its unique collection of Chippendale furniture being sold off. Since then work has been ongoing to restore more than 2000 acres of gardens, woods and parkland and today the centrepiece of the estate is the Queen Elizabeth Garden. Ten years ago this was a derelict space filled with scrub and weeds.
Today it has broad terraces, decorative plants, vegetables, espaliered fruit trees and cut flowers borders.
Step into the glasshouses in spring and the scent of hyacinths and pelargoniums fills the air while, outside, euphorbias spill from the borders and spring bulbs grow in stone urns.
The garden covers four acres and, at the western end, a further acre is occupied by the Kauffman Education Garden, where children from across Ayrshire come to get hands-on experience of growing food. Brian Corr is head gardener and one of his first tasks on arrival two years ago was to set up an education scheme for staff. Now all nine of the estate’s gardeners, many of whom came through the ranks of the Prince’s Trust, are completing the Royal Horticultural Society’s Level 2 Certificate in Practical Horticulture. Dumfries House makes the perfect environment for training, Along the banks of a burn are woodland gardens planted with spring bulbs, colourful rhododendrons and scented azaleas. These are followed in summer by hundreds of agapanthus - a planting idea that I’ve copied in my own garden.
A circular yew maze sits close on one side of the River Lugar while on the other is an arboretum, which was one of the earliest areas of the gardens to be restored.
“The key to keeping it all workings is continuous planning and attention to detail,” Brian told me as he took me on a tour of the estate. Since his arrival he has relocated the vegetable area, drawn up plans for a new rose garden, overseen a survey of the estate’s trees and finetuned almost every planted area within the estate. “The restoration was carried out by garden designer Michael Innes and we are now adding to his plans,” he added. Throughout the gardens, regular mulching with compost is having a positive effect on the heavy soil, while the vegetable areas have benefited from the application of manure from the estate’s organic farm. This may be a royal garden, but apart from a nominal charge for entry to the walled garden, the estate operates a policy of open access. Brian says: “We maintain the gardens to a very high standard so visitors will always see it at its best.”