WEST SIDE STORY
Approachable only by boat, Hillary and Rick Rohde’s Knoydart garden, Li, is a West Coast haven that has become their family’s playground, finds Antoinette Galbraith
The beautiful Knoydart garden can only be reached by boat, and has become this family's west coast playground
The only way to approach Li, Hillary and Rick Rohde’s garden on the Knoydart Peninsula, is by a two-mile trip by boat from Arnisdale on the opposite shore. Nigh on 45 years ago, after weeks of walking the Highlands in search of somewhere to live, Rick made the crossing and instantly fell in love with Li’s romantic position overlooking the loch at the foot of a circle of hills dominated by Ladhar Bheinn.
The find was, he admits, the ‘fulfilment of a long held dream’. Avoiding close inspection of the derelict croft ‘less the feeling of enchantment should be broken’, he determined to make a life there for himself and his young family.
Two years later, having secured a lease on the seven-acre plot, Rick and Hillary moved in on a bright but chilly winter day with their 18-month-old son Leif, two-week-old daughter Zoe, a Highland pony and foal, and an assortment of livestock. Although the intervening time was used to deer fence the property and re-roof the croft, preparations were minimal.
‘We had no toilet, no furniture and precious little money,’ Hillary recalls. The only water source was the burn cascading down the hill, which was later harnessed to introduce electricity and even the internet to Li.
Recalling the forbidding landscape, the stony, seaweed strewn shore, and the rush and broken infested fields, she says that ‘at that time there was no
thought of a garden. It would have been a presumption.’ Apart from the three Scots pines standing guard over the croft and some rowans clinging to the burnside, there were no other trees.
That spring, Rick, ‘driven by the need for fresh vegetables for the family’, planted a kitchen garden. Barrowloads of seaweed were dragged up from the beach to fertilise the shallow, loamy soil. ‘It takes Rick five minutes to do something that takes me an hour,’ Hillary comments. He also planted fruit trees and soft fruits, including raspberries, gooseberries and currants.
“The family lived fulltime at Li, the children commuting to school by boat and school taxi
‘And a few ornamental cherries such as pink flowering Prunus serrulata Kanzan and Acer rubrum.’
The importance of planting a shelter belt of conifers and hardwoods to protect from the south-westerly gales was clear. While slow to establish these later blended with a natural regeneration of native trees to support different bird species. When Leif arrived home from school with sycamore seedlings raised in a plastic cup they were planted along the east boundary of the property in an echo of the majestic sycamore avenue at Arnisdale Lodge on the other side of the loch.
For the first ten years the family lived full-time at Li, the children commuting to school by boat and school taxi. Rick raised sheep while working part-time locally, before developing an academic career that now takes them abroad in the Scottish winter. Using her knowledge of seaweed and plants to dye and spin wool, Hillary established a successful knitwear business with exports worldwide.
Despite their happiness Hillary yearned to create something of a
human scale between themselves and the inhospitable landscape. The first glimmer of a garden came when Rick scythed a grassy patch for the children. Next a few plants were kindly given by villagers in Corran.
‘We took any plants we were given and stuck them in where the rocks permitted. We didn’t know any of the names.’ After a few failures Hillary decided to learn more.
Inspired by a trio of Beth Chatto books she plucked up the courage to order a list of plants she felt suited the conditions. Varieties including Erythronium, Filipendula, Smilacena and butter yellow Kirengeshoma palmata were purchased in singles. All but one flourished and have since been divided and spread around the garden.
Her passion for plants was born, and on my visit Rick was in a race against the weather to plant Hillary’s latest purchases. ‘I still arrive back with my hands full of plants,’ she says.
A raft of projects accommodated new plants and divisions. The island beds merged into generous curved
“Rick was in a race against the weather to plant Hillary’s purchases
borders, the steep sides of the burn became a water garden and a magnolia grove flourished. A pond garden was created from a trio of trout holding ponds and a rockery, while late summer colour comes from hydrangeas and acers. Hillary’s love of the exotic is nurtured by crescents of flashy, showy rhododendrons and azaleas while clematis and roses ramble up trees. Rick is in charge of the pots planted with frilly red and white parrot tulips and lilies.
Sheep numbers were cut and the meadows on either side of the property were planted with bulbs; Pheasant’s Eye Narcissus is a particular favourite. Additional woodland was fenced, allowing carpets of bluebells to flower for the first time in perhaps a century.
Forty-five years after moving to Li, the Rohdes remain enchanted by their refuge. ‘Some plants, like me, adapt and turn out to love it,’ Hillary says. ‘Of all my various endeavours, the garden at Li has perhaps inspired my deepest passion.’