THE HILLS ARE ALIVE
Working tirelessly to re-establish the country charm of Lip na Cloiche’s gardens on the steep hillsides of Mull was a labour of love for owner Lucy Mackenzie, finds Antoinette Galbraith
This stunning Mull garden, Lip Na Cloiche, was a labour of love but is now the gift that keeps on giving
Twenty-five years ago, when Lucy Mackenzie bought a ruined bothy on a rocky, bracken and gorse-covered hillside on the Isle of Mull, it did not seem a promising location for a lush and exuberant garden. Though she is a Muileach, the term for someone born and brought up on Mull, Lucy lived for many years in Italy. On her return to the UK in 2000 she spent time in England until her daughter, Olympic event rider Vittoria Panizzon, had finished her education. Keen to study horticulture she worked in a nursery garden before returning full-time to Mull in 2005.
A daunting task awaited in this windswept spot. It took eight years to clear the steep hillside, inaccessible to a wheelbarrow. ‘The turf had to be removed in bags over my shoulder,’ explains Lucy. Retaining walls, paths and bridges over the attractive burn had to be built while early planting was fraught with trial and error: with no shelter from the harsh Atlantic gales, many plants succumbed or simply blew away. ‘Fortunately the garden faces south-west and enjoys all the sun, and despite the heavy rainfall the steep slope drains freely.’
Fifteen years on the garden has an almost tropical feel, lushly planted with salt-resistant shrubs, colourful perennials, as well as a prolific vegetable patch, which Lucy jests is ‘important when the nearest village shop is seven mountainous miles away’.
The path that winds up alongside the burn – the source of Lucy’s water supply – is bordered by a hedge of variegated Griselinia and edged by rich plantings of moisture-lovers such as Rodgersia Perthshire Bronze, Astilboides tabularis, Darmera peltata and candelabra primulas. Crossing back over a bridge with a sturdy driftwood handrail, you reach the central path, paved by Lucy with a random design of cobbles, rope and reclaimed bricks. A long raised bed is edged with billowing Nepeta x faassenii, holding back herbaceous planting of phlox, the Twisted Shell Flower Chelone obliqua and Hydrangea arborescens Annabelle. The
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The turf had to be removed in bags over my shoulder
path then winds up the steep hillside densely planted with a variety of windhardy shrubs including cistus, Buddleja loricata, pittosporums and several different olearia – O. arborescens being Lucy’s personal favourite. ‘Its tiny white daisies are a magnet for pollinators in spring,’ she says.
Edged with an eclectic range of old metal salvaged from farm tips and derelict buildings, including iron bedsteads, wheels, forks and odd metal shapes, the section is highly unusual. This idea, she explains, is not new.
‘When I was a child many old farm implements were still around and most fence lines incorporated a few bedsteads. Now this is all disappearing, I wanted to rescue what I consider to be part of our heritage.’
After the steep climb to the top of the hill the view is breathtaking in every sense. Here a grassy seating area, fronted by colourful Callistemon rigidus, the scarlet bottlebrush, offers a dramatic view across Loch Tuath to the Isle of Ulva and the Treshnish Isles.
The path winds back down the hill, past tender Echium pininana, to the level area around the cottage, where an Alitex greenhouse reflecting the design of the cottage faces the box-edged potager. Growing colourful and delicious vegetables has become a passion. Brussels sprouts ‘Rubine’, Cavolo Nero and purple sprouting broccoli fill the raised beds in winter, while summer provides peas, broad beans and French bean Blauhilde climbing a central tepee, interspersed with nasturtiums, cerinthe and alpine strawberries.
Through a driftwood gate and along a scallop-shell path to the east lies a new meadow. Having spent three years
clearing the bracken, a peaceful spring in lockdown gave Lucy time to finish this exciting project, planting native trees and wildflowers around a seating area assembled from rustic wooden benches backed by a clematis and sweet pea trellis formed of old iron cartwheels and a discarded iron gate rescued from the local graveyard. ‘The sight of drifts of tufted vetch, red campion and oxeye daisies give me as much pleasure as the garden,’ she says.
Back through the gate at the front of the cottage, the borders are colourfully planted with Aconitums, Lucy loves Cirsium rivulare, Salvia caradonna, eryngiums, exotic-looking Lobelia tupa and geraniums. Reclaimed metal and terracotta containers overflowing with exotics such as Aeonium Zwartkop, Colocasia esculenta and salvias are grouped on a paved seating area.
Low evergreens front the cottage so as not to obscure the view, and below a long border edges the boundary wall and is suited to moisture loving plants, including Sanguisorba obtusa and officinalis, yellow flowering
Kirengeshoma palmata and Ligularia
‘Britt Marie Crawford’.
In front of the entrance gate sales tables are laden with home-propagated shrubs, perennials and herbs. ‘My nursery is very popular with islanders and visitors alike,’ says Lucy. ‘People have realised that outdoor-grown plants succeed much better than those grown in polytunnels. I can show them what the plant looks like when “grown-up”.’
Lockdown has also given her the satisfaction of finding that gardening runs in the blood. With all events cancelled, Lucy’s daughter Vittoria has finally had time to develop her garden and vegetable patch in Gloucestershire.
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My nursery is very popular with islanders and visitors