North East of Eden
ANTOINETTE GALBRAITH
ANTOINETTE GALBRAITH
Mary Ann Crichton Maitland's garden at Daluaine, deep in the heart of rural Aberdeenshire, is a breathtaking example of all that is best about gardening in Scotland. Reached along a single-track road that slices through the countryside east of Rhynie, and situated on a south-facing slope, the continually expanding garden is roughly divided into four contrasting sections.
On the west side of the house is a formal, half-acre 17th-century walled garden, packed with plants, while to the south there is a terrace surrounded by a lawn backed with herbaceous plants and shrubs. Further down the hill is a five-acre arboretum that runs along a stretch of the River Bogie. Above the house is what Mary Ann calls her "newest excitement", a recently planted three-acre arboretum which combines groups of maples, sorbus and birch with conifers including Pinus armandii for winter interest.
The house is approached by a driveway lined with a belt of mature trees, underplanted with woodland flowers. The trees soon give way to a lawn out of which rises the grey stone of the 17th-century walled garden, softened by a wide border, where plant combinations include tall yellow Ligularia przewalskii and the maroon-leafed shrub Cotinus coggygria as well as other soft pinks, purple and greys.
Wrought-iron gates lead into the walled garden, past a pair of stone urns that appear to float on the cloud of a rose and viola-filled bed. Your eye is immediately drawn up the slope, through the hot colours of a double border, towards a wooden summerhouse. Both borders are backed with poles linked with chains covered with swags of roses and clematis. The plants are graded in height with tall ones at the back and lower floppy ones spilling out on to the grass path.
Laid out in a symmetrical pattern, with straight borders running round the perimeter and curved beds punctuating the inner space, every inch of the garden is filled with colour and texture.
Mary Ann is characteristically modest. Gardening, she explains, has always been her passion. As a child she was inspired by her grandmother and her mother was also a keen gardener.
"I used to rush home in the holidays to see what was going on in the garden - I've always been mad about it," she laughs as we wander along past a crop of tall delphiniums that contrast well with the bright red Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff' near the dovecote. "I still have many of my grandmother's plants, which have followed me around from place to place."
Mary Ann and her husband, David, bought Daluaine 35 years ago, but the house was rented out to tenants while the couple were living in Renfrewshire.
"When we came back I found the walled garden overrun with rabbits and deer all over the policies," she recalls. "Worse, the dovecotes on the lower corners had no tiles left on them and the walls were falling down."
Despite the neglect she saw an opportunity to begin again, starting with the walled garden, which her husband thought was "just going to be a lawn".
The cool Aberdeen climate ensures that roses flower all summer, their fragrance lingering on a still day, their stems hidden by under plantings of violas and soft grey Lamb's ears.
In the summer rambling roses take centre stage, mixing with clematis to festoon walls and scramble over arches. Favourites include the pink Bourbon Blari No2, the striped Rosa Mundi and the pale pink musk rose Penelope.
For contrast there is also the purple hybrid Reine des Violettes and the yellow shrub rose Lichtkonigin Lucia.
The next scheme focused on planting herbs in a collection of 30 old brown stone sinks near the back door, and this was followed by an ambitious plan to transform the boggy field sited on the lower side of a track below the main garden. Now called Bogie Garden, it is an impressive site as thousands of candelabra primulas mingle among plantings of rowan, prunus, birch and species roses to run in rivers of pink, red, yellow and blue along the banks of burns and the river, as well as fringing the two ponds.
It is even more impressive when you learn that all the pink primulas have spread from just four plants.
"We were given them as a wedding present by Lady Macmillan," Mary Ann explains, adding that she started work in this field by cutting out a series of horizontal paths leading towards the wooden pleasure dome where David regularly enjoys a sundowner.
Sorbus and prunus are mixed with species roses chosen for the colour of their leaves and hips in the autumn. The grass was cut, allowing many wild flowers to regenerate, while foxgloves, campions, wild violets, cowslips, primroses and the spotted orchid Dactylorhiza elata were introduced.
It is impressive to note that this garden continues to grow with the help of just two gardeners.
"He is full of enthusiasm and helps with a garden that gets bigger all the time, and is totally unfazed by all my mad ideas," says Mary Ann.
"Every morning I am out here at 6am," she explains. "I do a couple of hours' work and then I join my husband for breakfast. I work as much as I can during the day and then I come back and give the dogs a last walk in the gloaming and I sit by the river.
"In the autumn the geese fly over, skein after skein, and it is lovely to hear their call over the hills. Sometimes I am lucky enough to hear an otter and recently wild salmon have come back to spawn in the shingle bed."
• The garden at Daluaine, Rhynie, is occasionally open under Scotland's Garden Scheme and by appointment between April and October. Tel: 01464 861638.
This article: http://living.scotsman.com/homes.cfm?id=841452006
Last updated: 07-Jun-06 17:02 BST
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