Ardwell in the Rhinns

Hi
If there is one thing that the south western corner of Scotland isn't short of it's gardens. They are everywhere, and beautiful they are too. This post will concentrate on Ardwell House Garden the first garden we visited in the area and we were so impressed we visited a few more. Ardwell House Garden is situated in lovely a location on the edge of Luce Bay which can be found on the Rhinns of Galloway.

In terms of size Ardwell House Garden isn't very big, but it is still impressive and leaves the visitor well satisfied. This isn't one of those gardens with rows and rows of neatly planted flowers and shrubs. In fact in places it's rather wild, but that is what gives it such charm. One of the other good things about Ardwell is that it hasn't been commercialised, well it hadn't when we visited it last, but things may have changed. There wasn't a cafe or any plants for sale, in fact when we were there we didn't see another living soul. We arrived and parked in the small car park and at once we were taken aback by a meadow full of hawkweeds as seen in the photo at the top of this post. We then dropped our entrance fee money in an honesty box and we were on our way.

The first bit of proper garden we came to has lived with me ever since because it was one of the nicest bits of garden my wife or I have seen anywhere. It was the patio outside the front of Ardwell House which consisted of an area of stone slabs prettily covered with patches of moss and lichens. I know that is nothing remarkable as most people have stone slabbed patios. However, this one was special because in between the slabs there grew flowers of all types and description. Saxifrages, thymes, St Peter Port daisies and all manner of low growing plants too numerous to mention here. It was a riot of colour yet at the same time it was subdued in it's scale when compared to big borders full of delphiniums and lupins.

So overwhelmed was Terry Anne with this bit of garden she made be adopt the principles in our garden when we got back home. Behind a bungalow in Staffordshire we recreated a lovely bit of Scotland.


Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the patio garden to see what other delights we could find. First we followed a footpath around some small pools and eventually came to a walled garden. It was a bit neglected inside although it looked like somebody was actually making a start on sorting it out. It may have been a bit wild, but it was still charming and had some nice plants dotted here and there to keep us interested. It was in the walled garden that we came across the patch of california poppies that can be seen on the right.

On the way back to the car park we took a path alongside which grew some enormous hogweeds and wondered how poisonous this plant actually is. We also wondered if it is related to the prolific plant of a similar description called cow parsley. I say similar, the cow parsley is actually a much smaller plant. With the exception of primroses and bluebells a lane lined with cow parsley has got to be one of the best sights to be seen in early Spring.



Before we got back to the the car we also came across a lovely dovecot and we watched the doves going in and out for a while before carrying on with our journey around the rest of the Rhinns.

Here's a reminder that more pictures of Scotland and other gardens can be seen on our website. On the website you will also be able to see some of our paintings I hope you enjoy them.
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By the way I have kindly been informed by Kevin, that the reason the Vaseline probably didn't work for me when I was trying to get rid of the tic was because it needs to be a big dollop. He used the method to get a tic off his Jack Russel the other day and said it worked straight away. So if your dog gets a tic, give it a go you've got nothing to lose. Thanks for your advice Kevin, I shall take a jar of Vaseline with me next time I'm lucky enough to get back up to Scotland.