Mid Spring

I entered the garden after a long absence and gasped at the lush beauty before me.

The garden was verdant and welcoming with dappled shade and sunlit corners.  The grass had been newly mown and that lovely scent mingled with the perfume of roses to sweetly guide my way around the garden.

It was a warm day for Spring and this seemed to intensify the colours and scents.  For some reason it felt as though I was walking through a Van Gogh painting come to life - perhaps the blue of the sky and the tulips and irises blooming had a little to do with that.

A bore water sprinkler lazily spun, the hiss  and splash of water a soothing accompaniment to my wandering.

Early August

A Spring bright and blue day in Craignish.  The air had an added clarity, everything appeared sharp and well defined.

Every tiny daffodil, every tiny iris seemed polished and perfect.  Camellias showed off their ballerina like ruffles, nodding in time to the song of the magpies.

The lines of black pots which I photographed seemingly empty a couple of months ago are now shot through with green shoots, growing strongly into the light.

In a pot filled with water, a black goldfish swam.

Day Four - Mid Winter

David and Peter were working hard in the garden when I arrived.  Queenie was being kept inside because snail bait had been laid.  Everything is being geared towards the opening of the garden in August.

The lawn is beautifully clipped.  The paths are being cleared.  Everywhere you look is green.

Interspersed with the green are bright bursts of colour from the primulas, rainbow blooms in the green.  

A myriad of terracotta pots also lend their own colour, dotted through out the garden.

Many of the trees are still bare of course.  It will some time yet before they will be in leaf.  In the meantime their limbs cast slim shadows before them.

One pot filled with water, reflected the naked branches of the tree above.  It reminded me of a Chinese painting.

I lay on my stomach to photograph the scree at the front of the house.  It is a different world, a world in miniature, where tiny plants scramble along the pebbles.  

Day Three - Early Winter

A blue, mountains day.

An early winter's day.   I arrived at the garden to be greeted by David and Queenie.  She is the black Scottish shadow who is guardian of this garden.  

Soil has been turned.  Weeding is being done.  Green things are growing.

As always I found it bizarre to see a tree in bloom in this quiet season.  An ornamental quince in new blossom.  The few blossoms are vivid pink and  contrast with the deep green of the lawns.

In the distance I could hear the rumble of the coal train, headed west empty or east full.  It's noise is a regular comfort in our lives up here.

There are many terracotta pots.  They could lend the garden a European feel but instead the garden has an Oriental form.  Not necessarily in terms of its planting but in the delicious order, the twisted and clipped trees, the careful placement of plants.

The faded hydrangeas retain a little of their summer colour.  They remind me of what was and what will be again in the seasons of this garden.