SAC West Highland Experience 2010 - Cambo, SCRI, Ardtornish, Attadale, Inverewe

Here's a Picture bonanza of the whistle stop 4 day tour that the Scottish Agricultural College do every year of West Highland gardens with first year HND/BSc Horticulture, Horticulture with Plantsmanship (the course I'm on =]) and Garden Design students, basically we all pile into a couple of mini buses and off we go:hehe:

21/09/2010

The first garden we visited was the privately owned Cambo Estate gardens in Fife which have an interesting border maintenance regime which is that in early spring all the herbaceous borders are chopped back with hedge trimmers and then gone over with lawn mowers (on a high setting) to chop up the clippings:o they also feed with a fertiliser with a low nitrogen ratio so that less time is spent on staking overly large plants:skp

Cambo Estate Gardens Website

That same day we visited The Scottish Crops Research Institute (SCRI) which is a vast reasearch station in Dundee which specialise in producing new varieties of Raspberries, Blackcurrants (for the likes of the huge pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline© who own Ribena©) most of you have probably seen or at least heard about some of the cultivars which have been developed here, most famously any of the "Glen" Raspberries (70% of the UK Commercially grown Raspberries) have been developed here as well as the "Ben" series of Blackcurrants (which makes up 95% of the UK's commercially grown Blackcurrants and 50% worldwide!) they also have a huge collection of potato varieties although these we didn't get to see =/

Most notably they are interested in producing spineless cultivars of raspberries which can tolerate high levels of root rot (mostly phytophra sp.) however so far they have resistant plants with large juicy fruits but unfortunatley so we where told by the head of of looking after the Rubus sp. they taste foul xD

Scottish Crops Institute (SCRI) Website

22/09/2010

On the second day we visited Ardtornish Gardens in Oban which appears to be run by one very nice and overworked gardener who's been there for an age so the gardens aren't particularly high maintenance and are somewhat left too there own devices which is actually what gives this garden allot of it's charm.

It's full of mature trees and shrubs overlooking a loch (god knows which one I think I saw every loch on the west coast on this trip...)

Ardtornish Garden Website

23/09/2010

Today we went to Atterdale gardens on the way up to Inverewe and we were all pleasantly surprised by this garden as it was absolutely stunning it was such a pretty little (compared to Inverewe) garden which I think is often overlooked being privately owned you really got a sense that the garden was well loved by the owners and cared for very well I don't think I ever saw a weed (very scary xD)

The next garden we visited was Inverewe in Rosshire which is a huge garden owned by The National Trust for Scotland and it has an extensive range of Rhododendrons and woodland plantings and is surprisingly close to a tidal lock

Inverewe Garden Website

Please Take a Look at all the Gardens on my Public Gallery over at Picasa web albums ->> http://picasaweb.google.com/carlbullock.iw

 

Very interesting Aesculus. Thank you for all the pics.
What a great tour - I'm sure that will be the highlight of your course.
I love Inverewe gardens, and that whole area and make a point of visiting every year.

I was in the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh recently and saw the garden beds where the people on your course do their practical work. Very interesting. And I met one of the students - maybe it was you

 

All just stunning.......thanks!

 

Lovely pictures Aesculus. How are are you finding your move to Edinburgh?

 

it's been great:thmb: really enjoying it up here I actually only just started on Monday as that's our official start date:yez:

really looking forward to this year and sorting out my plot at Edinburgh botanic gardens:D

 

I lived in Edinburgh for two years - beautiful city but so cold and windy in winter!

The Botanic Gardens are lovely, I lived round the corner in Stockbridge and would often go for a wander round them on my days off. Enjoy