General Subjects > Blogs and Diaries
Notes from the Cruickshank Botanic Garden
Cruickshank Friend:
Cruickshank Garden notes, January 2011
One of the CBG Camperdown Elms in the snow
What a lot of snow we have had for a second year, straight down with no wind and arriving in November when much autumn clearing work was still to be done, leaves cleared, hedges trimmed, hatches battened down and so on. After the snowy demise of our polytunnel last year we assiduously cleared the considerable quantities of snow from it every day and it has survived, though our gutters have fared less well. There is a lot of physical damage to trees and shrubs and the freezing temperatures have clearly caused many casualties though the full extent won’t be apparent for a long while yet. However as I write this the sun is shining, it is 8 degrees in the shade, the snow is disappearing fast and if you didn’t know better you’d think spring was just around the corner!
So to the snowless Cruickshank Garden, where the spring awakening has yet to take place, the bulbs in the grass by the Chanonry entrance are not above ground, though the winter pansies in the containers by the greenhouses on the left are cheerfully flowering away and the flower buds on the double gean in the courtyard promise future pleasure. The New Zealand daisy bush, Olearia macrodonta, not yet recovered from last year’s winter has been knocked back again. The berries from Sorbus cashmeriana cover the ground under the tree uneaten despite the harshness of the weather, Sorbus vilmorinii seems to have berries similarly unattractive to birds. Nearby is a good specimen of the very hardy prostrate Siberian conifer, Microbiota decussata, its foliage in its winter brown - a useful ground cover conifer.
The Witchhazel, Hammamelis mollis on the left as you continue your tour, one of a number in the garden, is just starting to reveal its fragrant yellow flowers. As with other winter flowering plants it is a good idea to place this somewhere near your house where you will see it in the course of everyday life, otherwise its glory can pass unnoticed. Next to it is a relative Parrotia persica, with pleasant flaking bark like a London plane tree. This is another very hardy tall shrub, though it has yet to flower with me, its small red petal-less flowers not yet on show in the Cruickshank Garden either. The winter flowering viburnum V. farreri, with sweetly scented white flowers opening from pink buds can be seen in the bed above the sunken garden. This is one of the parents of the better known and excellent Viburnum x bodnantense, not as vigorous as its offspring but it still merits garden room. In the same bed winter rosettes of monocarpic meconopsis enliven the scene.
The dry stems and seed heads of Honesty, Lunaria annua, - an excellent ‘casual’- cheer up the shrub border leading towards the boundary wall, aided by the startlingly red berries of the shade tolerant evergreen Skimmia japonica. Another shade loving evergreen Butcher’s Broom, Ruscus aculeatus, with many spiny stems though no berries can be seen nearby in the border along the wall.
The absence of flower power throws one’s attention onto the shapes and structure in the garden and the very well trimmed hedges round the rose garden are pleasing to contemplate as is the tracery of deciduous branches against the sky, masked by the foliage later in the year. The conifers at the eastern end of the sunken garden, where the bulb lawn is still sleeping, similarly provide an interesting integrated picture of contrasting textures, form and colour.
Galanthus reginae-olgae
Roma Fiddes: "Galanthus reginae-olgae (corcyrensis) has emerged still flowering from the melting snow. The form pictured was called corcyrensis till Aaron Davis did his PhD. It starts flowering in November and can keep going till February".
Another winter flowerer, though not a good performer in colder inland areas, Mahonia x media ‘Charity’, is about to flower against the warm wall by the gate to the rock garden, where apart from the odd cyclamen and a pleasing group of the very early snowdrop Galanthus reginae-olgae in the dawn redwood bed, the story is again of structure, texture and shades of green.
So let us enjoy the illusion that there is plenty of time to plan and prepare for the next growing season and hope for a real summer to go with the real winter - four distinct seasons in the right order would get my vote!
David Atkinson
Cruickshank Friend:
Cruickshank Garden Notes, Spring 2011
The clocks have sprung forward giving us light evenings, snow is retreating to mountain tops and every day brings new signs of the season to come. It is still a bit too early finally to pronounce on the casualties of winter though the prognosis is not looking too good for a variety of shrubs - some of which have survived many a year. Phormiums, even the hardier P. tenax have been hit hard, many Ceanothus have bloomed for the last time and many Cistus have given up the unequal struggle.
I, in common with many of you, have rather a lot of ‘planting opportunities’!
However, fortunately there are still many floral pleasures to be found in the Cruickshank Garden on a crisp spring morning. On the beech lawn just by the Chanonry gate, daffodils have taken over from the snowdrops whilst on the other side of the path, the early rhododendron, R. racemosum, is well covered with dark pink flowers, protected from late frosts by the overhanging Sorbus cashmeriana branches already bearing burgeoning buds. The Iris unguicularis, at the base of the south facing wall of the Cruickshank Building, is full of flower as every spring, revelling in its dry sun-baked (well, relatively!) position - it has only managed an occasional flower out here at Craigievar, though its near relative Iris lazica from Crete, another early flowerer, has done far better. However, other denizens of this courtyard area have fared less well, many of the leaf tips of the normally elegant juniper J. recurva var ‘Coxii’, are burnt brown and I think the second hard winter in a row has finished off the New Zealand daisy bush, Olearia macrodonta in the notice board bed.
Rhododendron racemosum in the Victoria, Canada garden of Diane Whitehead
Small delights are appearing in the nearby peat beds, some attractive double primroses, a pleasant corydalis, C. cheilanthifolia, sundry small bulbs and the strange purple fruits of Pernettya mucronata, a very hardy evergreen from Chile with marble-like berries varying in colour depending on the clone from white through various pinks to purple and crimson - arguably good for a mass planting but somehow not very exciting - in the same category for me as Skimmia and Potentilla fruticosa; plants I feel mildly ungrateful for not liking more!
Other early spring pleasures come into view as you wander towards the weeping elm, Ulmus glabra ‘Camperdownii’ itself lovely with its bare branches covered in purple petal less flowers. There are more double primroses, hellebores, a fine white-flowered Daphne mezereum, beautifully scented which, if occasionally short-lived, should be in everyone’s garden, doing well even in quite dense deciduous shade. In a bed on the upper edge of the sunken garden Bergenia is flowering well and looking far less moth-eaten than I can ever manage it, next to a very well flowered specimen of the pale yellow dwarf Rhododendron ‘Chink’. Nearby admire the hedger’s skill in the well-laid ‘ancient’ hedgerow, new low growth springing from the horizontal, almost completely severed trunks. The evergreen hedges of yew and holly round the quiescent rose garden should also be admired, beautifully trimmed into text book shape, broad at the base and tapering narrowly to the top.
The bulb lawn in the bottom of the sunken garden is filling with colour, dwarf daffodils, Narcissus minimus among others, dog’s tooth violets, Erythronium dens-canis, a pleasant Cambridge blue grape hyacinth inter alia. Though a fierce-some spreader by seed - as here- Chionodoxa luciliae- ‘Glory of the snow’- makes a wonderful sea of bright blue in the bed at the eastern end of the sunken garden, the nearby raised bed is home to Trillium in variety and some very good Corydalis, whist other recently cleared beds wait eagerly for their new plantings.
On the terrace the many flower buds on the sumptuous tree paeony, P. rockii (formerly P. suffructicosa ‘Rock’s variety’) are already discernable. This tree paeony I have found to be much hardier and a far more reliable performer than the Japanese named forms – ‘Flight of Cranes’ etc. that seem to languish in our chilly northern climes, whereas P. rockii increases in size and number of flowers, which are fully eight inches across and wonderfully coloured, white with basal splashes of maroon, even at Craigievar. P. lutea and P. delavayi also thrive in our area with very good foliage and good numbers of albeit smaller flowers somewhat hidden by the foliage.
The evergreen Garrya elliptica, gatekeeper for the Rock Garden entrance is still adorned with its long catkins, unworried by its shady situation, a restrained contrast to the bright patches of colour in the rock garden. Scilla turbergeniana is splendid with pale blue flowers with a darker stripe down the middle of each petal, various colour forms of the common and easy drumstick primula, P. denticula stoutly advertise themselves, and a particularly fine ring of Cyclamen coum, with lovely mottled foliage and charming pink flowers with reflexed petals can be seen at the base of the large monkey puzzle, Araucaria araucana- an interesting juxtaposition!
Cyclamen coum in the Vienna garden of Franz Hadacek
Do go and look for yourself though, so much happens every day at this time of year and we can all enjoy the sense of renewal that opening buds, new leaves and emergent shoots bring before the hurly burly of grass cutting, weeding, staking and so on take over.
David Atkinson
Cruickshank Friend:
Cruickshank notes, late June 2011
Nights are drawing in but we have not really had many balmy summer days yet. The early dry period in April and May has been followed by plenty of rain and rather low temperatures. Grass growth has been slow – silage crops are not bulky - though native weeds are all too flourishing. Winter damage has continue to reveal itself; as well as the already dead, further casualties have become apparent as they fail to come into growth, a number of eucalyptus, cistus , ceanothus, Clematis montana particularly older ones) buddleia and many roses inter alia have passed on. Others have come back from the dead, shooting from apparently lifeless branches or from the roots - the Olearia macrodonta in the ‘noticeboard bed’ being a case in point, an abundance of shoots breaking from the first foot or so, though it will be several years and milder winters before it reaches its former glory. Nearby in the bed to the south of the Cruickshank Building by the peat beds the tenderish Rubus lineatus with pleasing leaves composed of five leaflets, dark green above silver and silky below has been pruned of its dead stems and looks well, if diminished.
Olearia macrodonta-from native plant specialist, David Lyttle, Otago, New Zealand
At this time of year in many established gardens the benefit of 'casuals', garden plants that gently sow themselves around enhancing or pleasingly subverting the careful plans of the controlling gardener, are very clear. Aquilegias cheerfully interbreed and provide a delightful variety of form and colour, less varied but well scented Dame’s violet, Hesperis matronalis lights up many shady corners. The various forms of the biennial Honesty, Lunaria annua fulfil a similar function. All are easily weeded out if their chosen spot does not please the vigilant gardener.
In the pond in the north-east corner of the lawn area by the Auris Building - the old order bed area, the ? native Water soldier, Stratiotes aloides, has floated to the surface from its winter rest at depth and is vainly showing its all female white flowers in the clear water left by the vigorous Flag iris, I. pseudacorus, still with the last of its yellow flowers. Nearby, on the other side of the Weeping elm, Ulmus glabra ‘Camperdownii’, still mercifully unaffected by Dutch elm disease, the recently laid ‘ancient hedgerow is growing as intended, thickly and vigorous , looking convincingly stock-proof.
The Rose Garden is a pleasant place to wander at the moment, particularly if you can catch a rare sunny spell. The roses to the south on the upper level are flourishing; 'Dundee rambler', 'Stanwell Perpetual', 'Rose-Marie Viaud' among others, enhanced by the sweet peas that are threading their way through. Similarly the beds on the upper level at the North end are full of delightful old roses in a range of subtle pinks and dusty purples. Unfortunately the floribundas/hybrid teas in the beds in the sunken terrace are starting to show the effects of age and infirmity, and are possible candidates for replacement - funds permitting!
The replanted bed in the Sunken Garden, where the overenthusiastic gaultheria was removed, has been replanted with a range of herbaceous plants, Gaura lindheimii, Coreopsis verticillata, and various Penstemon among others, promises to provide a welcome splash of colour soon.
The Bladder senna, Colutea x media ‘Copper Beauty’ on the brick wall next to the summer house, is delightfully adorned with copper-orange pea flowers, while the herbaceous border is just getting into its stride, the early geraniums, pyrethrums , thalictrums and so on soon to be joined by the full summer panoply of phlox, eupatoriums, and ‘daisies’ in profusion.
After its spring extravaganza the Rock Garden delights are calmer now, the shapes and subtle shades of green please and floral gems are still to be found. Various species of the hardy ginger relative Roscoea spp and exotic looking Incarvilleas and much else beside, justify a diligent wander here before the demands of your own garden call you back home.
David Atkinson
Cruickshank Friend:
Cruickshank notes Autumn 2011
So that was summer? Summer’s lease has had a rather short day this year. The horse chestnut trees alongside the Alford road by Dunecht are displaying the yellows of autumn, colchicum, cyclamen and autumn crocus are starting to bloom, flowers are already appearing on Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ and I’m looking for recipes for green tomatoes. On the upside, the sweet corn from our tunnel is ripe and deliciously sweet, and there are 15 large ripening fruit on the true quince tree, Cydonia oblonga, also grown with benefit of polythene! The ample rainfall has brought considerable growth to many trees and shrubs though the lingering effects of the cold winter, as well as completely killing some conifer hedges, has meant that many remaining ones have only made half their usual extension growth.
There were no mists, but some mellow fruitfulness on the day I visited the Cruickshank Garden; there are many different sorbus- rowans, whitebeams etc.- in the garden with a splendid variety of coloured berries. On the left as you come through the Chanonry gate, is a blush pink-berried Sorbus cashmeriana next to a white berried Sorbus forestii while at the far side of the courtyard is a more usual white-berried Sorbus cashmeriana, excellent as a multi-stemmed small tree. A number of plants in the ‘noticeboard bed’ are still showing the effects of the winter, there is a moribund Phormium tenax- New Zealand flax, with a few straggly leaves - one of many to have suffered mightily in and around Aberdeen, and an Olearia ilicifolia which is a shadow of its former self though Agapanthus in both white and blue is flourishing. The self-seeding biennial / short-lived sea holly, Eryngium giganteum, Miss Wilmot’s ghost, enlivens the beds around here while a small-leaved rhododendron in one of the peat beds, is unseasonally covered in blue flowers. Round the corner, the west wall of the Cruickshank building is resplendent to the top in the deep reds of the magnificently vigorous self-clinging Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia (or possibly P. tricuspidata, Boston Ivy, I didn’t look closely enough).
The bed on the eastern lip of the sunken garden is full at the moment, of dinner plate sized light brown fungi ( species?), whilst the nearby red berries of the red baneberry, Actaea rubra and the pale yellow ones of Daphne mezereum f.alba provide alternate sources of poison! While further on from here, in the shrub border leading to St. Machar’s Drive, the very shade tolerant Skimmia japonica has this years red berries (not edible but less poisonous than the above) and next year’s buds simultaneously. Nearby the excellent evergreen Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’, a hybrid between two South American species is wreathed in large multi-stamened white flowers. This, though hardy in Aberdeen where it flowers best with some sun, is not a good long term prospect for higher, more inland gardens, where severe winters will finish it off. I grew its much smaller Tasmanian relative E. milliganii successfully at Craigievar till the winter of 1999 took it out, since when despite several attempts I have failed to re-establish it.
Though the well cut hedges and hips on the species roses please, there is not much flower power in the rose garden at the moment. The floribundas in the sunken section which might be expected to keep the rose flag flying through late summer, are at the end of their useful life and their flowering is desultory at best.
In the sunken garden, the bulb lawn is shorn waiting for the autumn bulb display of colchicum and crocuses, whilst in the bed nearby the impressive bright red dangling fruits of the Himalayan damp-lover, Podophyllum emodi, stand out. A large patch of the North American woodlander, Disporum smithii can be seen under a nearby rhododendron, a member of the lily family, with white Solomon’s seal flowers in spring, now showing off a fine crop of orange berries. The late flowering willow gentian, Gentiana asclepiadia is also here with true blue flowers along the length of its arching stems. Though mainly a plant of woodlands in the wild, it is thriving with me in an open meadow holding its own among the surrounding grasses. The South African bed on the north side of the sunken garden is pleasantly multi-coloured with blue agapanthus, pink Tritonia rosea, green Eucomis comosa and Cape figwort, Phygelius capensis in a variety of colours.
The herbaceous border is still a mass of colour, showing or rather not showing the benefits of early and comprehensive staking. Border phlox in shades of pink, white, lilac and a splendid deep purple, Eupatorium six feet and more tall with heads of flowers in white and shades of pink, and much else besides.
Hydrangea aspera photgraphed at Rousham House, Oxfordhsire, by Giles Reed
The rock garden, always pleasing for its arrangement of beds, trees and rocks - a strong structure enhanced by the many evergreens, has few but charming flowers at this time of year. Enjoy the cyclamen in the dawn redwood bed, the ‘Angels’s fishing rods’, Dierama pulcherrimum waving in the breeze and the delicate flowers of the Autumn snow flake, while in the shady bed at the bottom of the slope, various forms of Hydrangea aspera, with lace-cap heads of subtle deep lilac are thriving in the moist cool conditions.
So with only the chance of an Indian summer to look forward to, it is time to put some more logs on the fire and hope for a dry day tomorrow!
David Atkinson
Cruickshank Friend:
Cruickshank Garden Notes January 2012
‘Blow, blow thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude.’
However that may be, the winter winds have bitten pretty keenly this year. After two remarkably windless winters, many trees, fences, sheds and even walls have been battered into submission in the gales and many gardens were strewn with debris even if they did not lose any whole plants. Indeed in the Cruickshank garden a fair supply of firewood could be gleaned from the lawns, whilst more unfortunately, the graceful and well-shaped, Japanese elm relative, Zelkova serrata, on the opposite side of the path to the south of the herbaceous border and about halfway along, is now lying horizontally awaiting the last rites.
In my garden and many others, including the Cruickshank, precocious growth and flowering seems to be the order of the day. I have had spring bulbs (Iris histriodes and I. reticulata and various Crocus inter alia) poking above ground since mid-December, the noses of trilliums are also visible and both witch hazel, Hamamelis mollis ‘Pallida’ and Viburnum x bodnantense have been in flower weeks earlier than usual.
In the bulb-rich lawn under the beech tree by the Chanonry entrance, a single orange crocus amongst the snowdrop and daffodil foliage is the harbinger of the floral display to come, while round the corner in the courtyard, snuggled against the south-facing wall, the winter flowering iris I. unguicularis already has large lilac, fragrant flowers nestling amongst its foliage and the splendid, wide-spreading cherry Prunus ‘Moerheimii’ is covered in slowly swelling buds.
I. unguicularis in Dunedin, New Zealand , Lelsley Cox
The nearby peat beds are in the process of being refurbished, and look pleasing with the terraces rebuilt in logs. A pink Kaffir lily, Schizostylis coccinea, though a little weather beaten is still flowering away here and Gaultheria mucronata (formerly Pernettya mucronata) is covered in purplish berries and looks surprisingly well for a plant I find it hard to love. On the other side of the main path a witch hazel, Hamamelis mollis, is in full flower, while next to it one of its cousins Parrotia persica is just opening its flowers consisting of clusters of red stamens. This last looks elegant in its leafless state, its attractive flaking bark visible through the dome of weeping branches, a very hardy large shrub even in exposed inland situations. A nearby bed is already adorned with the largeish flowers and grey foliage of an attractive snowdrop, a Galanthus elwesii hybrid, and odd flowers on the old primrose variety Primula vulgaris ‘Lilacena Plena’- Quaker’s Bonnet.
Early flowering rhododendrons, R. dauricum and R. mucronulatum can be seen in the bed on the eastern rim of the sunken garden next to the winter flowering Viburnum farreri, one of the parents of the better known V. x bodnantense. These two rhododendrons with smallish purpleish flowers, would be well outshone by their showier relatives had they not chosen to flower at a florally starved time of year!
Though there are no roses flowering, the immaculately clipped hedges of the rose garden are very pleasing. Evergreens provide structure and somehow anchor a garden in the darker months, as also in the rock garden area with its less formal but still sculptural conifers, other evergreens and the elegant tracery of the leafless branches of shapely deciduous Cercidiphyllum japonica ‘Pendula’ and the three dawn redwoods Metasequoia glyptostroboides.
On the terrace, another witness to the relatively mild weather the half-hardy sub-shrub, Melianthus major with exotic glaucous deeply-toothed pinnate leaves still stands untouched by frost. A very fine specimen of Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ is in full flower against the long wall by the gate through to the rock garden just past a large specimen of the evergreen Arbutus unedo, the ‘Killarney Strawberry Tree’, still decorated with small white bell–shaped flowers - the hardiest and least interesting of arbutus species.
The new path to the arboretum at the top of the slope provides a pleasant new view down the rock garden. Here in the bed with the large birch in it, is a plant I have not spotted before resembling a false quince, a medium sized shrub, Prinsepia sinensis, from Manchuria and currently bearing buttercup- yellow flowers along its arching stems. The winter flowering Cyclamen coum has taken over from the autumn flowering C. hederifolium whose attractive foliage still pleases. I particularly like the combination of the large monkey puzzle, Araucaria araucana, with Cyclamen coum flowering round its toes. Here again spring bulbs are already marking the lengthening days and the promise of spring – with possibly a summer after that for a change!
David Atkinson
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version