A garden near Stranraer that has grown from a moorland-covered hillside.

From the moors above Luce Bay in the Mull of Galloway, there are clear views south towards the Isle of Mann. In this watery environment, where damsel flies flit across small lochans and yellow gorse makes a vivid splash above a sea of bluebells and against a backdrop of huge skies, there’s a sense of being just a small speck in the natural environment, where the vast Atlantic with its warming currents and stiff winds lies just beyond the horizon.

It was something of this spirit that struck Tessa Knott the first time she visited Glenwhan. She and her husband Bill had just bought 100 acres, sight-unseen, and had travelled north from their farm in Herefordshire to see what they had acquired.

“We came on a February day that was bright and clear and everything was golden, from the light to the bracken.”

Once they had restored the tumbledown croft that sat amidst that bracken, Tessa turned her energies towards making a garden, using tractors to clear the undergrowth of scrub and stone.

She planted a shelter belt and, as this grew, added hundreds of hardy hybrid rhododendrons, followed eventually by species rhododendrons and Southern Hemisphere plants. These  revelled in the rainbow-inducing climate that can switch in seconds from sunshine to rain and then back again.

Paths were made, viewpoints created and seats were placed in sunny spots, close to the many  azaleas that permeate every corner of the garden with their perfume. The only formal area amidst this naturalistic planting is a potager, a decorative vegetable garden that is lined with box hedging and presided over by a statue of a wild boar - a copy of the famous sculpture that stands in the Mercato Nuevo in Florence.

Glenwhan is an astonishing achievement for someone who, until she arrived here, had only ever had a small garden.

“I had a vision of what it might be,” says Tessa who, in the 1980s decided to open the garden year-round and had a tea room built at the entrance.  Today visitors from around the world find their way here to lose themselves amongst undulating landscape, follow a scent trail, look for unusual trees, or stumble across a damp hollow that’s been filled with marginal plants.

None of this would be possible of course without trees to filter the wind and fences to exclude deer, but Tessa has deliberately left the top of the garden as wild as it was when she came here so that visitors can experience for themselves the beauty of the untamed moorland.

Scottish Gardener:

And it’s up here on the moor that the ‘engine’ of Glenwhan can be found. As she started developing the garden, Tessa discovered that the boggy area at the heart of the garden was being fed by water seeping from a reservoir that had been built during the Georgian era to serve the Dunragit estate.

It was this that gave her the idea of creating ponds and a water garden and now giant gunnera, flag irises and American skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanus ) with its huge leaves and bright yellow spathes, line the course of the water as it tumbles from the top of the hill and down into the ponds, which are covered in waterlilies and surrounded by bulrushes.

“One of the ponds is quite shallow, but the other we deliberately made deeper so that we can swim in it. My son still insists on swimming there every Christmas Day, and we have stocked it with brown trout and Koi carp.”

The soil at Glenwhan has a ph of 4.5 so is perfect for acid loving plants. Camellias and magnolias flourish; candelabra primulas grow in abundance and hydrangeas relish the coastal climate.

A rare weeping form of the Chilean firebush, Embothrium longifolium pendula, which has bright scarlet flowers in June, grows close to an Araucaria imbricata, a member of the Monkey Puzzle family. Another Chilean native, Desfontainia spinosa, a rainforest native, produces waxy orange flowers while a Telopea oreades from Southern Australia has deep crimson flowerheads.

Unusual trees, shrubs and plants, many of them too tender to survive anywhere else in Scotland, grow around every corner and over the years their flowers and foliage have woven themselves together until the soil beneath them is no longer visible.

The garden spreads out over 12 acres with a further 17 acres of moorland and more than 120 different species of ferns and wildflowers grow amongst the cultivated plants. There are insects in abundance and snipe hide in the long grass.

What Tessa has done at Glenwhan is a sort of terraforming, a radical alteration that has transformed the landscape into something filled with glorious effects. For the unwary visitor who comes seeking only a pleasant diversion, there’s a rich experience awaiting.

Scottish Gardener:

SPECIAL RHODODENDRONS
The hardy hybrid rhododendrons which Tessa planted while Glenwhan was in its infancy provided the sheltered environment in which more tender species rhododendrons could flourish. Now along with Rhododendron ‘Matador’, which has bright, scarlet flowers and R. ‘Point Defiance’, with its huge, pink trusses, R roxieanum from China, R yakushimanum from Japan and R pachysanthum now grow happily in the garden.

 

Garden Notebook
Glenwhan Gardens & Arboretum
Dunragit, By Stranraer DG9 8PH
Open daily until 30 September, 10am - 5pm
www.glenwhangardens.co.uk