Opulence

Should I be using the word opulence, should it be abundance?

The dictionary tells me it is great wealth or luxuriousness  and I do feel this piece is about a luxuriance of flower and foliage.

 It is July and it has so far been a very wet summer, storms and grey skies.

However it has become a little warmer and plants have their heads up and are showing off their worth.

July always means roses, mock orange and campanulas but it also is my month of opulence.

We have been at Abriachan now for 29 years and each summer I am surprised that a plant that I planted; more in hope than wisdom; is suddenly a star and a major player on our summer stage.

One such, is a seedling New Zealand clematis, it now crowns a group of hazel trees for many weeks and is now substantial enough to be visible from the car park.

Rose pauls Himalayan musk, tumbling over a terrace and full of flower and fragrance. Is anything as nice as a the heady midsummer scent of roses?

 Rose Rambling Rector has grown steadily through a Alnus incana and is now a magnificent pillar of white. A truly breath-taking sight.

We also have a wonderfully vigorous Rosa Wickwar with attractive light grey-green leaves and just now crowned by a mass of single, creamy flowers with golden stamens, that are scenting the air.

Wickwar has some lovely floral trails , but to see it best you need to see it from above , as is often the case with plants such as roses and clematis that climb through trees.

Maybe we should think of a tree top walk!

But the star of this mid-summer has been native honeysuckle. I see it everywhere doing well, but we had a jaw dropping spectacle. One of our oaks had a curtain of honeysuckle, it must have been 40 ft high and it was broad and bright and truly magnificent.

Some sights you only see once in a gardeners life and this was one such.

I am currently reading about Monet’s gardening life, I believe he would have loved our curtains and pillars of midsummer opulence .

Listed in RHS "Six UK Exotic Gardens"

I noticed an upsurge in traffic from the Royal Horticultural Society website lately, so had a wee look and was delighted to see that they have included us in a list of Six gardens that contained exotic plants from around the world

They highlight our use of such gems as osteospermum, gazanias, diaramas, crocosmia and schizostylus, all of which I love and which do so well with us on the Loch Side.

We are longtime RHS members and have always had a great relationship with the organisation and the people we have met through it. This was a lovely surprise, and will hopefully help a little as we release our new catalogue in the next few weeks. Every little helps.......