A snowy Spring

 February and we are open.

 

We actually had a couple of hardy souls visiting the garden today…but the snow showers beat them

Of course it is magic and tomorrow we are promised winter sunshine. We have the first of the snow drops and Aconites out for sale, even though they have a thin crust of snow on their pots.

Activity levels are pretty high. Hamish has been cutting down and chipping trees, in preparation for the start of the new hydroelectric scheme that will be installed by Dulas. All rather exciting and I will tell that story soon.  Donald has been tidying and burning (always favourite) and moving dead and fallen shrubs. 
 

 

Considering the post-Christmas gales we got off lightly……a lilac and a shallow rooted oak tree, and lots of branches.  

So we came back from New Zealand and have adjusted remarkably fast to cold and snow. Just so long as it does not go on too long! 

 

A walk through the garden shows the spears of snowdrops pushing through everywhere. The witch hazels are wonderful and the evergreens are looking splendid as they always do in mid-winter.

And me, I am finishing the catalogue…..Cat has done a great cover and we are almost go for 2015

Margaret Davidson

 

Little drops of green & white

Does any flower give more hope than snowdrops!

Pure white modest flowers with a chaste beauty, that belies there tough nature.

There they are each January, bravely emerging between the fallen leaves and ivy tendrils.

They are of course hardy, but they are not the fastest of bulbs to colonise a woodland or river bank.
Where you see drifts of snowdrops you are looking at decades or even centuries of growth.
Such plantings are some of the loveliest sights you will see.

Snowdrops are often found in burial grounds, and such plantings must be for hope and memory.
I have seen snowdrops in well kept town cemeteries and on wind blasted burial grounds full of old graves, and they always stir the heart.

In Drumnadrochit, a village close to Abriachan there is a very special area of woodland at the confluence of two rivers, called the Cover.

The Rivers that flow through the Cover to Loch Ness have regularly flooded in the past and have brought down plant material from gardens.
Hence we have had Japanese Knotweed (thankfully, hopefully eradicated now) and raspberry canes, but the one intruder I think is wonderful is the Snowdrop

Undisturbed under the trees they have multiplied and now give a lovely show each year.

I was there on Sunday, a lovely mild day with the feel of the approach of spring.

For anyone with a new house and garden, wait for the first January, February and see if you have snowdrops if not, then buy some, and as with tree planting it is for the next generation.