Abriachan Nurseries Plant Catalogue 2018

Abriachan Nurseries Plant Catalogue 2018

Anyone who knows our garden knows that we have a love affair with the Southern hemisphere and this year we broke new ground in Tasmania, actually, Bruny island off the south coast of Tasmania…next stop Antarctica. The birds were amazing, made all the more so by our daughter Cat, who is a wildlife guide there. Wallabies and Echidna; Wombats and fantastic beaches, where anyone else on it made it feel crowded. And oh, yes the plants. They were wonderful too and I have a huge love of Eucalyptus forest and the great cushion and carpet plants on their high peaks. Donald has brought his enthusiasm home and we will be planting some Tasmanian plants this year. And now can winter stop please. It has been long alternating freeze and thaw, and for the first time for some years enough snow to break branches and that has caused a surprising amount of damage. It is mid-February now and the met office is now promising a Siberian easterly and another cold spell. Bring on spring. Make this the year you come and visit us…the garden is already looking good, glistening hollies, witch hazels, snowdrops, winter aconites and the wonderful Daphne bholua.
The 2018 Plant Catalogue is now ready to be thumbed over, pencilled upon and the corners folded while you go about choosing this years selection for your garden.  So put the kettle on, open the chocolate digestives and peruse at your leisure, picking out a great selection to enhance and enlarge your gardens.  If you are on our hard copy mailing list it will be popping through your door any second, but you can get a head start on some of the special plants in limited numbers by  through our website ordering or downloading the pdf of the catalogue.

As the weather is now suitable, we are beginning to send plants in the mail.  We will send out the mailorder in the same order we received the online and posted order forms and will let you know if plants sell out so you can be put on a wait list or choose another alternative.Download a hardcopy mailorder form
Don has been Instagramming in the garden all year.  Join us @LochNessGarden and please do #LochNessGarden and #AbriachanNurseries
 Enjoy, Best wishes,  Margaret, Don & Hamish

Great Autumn Offers 2016 - Primula & Auricula

Our 2016 Autumn Availability of Auricula and Primula.

Many of these were not available earlier in the year.
Get in quick to grab those which are rare or limited in numbers.

Click here to download a pdf of the Autumn Catalogue.

Click here to download a mail order form.

Click here for to order online or see the photographs of each plant.

 

Best Wishes,

  Hamish, Donald & Margaret

 

 

 

Autumn Shrub Sale 2016

A very small selection of our shrub sale plants:

Mahonia x media Charity

Dwarf Rhododendrons & Larger Hybrid Rhododendrons

Decaisnea fargesii (The fabulous blue bean Tree)

Escallonia rubra Macrantha, Griselinia Littoralis,
Hebe John Collier,
 

And many many more.....................

A Slow Snowy Spring

It is still cold.
Real Lambing snows this year……snow showers on Friday and Saturday , and frosts at night. Brrrrrrrrrh. 
The grass is growing but very slooooowwwly  even the dandelions are slow to open. There is an upside to everything, that gives you a fighting chance to get on top of them!

 

There is of course still much to be glad of and the photographs give a feel for why spring is such and heart lightening season.

 

And in case I forget the dawn chorus is a good as ever. We should bottle it and let it out on gloomy low light days.

March White Rabbit

Oh dear, oh dear…I find myself waking up and thinking about everything there is to do and panicking just like the white rabbit…I’m late I’m late.

Well, the only excuse is it has been a cold month. Well, in truth not even that, it has been a rough old switchback of a month, one mild sunny day and the next back to snow showers.
We have snow forecast on the tops again tonight.  So I have let other things dominate my time and energy; but the balance must shift back now and 'just get another layer of fleece on and get out there woman!'

I have been around the garden looking for signs of spring and my goodness they are all there.  The other evening I had a walk around and several “oh my goodness look at that” experiences.
Here are a few of them:
White Daphne mezeron, this just gets better slowly every year and of course a scent to knock your head off. 

The snowdrops and snowflakes are giving way to the daffodils, and this year more than any other I have loved taking the daffodils indoors to watch the buds open. They are wonderfully cheerful.

Some nice crocus tomassinianus here and there, but for every ten we plant, the mice and voles find and eat nine. Still onwards and upwards, and let’s hope they have a population collapse this year..…the mice not the crocus. 

The Rhododendron praecox has defied all the odds and has avoided the frost on its ridiculously early blossom. It is a wonderful cloud of violet  purple. Bravo. 

Hellebores are everywhere. Where we remember, or when they look too spotty, we cut the old leaves off and that lets the flowers show off really well and the new leaves seem to accelerate through. All sorts of flowers; doubles, dark and pale singles, white and spotty ones and some robust excellent hybrids like ericsmithii. Such great garden value.
Margaret Davidson

Abriachan Hydro scheme - March Update

Despite a cold, occasionally wintry month…there has been really good progress with the new Abriachan hydro scheme.   (Click here to read the first explanatory blog post)

The cement arrived for casting the base for the turbine and was pumped over the stream ( the Kilianan)  by a 120ft long elephant’s trunk.


The turbine building has been making steady progress and walls all in now. 

The pipe to carry the water was welded together in sections and dragged down the hill to lie in its ditch like a giant black anaconda. 

And most exciting, the new 99kw turbine arrived on a very sophisticated lorry and was craned into the new building and connected. The old turbine made its way out on the same day and was trucked away.  A small wistful glance from us all watching it go, when it operated well it was a good friend.

So, so far, good progress but quite a bit to go yet.

A New Abriachan Hydro Scheme

When we came to Abriachan in 1983 there was a small hydro electric scheme operating.

The stream it ran off is the Kilianan and has a fantastic 100ft plus head of water.
The scheme was put in in the late 1940’s, by the then owners the Woodwards and was installed by an engineer relative of theirs, Mr Mackenzie. He ran an ice factory in Inverness and was obviously very able and put the scheme together.
The piping was sources from pipes that were laid around Inverness in the 2^nd world war to provide emergency water supplies, when needed. Real post war imagination and innovation.

It gave about 20KW and was a Gilkes of Cumbria turbine. That was more than enough for our house and the nursery for about 9 months of the year

We kept the system going for quite a number of years, but the age of the systems and the increasing costs of repairs made it increasingly uneconomical, and we closed the system down in about 2005.

And then along came support for renewable energy and feed in tariffs and the whole economics of small hydro schemes changed. And now, DHG (Dulas) hydro is installing a new hydro scheme in the Kilianan. The design and capacity is now more advanced and it will be producing up to 100kw and feeding electricity into the grid.  It should be up and operational by the end of 2015.

All very exciting.  We will put up photographs as things progress.  Lots of folks are asking what’s going on….so here is the keep up to date space.

Margaret Davidson   

2015 Plant Catalogue Now Online

 

 The New 2015 Plant Catalogue for Abriachan Nurseries is now online and landing on doorsteps around the country.

We hope you enjoy this years selection, the plants we list in our catalogue have proven their worth as good garden plants, or are part of one of our collections such as Auricula & Helianthemum
We also like our plants to have a little “je ne sais quoi” whether that be lovely scent, a flash of subtle colour, or just looking right in the place or association where they grow.
Click here to download the pdf of the catalogue

 

This year has the addition of a new Falkland Island Page where we have increased our selection of plants from this remote, unique and beautiful part of the world.

 

And my garden ideas for this year, I am going to re-read the books of Christopher Lloyd. As his years matured he introduced more colour into his garden. And that is where I am in 2015, the year of colour. I love annuals and will be planting all I can, additionally Dahlias and Lilies and who knows what else.
Watch our Flickr site and my blogs for ideas and progress.
I am also working up some “planting recipes“, a selection of gardening ideas for you to consider trying, along with instructions and prices.  They will be on our web site.
Good gardening
Margaret Davidson

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

 

AUTUMN SUPPLEMENT 2014

 

 

Autumn Reflections
We wake up to a changed world in Scotland ...... but reassuringly gardens will continue to grow.

 

The warm dry autumn means that colours and displays are wonderful. Nerine and Colchicums and Schizostylis are providing vivid colour; Rudbeckia, grasses  and Kniphofia are giving form and interest and everywhere the autumn colours are coming in slow and steady.

 

We have a really good selection of plants to offer…some we have not had for years like Romneya and others such as the old Primroses and Auriculas looking great for the spring. 

 

Time to plant, the ground is still warm and for sure it will rain soon. Time to plan for the spring and plant some of our very good value groups and time to snap up some plants that we only occasionally can offer,  before they are sold out.

 

Happy trails. I will add autumn blogs as we go. It is a wonderful season. Right now, life goes on and I have to skin and freeze a sea of tomatoes.

 

Margaret

 

Click here to go to the Abriachan Nurseries website page to see the Autumn Supplement Online

 

Click here to download a pdf copy of the Autumn Supplement

 

       

      

ROCK ROSES - The Helianthemums

The Sun loving Rock Roses
The rock roses have always been favourites of our and a look at our catalogue will show a whole range of varieties to choose from.

We love them because they thrive in our sandy, sunny beds and look just wonderful when the sun comes out through June and July. The yellow form is one of our native plants and that would explain a lot.

They grow fast and have a great mat-forming habit that excludes weeds.  What more can you ask?  Well to top it all they really put on a great show.
A couple of years ago we; well Donald really; decided we needed a new wall in the car park area and once neatly finished, we discussed what to grow there. Of course we could plant a new rockery, but knowing all too well how difficult it can be to keep up with weeding we came around to a Helianthemum wall.  It is a great success as you see.

My favourites are the vivid orange colours such as Henfield Brilliant and the rich yellows, like  Sterntaler, but there are days when the clear pink of Rhodanthe Carneum,. Or the modest double pink flowers of Annabel attract the eye.

There was a range of Helianthemum named for some of Scotland’s highest mountains, the Bens. Hence we have Ben Macdhui and Ben Mhor and Ben Ledi etc. You can collect them after you climb them 
Two other Scots specials are Broughty Beacon and Broughty Sunrise, both named for an area of Dundee and they really do have the bright flickering colours of the ends of the day as they would be seen along the Firth of Tay. 

Maybe the manufacturers of Iron Brew should sponsor a new variety as that particular orange would look very well as a rock rose colour.