Kevock Garden

Despite the dismal weather today (rain and a lot colder) we went and visited a garden nearby and it did really lift the spirit. We last visited Kevock garden with John's mother in 1996 so it also brought back many lovely memories of her! She was an avid and great gardener and was in the habit of snipping off little cuttings whenever she found an interesting plant.
Many of Scotlands gardens are open on certain dates under the Scotland's Garden Scheme (or the Yellow Book as it is affectionately known) with most of the proceeds donated to a variety of charities. It must sometimes be heart-breaking for the owners of these gardens to discover on the day that the weather is awful, specially when the preceding days have been lovely! But as we have discovered over the years, we gardeners seem to be a very hardy lot, visiting even when winter coats and umbrellas are the order of the day.

We were amazed to see how much colour there was in this garden already.

Admittedly it is located a lot lower down than our garden and in a very sheltered position but even so, it was surprising to discover that the daffodils were in full flower as were the camelias and many other flowers. And of course, the stunning colours of the rhododendrons. Marvelous!

Plants for sale at these gardens are always a good buy! We came away with a wonderful dark red hellebore as well as a collection of fritillarias for our own garden which will have to be planted out once we decide where to put them. At the end there is as always the tea (almost my favourite part of garden visiting!!) and as we correctly remembered from 14 years ago, the tea for this garden was served in a nearby nursing home and was accompanied by a variety of delicious cream cakes. I tried to resist eating them all but they proved to be too much temptation!