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Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Acers Don't Care

© Gay Klok

RAIN, RAIN, RAIN SO GOOD FOR THE RHODOS

For three weekends our garden in the country has been open to the Australian Open garden Scheme Visitors or to Garden Clubs. It has rained on nearly every day in October. We normally love to get the "April showers" in October, but this is ridiculous. The Rhododendrons, Azaleas and Acers have just loved it

Our gardening pursuits have been more intensive than ever, cleaning up from the gales and rain. Last weekend, as I tried to ignore the rain, I allowed my thoughts to wonder here and there. Perfume from Rhododendron davidsonianum persisted through the downpour and my first thoughts were to wish my creaking bones would shut up, lie down and take pleasure in the very lovely results of the over-done precipitation. After all, I had, like the gardens, given them excellent cover, from head to toe

My first thoughts turned to the beautiful Scottish gardens we had visited, several years ago. We had not seen one of these marvellous gardens without the Scottish mists [synonym for rain] adding drama and romance to the gardens built in the crags and beside the running torrents. I think you could blindfold me and take me to a garden and I would know if it was a Scotch gardener who had created it. The wildness, the lushness and the poetry is subconsciously within me, now I am creating my own garden at "Kibbenjelok". I have concrete evidence of our visit to these Edens. I looked at the Primulas, hundreds of them, that were just beginning to push up their flowers. All come from tiny seeds we purchased at the Cluny House Garden , Scotland, and now must be one of the best displays of Himalayan Candelabra Primulas in Australia

My thoughts rambled on. If I would know I was in a Scottish garden, would I also know if the main creator was a woman or a man? Can you generalise and say that men usually create more orderly gardens than women gardeners? That is not true if you look at Scottish gardens. Most of the gardens we visited were the creations of gentlemen gardeners. But the Scottish are a wild and romantic breed, aren't they? Does that mean that the character of gardens is National? Certainly, weather conditions dictate the plants we are able to grow. Most countries have a large range of weather conditions and, yet, within the weather and soil limitations, do the gardens still retain a National characteristic?

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