Garden visiting

A sunny and warm day today - we'd planned to drive down to West Loch Tarbert, some 55 miles away, to visit the garden at Baravalla, which was open today under Scotland’s Gardens Scheme. The 26 acre garden was set up more than 50 years ago by Peter Cox, the well-known rhododendron nurseryman and plant hunter, and Sir Peter Hutchison, his friend and travelling companion. The idea was to be able to grow a range of less hardy plants which wouldn’t thrive at Peter Cox’s garden in Perthshire and it has succeeded very well.
 
We stopped en route for a picnic lunch overlooking Loch Fyne and continued through Tarbert - my first extra today - turning off along the far side of West Loch Tarbert to the garden. The Two Peters, as they were known, are no longer with us, but the garden is maintained by volunteers from the Scottish Rhododendron Society and various locals. It was great to meet up with so many old friends and explore the garden. I particularly wanted to see the collection of Schefflera species, a genus of shrubs from East Asia with unusual digitate foliage - my second extra.
 
The members had set up a tea tent  to keep everyone fed and watered and we repaired there after a good wander around. It’s not the easiest of gardens to photograph, being planted in a large woodland, and many of the individual plants that I drooled over probably wouldn’t seem that interesting! So my Blip today is of the tea tent!
 
We finally got away and bought fish and chips in Oban to bring home for dinner. A really great day out!
 
Quote of the Day: ‘A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.’ – Liberty Hyde Bailey.