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The Garden
May 2003

Work starts on Scotland’s Garden

Scottish Enterprise has awarded £3 million to Scotland’s Garden Trust (SGT) enabling it to start work on the 20ha (50 acres) Scotland’s Garden. The grant is expected to act as a catalyst for raising the additional £19million necessary to complete the project.
Image: Kenbarry Photography, Kinross

Jim McColl, SGT Vice-Chairman, said, ‘Scotland’s Garden site, on the south side of Perth, is a blank canvas, but what a wonderful challenge faces our designers and plantsmen. The soil, climate and weather is perfect to represent the best of horticulture to Scottish gardeners. Perthshire goes from the east coast shoreline to the highest Munroes, such as Ben Lawers with its famous Arctic alpine flora, while in The Hermitage Woodland stands one of our tallest conifers. Perthshire is a microcosm of Scotland.’

Leading attraction

By the time Scotland’s Garden is completed in 2007, the trust plans to be employing more than 100 people. Likely to be one of Scotland’s leading tourist attractions, the garden has projected annual visitor numbers of about 700,000.

The project’s first phase began in April, with a thorough topographic survey and environmental audit. The trust will carry out archaeological, soil and hydrological surveys, and aims to minimise the loss of natural habitats during construction. Major landscaping work is expected to start towards the end of 2003 and will be followed by the building of an access road and services.
The trust has been working with the RHS, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scottish colleges, the National Trust for Scotland and the Biodiversity Unit of the Scottish Executive. Horticultural charity Thrive also shares the sgt offices.

Welcome donation

Last year, Diageo (formerly Guinness United Distillers and Vintners) donated the Bell’s Cherrybank Centre and 3ha (8 acres) garden to SGT. Included in the garden is the well-established Bells Heather Collection including a National Plant Collection of Erica. There is also an outline agreement to buy 5ha (13 acres) of adjoining land from Norwich Union, 15ha (36 acres) from Dupplin Estates and 2ha (5 acres) from Perth and Kinross Council.

In March, the trust appointed seven new members of staff, including Operations Manager Nick Dawson. Nick, who was formerly Project Manager for the Scottish Plant Hunters Garden at Pitlochry, said, ‘It’s a unique opportunity to be involved in a new garden project. This is the first occasion since Victorian times that a garden of this magnitude has been created in Scotland.’

Ambitious plans

Susan Oliver, SGT’s Development Manager said, ‘Scotland’s Garden is a garden for the 21st century, which will inspire the country’s gardeners. The trust is keen to create areas of high biodiversity and attract wildlife to the garden. We intend to build a rocky gorge, which will become home to the plants for which Scotland is so famous, such as Himalayan poppies (Meconopsis), rhododendrons and alpines.’

The garden will aim to inform, educate and inspire visitors, and buildings will be constructed using local stone, timber and glass.

The arboretum will feature a range of ornamental trees to help visitors judge the plants’ suitability for their own gardens, and a bank will be planted as a cherry orchard. Formal and informal water gardens will be included, planted with Scottish wild flowers, and a wildflower meadow will lead onto a series of grass terraces.

Andrew Colquhoun, RHS Director General, commented, ‘This is great news for Scottish gardeners and horticulture in general. This project has real potential for demonstrating the highest standards in horticulture and for inspiring many thousands of gardeners.’

For more information, contact Susan Oliver, Development Manager, tel: 01738 472800.

Royal Botanic Garden, Kew
Amassing tiny trees and seeds

Images: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has built a new custom-made glasshouse to house its collection of 50 bonsai, acquired from respected bonsai grower Ruth Stafford-Jones two years ago. Conifers, maples, a Japanese white pine, a rhododendron, beech, oak and needle juniper (above left) are included. Supplied by Hartley Botanic, the glasshouse opened on 12 April.

Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place, West Sussex, made its largest seed collection in March when four botanists amassed seeds of Dactlyorhiza fuchsii (common spotted orchid) (above right). The collection of 8,500,000 tiny seeds fitted into a mug and was harvested in an afternoon from selected plants in a healthy population of D. fuchsii on a grass verge in Haywards Heath.

The relative abundance of this orchid makes it a useful research tool for examining the behaviour of orchid seed in storage.

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