Riding the Winds

Riding the winds Attadale Gardens, Wester Ross After their almost total destruction by storms, the gardens at Attadale were brilliantly revived by Nicolette Macpherson and continue to thrive, finds James Truscott Photographs by Andrea Jones S the south-westerly gale bearing than two centuries. Indeed, the normally benign incorporated into the new layout. Seeing Preceding pages: The Sunken Garden with salt-laden horizontal rain from weather, warmed by the influence of the Gulf parallels with the gardens of her native Cape, Japanese anemones. Above: A hedge the Atlantic howled up Loch Stream, had allowed the growth of plants such as Kirstenbosch with its sea and moun- of Rosa rugosa extends along the house. Carron into the Highland interior, usually considered tender at such latitudes. tain backdrop, Nicky’s first move was to Above right: The bronze chameleon by Ait lashed the Attadale Estate unmercifully create a series of pools from the craters left Alexander Jones on a rhododendron and brought mayhem to all in its path. Mighty by the windblown trees. This evolved into what branch. Right: The Betula ermanii avenue boughs more than a century old came crash- Nicky saw the chance is now the Water Gardens, running parallel ing heavily to the ground in the storms of the to the main entrance drive. With more than Lending structure and scale to the rear of late 1980s, as whole trees on the hillside to create a series 80in of rain a year, water management has the colourful waterside plantings is the giant above the house were upended like sinking of gardens, like pictures always been an issue and this new section and rhubarb, Gunnera manicata, together with ships, revealing ragged plates of roots above the rediscovered field drains together helped its less well known and diminutive relative, the water-filled craters left behind. The gale at an exhibition to avoid the prospect of future flooding. G. magellanica. These are complemented finally subsided, leaving a scene of wholesale With the assistance of Jockie Mackenzie, by other foliage plants, such as large-leaved devastation, but, fortunately, the white- Far from being daunted by the clean-up task head gardener between 1984 and 1998, and hostas, Darmera peltata, Rheum palma- harled turretted house was spared. ahead, the artistic eye of Nicky saw this as advice from Kew-trained Michael Innes, the tum and two kinds of rodgersia. Surveying what was left of the woodland a serendipitous event, offering the chance new gardens and the replanted woodland Interspersed among the foliage are sculp- and gardens was South-African born artist to create a whole new series of linked gardens soon began to take shape. Nicky chose her tures—a bronze heron, an abstract bird, Nicolette Macpherson (or Nicky, as she was wrapping around the slope above and next to plants with an artist’s eye, always bearing a stone fish—providing punctuation or tran- generally known), the late mother of the pre- the house, arranged in sequence, like pictures in mind Mr Innes’s tip: never plant the fore- sition points, not only here, but throughout sent owner Joanna Macpherson. Until then, at an exhibition, and designed to provide the ground of the pools, as this would obscure the site. It is a very personal collection, curated the now largely denuded, steeply sloping backdrop to an important collection of art. the view of the reflections in the water. by Nicky right up until her death in 2018. flanks of Attadale had, together with surround- When the wreckage was cleared away, Today, the series of pools and waterfalls, On the replanted wooded slope above the ing conifer woodland, provided precious old paths, steps and field drains, long since crossed by humped-back timber bridges, Water Gardens lies the Old Rhododendron shelter to the house and gardens for more buried by leaves and soil, were uncovered and leads the visitor down towards the house. Walk, which culminates in the Viewpoint; 106 107 Facing page: The luscious Water Gardens, with Gunnera manicata, Darmera peltata and waterlilies. Above: The view over the Victorian Sunken Garden, the oldest surviving part of Attadale, with the slate obelisk by Joe Smith framed on the far side one of the only places in the garden where rugosa and Azalea lutea was deliberately a Japanese gateway. Enclosed by cloud-pruned the relationship between the fairy-tale house chosen to provide a more relaxed look, with laurel, yew, Japanese holly (Ilex crenata) and its sheltering woodland, the sparkling sedum, geranium, heuchera, Japanese ane- and dwarf rhododendrons, the raked gravel, sea-loch and the distant jagged blue-grey mones and hebe adding to the contrast with carefully placed boulders and stone lantern silhouette of the Cuillins on Skye, can all be the original Victorian rose garden and carpet induce a feeling of peace, solitude and con- appreciated. Along the path are the twisting bedding displays. Nearby, a venerable labur- templation. This is also one of the few places forms of some of the older rhododendrons, num, which still provides a bright splash in the garden where a framed view of Loch such as R. rex subsp. arizelum and Sir Charles of gold in spring, reputedly dates back to when Carron and the Applecross Hills is brought Lemon hybrids. Others include R. grierso- the house was built in 1755. into the place—an example of the Japanese nianum, R. davidsonianum, R. thomsonii technique of Shakkei (borrowed landscape). and the tree-like R. arboreum; there are also As one heads into the woods north of the fine specimens of Eucryphia nymansay. Among the foliage house, it is difficult to believe that all but one The trees that now form a sheltering back- of the wellingtonias and giant redwoods here drop to the walk mostly post-date the gales are sculptures–a bronze were planted after that famous gale. Thanks and include two Wollemi pines, a Bhutan heron, an abstract to a climate similar to that of their native pine, Abies koreana and A. procera. northern California, they have prospered. In a woodland clearing lies the gravestone bird, a stone fish Tucked into a shady corner beneath the now of Capt Billy Schroder, who owned the house mature trees is a geodesic dome housing a pool between 1910 and 1945 and was responsible The current owner follows in the horticul- and a waterfall, surrounded by tender ferns. for planting many of the trees that came tural footsteps of her mother and maintains Outside the dome are more hardy ferns and down in the gale. He had inherited Attadale the same high standards of upkeep, although dicksonia tree ferns, which also need pro- from his father, Baron Schroder of the German low-maintenance design has been adopted tection from frost in winter. It is remarkable banking family, who had bought the estate wherever possible by using groundcover, such achievement and one that bears testament to from Sir Alexander Matheson in 1910. as swathes of dwarf rhododendrons. the vision of a garden artist and her daughter, The oldest surviving part of the garden Many visitors to the gardens arrive from in whose safe hands the gardens are being is the Victorian stone-walled sunken garden. a halt on the Kyle of Lochalsh-to-Inverness preserved for future generations. This is presided over by a slate obelisk made line. One of the first things they see on arrival Attadale Gardens, Strathcarron, Wester by Joe Smith, a former associate of Andy is the Japanese Garden, which they approach Ross, open daily until October 31 (01520 Goldsworthy. The informal hedging of Rosa via an avenue of Betula ermanii leading to 722603; www.attadalegardens.com) 108 109.

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