The Roundel
The Roundel is built on the site of the old soakaway for the house (no longer used). It was for many years a somewhat blank part of the garden with a surround of deeply set stones on the outside and the stump of an old tree inside. I had for a number of years pondered what to do with it, particularly as I wanted some thing to break the eyeline from the greenhouse to the garden. Then at the Gardening Scotland show in 2013, I saw a sample drystane dyke seat made by Nigel Bialy and in 2014 I commissioned the seating area that forms the centrepiece.
The planting around the drystane structure has two conceits. One, suggested by my oldest friend Denise, is to have quite a lot of blue or grey foliaged plants to reflect the greys of the wall and the other is to mimic a Scottish moorland plants, but with cultivars and different species. Hence, there are a number of heathers of different varieties and leaf colours, including grey-leaved Scots heather (ling) Calluna vulgaris 'Velvet Fascination', Irish heaths Daboecia cantabrica 'Katherine's Choice' and 'Alba' and alpine heath Erica carnea 'Snow Storm'. There are also grey-leaved dwarf willows like the Scottish native woolly willow (Salix lanata), Swiss willow (S. helvetica) and downy willow (Salix lapponum). Some dwarf rhododendrons provide flowering interest early in spring as well as foliage structure in winter. A dwarf blue-leaved Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris 'Chantry Blue') and some dwarf junipers such as Juniperus squamata 'Blue Carpet' and Juniperus communis 'Green Carpet' add to the moorland shrub planting.
Perennial planting in the Roundel again is intended to reflect moorland plants, but with varieties rather than species. So we have early flowering varieties of avens such as Geum 'Alabama Slammeer', 'Red Dragon' and 'Lady Stratheden' and for later flowering some meadow cranesbill varieties such as Geranium 'Johnson's Blue', 'Lawrence Flatman' and 'Walter's Gift' amongst others. Yarrow, cinquefoil, foxglove and daylily varieties are also in the flowering mix, as well as an enormous deep purple-flowered orchid hybrid Dactylorhiza 'Lynda' which appears in the image on the left. Some blue-leaved grasses, Elymus magellanicus and Festuca glauca 'Elijah Blue' , greyish-green rush Juncus 'Elk Blue' and some ferns also add to the perennial planting.
A raised bed was added to the back of the drystane wall for alpine plants which I subsequently extended and filled with a well-draining mix of sharp sand, grit and compost. It's working well, although there are the usual deaths in particularly wet winters. There is absolutely no theme or design to the Alpine Bed - just plants I like. The season starts with greeny yellow-flowered Hacquetia epipactis and a beautiful red pasque flower (Pulsatilla 'Red Bells'). Then the season really kicks off with blue globe daisy (Globularia nudicaule), yellow flowered flax (Linum capitatum) and Morisia monanthos, pink flowered storksbill (Erodium x variabile 'Roseum'), the Australian daisy (Celmisia sericophylla), the gorgeous pink dandelion (Crepis incana) and much more. Foliage interest is provided by the silver leaves of Celmisia sericophylla, creeping Leptinella squalida 'Platt's Black', the purple and silver coloured fern Athyrium nipponicum 'Pictum' and black-leaved Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'. Picking up one of the themes of the Roundel, there is also a nice specimen of the dwarf willow Salix 'Boydii'.
© Ronnie Cann 2021