Inverewe Garden, Scotland: Part Two
Yesterday I talked about the ancient Woolemi Pines which now also grace the Inverewe Garden in the Scottish Highlands far from their home in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. Today let us wander down the garden paths and explore other beautiful features of a garden which was commenced in 1862 by Osgood MacKenzie when, with his mother's help, he purchased the 12,000 acre Inverewe and Kearnsay estate.
From every angle this is a paradise for lovers of gardens where paths lead off in all directions enticing you to follow and discover a wonderland of plants from all corners of the world.
I was particularly drawn to the garden designs around the ponds which were magical...
...and even a little scary with flesh eating plants in this section on the left! And isn't the design of the wooden boardwalk just fascinating taking on a pattern from nature- of perhaps snails?
We didn't have time to explore the full extent of the garden estate but we did spend time enjoying the abundant growth of the magnificant walled garden - a real feature of Inverewe.
This area was so abundant with flowers and vegetables you could spend all day taking in the colours and scents...
...and the array of flowers was really amazing...
Osgood MacKenzie was a man with a love of nature and a vision of what could be achieved with the help of the warmth from the North Atlantic Current from the Gulf Stream and along with similar warm air currents which help keep Ireland and the western coast of Great Britain a few degrees warmer than the east where the difference is most dramatic in the western coastal islands of Scotland.1
But during Osgood's time in building his garden the Great War(1914-1918) devastated Europe and look thousands of lives. "devasted Europe and look millions of lives."
'To commemorate peace after the Great War in 1919', Osgood Mackenzie of Inverewe created a ‘Peace Shrubbery’ and inscribed this dedication on a large boulder.2
In 2014, specially commissioned willow sculptures, representing gardeners and a ‘War Horse’ leaving for the Western Front in 1914, were created by Trevor Leat for the Walled Garden. These have been conserved and are now installed in the area close to the Peace Stone.2
If you would like to know more about these statues follow this link...
The Inverewe Garden really was one of the special days on our tour around the coast of Scotland with its contrasting scenery and rich personal historical story of a young man who had a dream to create a garden wonderland. Little did he know just how much joy and admiration the realisation of his dream would bring to the world at large - uniting people of all races and cultures in a shared love of nature.
Today the garden is lovingly and expertly cared for under the protection of the National Trust for Scotland and so if you are travelling to the UK why don't you include a visit to Inverewe Garden - I assure you that you won't be disappointed.
Tomorrow we return to Julie's posts on Australian women artists and then I'll be back with a little about the cliffs and bird life I observed along the northern coast of Scotland.
Credit
1. en.wikipedia.org
2. nts.org.uk/stories/remembering-the-peace-1919