Burn-side Garden 3 - June 2010

A view of the bottom of the burn side garden and bridge. Plants yet to be identified.

Burn-side Garden 2 - June 2010

Another view of the burn side garden leading up to the old road. Bamboo is in the foreground. There is also a Rowan Tree here and at the top of the garden. There also appears to be purple sprouting broccoli that was left to flower.

Burn-side Garden - June 2010

A view of the burn side garden from the bridge. We've got some Rheum Palmatum (rhubarb family) and other rhubarb growing elsewhere in the garden. One of my favourites, Eyrangium x oliverianum (thistle like plant) is also growing up by the wormery. There is also wiegela - we had this in the garden in Glasgow but it was a young plant. The plants here are quite large. We've also got foxglove and garden loosestrife. The red shrub in the foreground has been badly attacked by slugs - it looks pretty horrendous at the moment.

Kitchen Garden 3 - June 2010

A great sun trap. There is a homemade bench seat looking out to this end of the garden. Plants are yet to be identified.

Kitchen garden 2 - June 2010

A wild section of garden adjacent to the crofting ground to the left of the house. A fair amount of sticky willy, nettles and fern lead down from this area to the bottom of the garden near the road. The path is currently completely overgrown and this area needs attention in the autumn.

Kitchen Garden June 2010

A view of the garden to the side of the kitchen. There are a fair amount of conifers here. At the very top of the garden (near the road) there is a rockery garden which has not yet required any work. In the foreground there is a wonderful clematis over an archway that leads from the basement garden. The clematis flowered deep purple flowers in May. At the moment there are delphiniums and also evidence of Lonicera x heckrotti 'Gold Flame' which has started to bud.

Basement Garden 2 - June 2010

Another view of the basement garden showing the view through to the far (burn) side garden. There is another small rockery here with a small water feature (not used).

Basement Garden - June 2010

The Hosta's are looking fantastic and have very little slug damage. Although I've always liked hosta's I've been put off them in the past due to them becoming unsightly due to the slugs. There are hostas in other parts of the garden, particularly by the burn which haven't fared so well. The light green bush in the middle is yet to be identified but at the moment has lovely fragrant white flowers. To the left of that there is a variegated grass which is quite silver in colour.

Road-side Garden June 2010

The bottom of the garden facing the main road to Kyle of Lochalsh. This area has been quite a challenge. It needed a fair amount of weeding. I have cut back the fern at the foreground of the picture as it was spreading everywhere and a lot of it had 'sticky willy' growing through it which had to be removed. The poppy is very bushy but has never flowered (the bud looks quite black). There is also a lot of mint here and there is garden loosetrife at the back of the bush. This area needs a bit of attention in the autumn once things die back.

Myrtle Cottage June 2010 - back

The rear view of the house showing the basement windows at the bottom. This section of garden is quite wild. Again, yet to identify many of the plants in this section - I mistakenly cut back a vine that was wrapping itself around some of the other plants only to realise it wasn't a weed but very likely to be a Humulus Lupulus 'Aureus'. There are also ox-eye daisies, lilies, lady's mantle, globe flower (which is all over the garden), euphorbia (one of my favourite plants) and what looks like garden loosestrife aka lysimachia punctata which spreads wildly all over the garden.

Myrtle Cottage June 2010

After a harsh first winter and cold spring in Myrtle we've entered summer. The garden is in full bloom: mostly plants which I have yet to identify. After the heavy snow in the winter I had to cut back a bush from the left hand side of the house - I didn't know what it was (thought it might have been bay). Apart from that the garden is untouched from the day we moved in - apart from a wee bit of weeding. We have berberis up the walls which attracts bees and some wild flowers. The bird feeders attract siskins, blue tits, chaffinch and even a greater spotted woodpecker!