I would like to bring my lover here – it is so romantic – French visitor, July 2014
Blowing hot and cold
It was a bonny cold January day as I walked up the Crathes drive. A white frost lay across the fields, but the highland cattle are hardy beasts with thick coats well able to cope with the cold. In the walled garden the frost was not so intense. The gardeners were busy on their various…
New Year Resolutions
As winter takes its turn I see the garden from a different perspective. There are plants that I have never noticed before – how can that be that I have walked passed the Japanese beauty berry, Callicarpa japonica, hundreds of times with blinkered eyes? Now I see that it has delicate mauve berries. I must…
The cycles of life
On a dull day at the end of October I contemplate the trees that are preparing for the coming winter. Large flat leaves become a problem as temperature and light levels dip and winter storms threaten; by dropping them the broadleaf trees can reduce water loss and wind damage until the kinder days of spring…
Notes from Crathes 