When you become a gardener one of the first principles you learn is to try and make a plant selection that provides something of interest throughout the year. This is a challenge in any garden but by no means impossible and as you live with your garden over the years you come to look forward to the first snowdrop or the blazing orange of a particular tree in the autumn.
Gardening on the West Coast of Scotland adds many additional hazards and the most obvious is the selection of plants that will survive. The pallet is vastly reduced by the extreme acidity of the soil. To live and garden here means that you must embrace this challenge and, instead of finding it a deterrent, see it as an opportunity. My father in law did exactly that and, with Norrie and his brother, slowly collected a considerable number of rhododendrons and azaleas.
Since my arrival as the new Mrs Maclaren in 2002 I have widened the scope of plants grown and encouraged a greater number of flowering herbaceous plants. In this way we have a symphony of colour in May but now a smaller, more discreet sonata of other species at other times.
Early June has become Primula season and Norrie has grown a number from seed send from a botanical garden in South Korea. Here are just a few that look like jewels glistening and glinting in the sunshine.