In April, the garden is lit up by a variety of daffodils, which, being poisonous, are left alone by wildlife. They also have the advantage of bulking up so that, after a few years, you’ll have hundreds. Varieties, including old pheasant-eye narcissus and earlier-flowering, sweet-scented ‘Actea’, run the perimeter of the woodland garden. There, they mingle freely with the delicate purple-checkered Fritillary melagris: A native of wet grasslands, this naturalizes well into rough grass and, although it may take a few years to establish, will reward patience with a mostly delicate sea. Flowers Which can still withstand the worst the weather can throw at them. Its dusky, bell-shaped blooms are complemented by low blue carpets of nodding cowslips and muscari, silas, puscanias and chionodoxas. ‘These take you on a journey through the garden – starting in the woodland areas, they take you through the spiral viewing mounds into a formal series of rooms at the heart of the space,’ says Jenny.
On a walk around the Blackdykes, after an uncharacteristically dry winter, it’s clear how well the plantations are doing. Clipped beech hedges – still bronzed in April with last year’s leaves – cover beds of fresh-emerging perennials such as euphorbia, pulmonaria, peony and dicentra. Small trees and shrubs left in their natural form, including ornamental cherries, magnolias, philadelphus and syringa, grow alongside species roses in wild gardens. You want to pause, linger, look and go back to check if it was as good as you thought. Happily, Jenny has thought of that too, with lots of seats and benches to entice you to stay, although whether she herself ever sits on any of them during a busy spring is another matter.
Blackdykes is open 19-20 June this year. interview scotlandsgardens.org
