Scotland’s Gardens Scheme was founded in 1931 to raise money for the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland, to help support the Queen’s Nurses, before the creation of the National Health Service. The charitable support has expanded over the years but the love of gardens has remained constant.
One part of the charity raising involves people opening their gardens to the public at certain times of the year with the proceeds going to help the charities.
Currently about 1200 Garden Openers are active with some gardens opening every year and others opening every other year or less frequently.
Opening your garden with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme can be an incredibly rewarding experience.
One example of one of the gardens here in Lochearnhead is Ardvorlich, a beautiful hill garden featuring over 170 different varieties of rhododendrons and many hybrids, grown in a glorious setting of oaks and birches on either side of the Ardvorlich Burn with a beautiful rhododendron glen.
The ground is quite steep in places and boots are advisable.
The owners are Mr and Mrs Sandy Stewart , Ardvorlich,
Lochearnhead FK19 8QE,Tel: 01567 830218 and the garden is on South Loch Earn Road three miles from Lochearnhead, five miles from St Fillans.
The garden will be open this year until 3 June from 9am until dusk
Admission £4.00, children free.
One of the beneficiaries from this garden is The Gurkha Welfare Trust.
Why visit a garden?
Well, firstly it’s an unique opportunity to peep over the garden fence. Most of the gardens that open with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme are private and therefore normally unavailable to the public.
Secondly, for support: support a charity, and they are normally local charities chosen by the garden owner, and support the gardener. It takes a lot of passion and dedication to look after a garden. It’s not all blue skies and sunshine, we are in Scotland after all! Any gardener will tell you that gardening often means lots of days working in the rain, tending to weeds and turning over compost.
For more information about the Scotland’s Garden Scheme, and to find locations of other gardens in the scheme and open to the public,visit the website at https://scotlandsgardens.org/
