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Floral reception at Floors Castle |
The Duchess of Roxburghe is standing in the Walled Garden at Floors Castle, a bunch of choco-late coloured sweet peas and black poppies in her hand.
‘I love these two colours,’ she says holding them up in front of a blousy clump of phlox in a deep border.
Then she holds a magneta phlox and a handful of orange marigolds above a group of deep blue aconitum and pale blue campanula.
Handing me the flowers she sits back and contemplates the effect of a change of colour in the scheme. At issue is the possible introduction is a group of orange plants. The duchess likes the effect of the deep pink phlox, but feels introducing an orange hemerocalis would be ‘much less usual.’
In the event she rejects both ideas in favour of retaining the original blue and white colour scheme. But the exercise is a useful one. The duchess is a trained interior decorator who explains that she knew little about gardening when she married and moved to Floors 11 years ago, but she did understand colour and scale.
It was a skill that was to prove useful when her interest in the garden was first sparked by the need to fill the house with plants.
‘I got started in the greenhouses, because I wanted a large collection of houseplants, things like big pelargoniums, that were of the right scale. It is no use having a tiny plant in
SEE AUGUST EDITION OF SCOTTISH FIELD TO READ FULL STORY
In this month's issue Alan Cochrane writes about new penalties for wildlife crimes. Do you think it would be fair to ban keepers for life for certain wildlife crimes?
