Classic Gardening Magazine
Gardening as it ought to be
The great garden of Mey
John o’Groats is an impostor. Its claim to fame is that it is the most northerly point on the British mainland – but it ain’t.
That distinction rightly belongs to Dunnet Head, a rather lovely spot crowned with a Robert Louis Stevenson-built lighthouse, a few miles west and over two miles further north.
But there can be no doubt that the most northern mainland garden is at The Castle of Mey
A great garden
The question I was asking myself as we rolled up to Mey, having cruised through 20 miles of heather and gorse-coated coastal countryside that, even under a benign early summer sky, looked a bugger to make productive, was how on earth do you garden this far north? Because, frankly, most people don’t seem to bother.
Mey gives you the answer.
First, you need a good solid stone wall at least 12 ft tall. Against it you can train your soft fruit. Then, just to further flummox the winds, you divide the walled half acre with a network of criss crossing hedges that are laced with a mix of fruiting and flowering shrubs, just for interest.
You should also have the most expensive greenhouses money can buy along two walls, for the stuff that really won’t survive outdoors.
In the network of planting spaces you have left yourself you go for a heady mix. There can be herbaceous borders, soft fruit cages, cut-flower sections, veg beds for a goodly range of cabbages and honest working root crops.
There are even rose gardens, where a gardener sits on a stool listening to Steve Wright in the Afternoon, and carefully, painstakingly, ever so s-l-o-w-l-y cutting back the growth that he wind has snuffed out on the roses.
There
is some lovely simple planting, too. Three borders around a lawn
towards the house have been planted by a simple but stunningly
effective mix of alcamila mollis and nepeta.
There is a separate, shady and heavily wall-protected spring garden too, but that was long past its best.
Rather elegant green slatted gates in the high walls give glimpses of the sea.
A great pub
There is a pub – one of those gloomy, stolid looking places, just down the road. But we confess we didn’t try it. They just don’t look welcoming, Scottish pubs. We’ve had the sullen looks and the grease-spotted plastic menu offering scampi and chips, breaded haddock and chips, steak and chips etc etc one too many times. Mercifully, Mey has a very superior dining room.
I’ll hand it to Charlie – he’s got great taste, and great money. What a winning combination. It means you eat hearty soup, chunky Aberdeen Angus sandwiches and, should you be inclined, scones and cakes of impeccable organic breeding, in a hall with oak tables, trademark blue tartan curtains and a great stone baronial fireplace.
They sell Scottish Black Isle beers – I had a big bottle of their organic IPA, which was so organic it was like chewing on a handful of fizzy grass.
And maybe a garden centre too?
Well, no, but I bet Charles is planning to add plant sales once he has things really running like clockwork
John o’Groats is an impostor. Its claim to fame is that it is the most northerly point on the British mainland – but it ain’t.
That distinction rightly belongs to Dunnet Head, a rather lovely spot crowned with a Robert Louis Stevenson-built lighthouse, a few miles west and over two miles further north.
But there can be no doubt that the most northern mainland garden is at The Castle of Mey
A great garden
The question I was asking myself as we rolled up to Mey, having cruised through 20 miles of heather and gorse-coated coastal countryside that, even under a benign early summer sky, looked a bugger to make productive, was how on earth do you garden this far north? Because, frankly, most people don’t seem to bother.
Mey gives you the answer.
First, you need a good solid stone wall at least 12 ft tall. Against it you can train your soft fruit. Then, just to further flummox the winds, you divide the walled half acre with a network of criss crossing hedges that are laced with a mix of fruiting and flowering shrubs, just for interest.
You should also have the most expensive greenhouses money can buy along two walls, for the stuff that really won’t survive outdoors.
In the network of planting spaces you have left yourself you go for a heady mix. There can be herbaceous borders, soft fruit cages, cut-flower sections, veg beds for a goodly range of cabbages and honest working root crops.
There are even rose gardens, where a gardener sits on a stool listening to Steve Wright in the Afternoon, and carefully, painstakingly, ever so s-l-o-w-l-y cutting back the growth that he wind has snuffed out on the roses.
There
is some lovely simple planting, too. Three borders around a lawn
towards the house have been planted by a simple but stunningly
effective mix of alcamila mollis and nepeta.There is a separate, shady and heavily wall-protected spring garden too, but that was long past its best.
Rather elegant green slatted gates in the high walls give glimpses of the sea.
A great pub
There is a pub – one of those gloomy, stolid looking places, just down the road. But we confess we didn’t try it. They just don’t look welcoming, Scottish pubs. We’ve had the sullen looks and the grease-spotted plastic menu offering scampi and chips, breaded haddock and chips, steak and chips etc etc one too many times. Mercifully, Mey has a very superior dining room.
I’ll hand it to Charlie – he’s got great taste, and great money. What a winning combination. It means you eat hearty soup, chunky Aberdeen Angus sandwiches and, should you be inclined, scones and cakes of impeccable organic breeding, in a hall with oak tables, trademark blue tartan curtains and a great stone baronial fireplace.
They sell Scottish Black Isle beers – I had a big bottle of their organic IPA, which was so organic it was like chewing on a handful of fizzy grass.
And maybe a garden centre too?
Well, no, but I bet Charles is planning to add plant sales once he has things really running like clockwork
