Blackhills - a bit of magic in Moray

It seems ages since my last blog post and I seem to remember we were in the grip of the 'Beast from the East' with minus 11 temps and heavy snowfall. Well its now April and we have gales, windchill and ... you guessed it, more snow. Even though, in between, we have had a few warmish days, Spring is taking a bit of time to get going this year and winter really doesn't seem that keen to let go. The early tulips that opened up a few days ago are lying flattened along side the daffodils...ughhh. One thing that keeps me going through winter is the thought of garden visits, and one very special one in particular.

A couple of years ago I spotted an event on Facebook for a garden open day just along the road at the other side of Lhanbryde. It was for a place called Blackhills Estate. I'd mentioned it to a friend who had visited it years ago and she told me that it hadn't been opened for a few years. As it turned out the large mansion house on the estate had suffered from a rather catastrophic fire in 2015 which started in the basement and the house was pretty much destroyed and I guess that opening the garden after that was the least of their concerns. You can read about it here

My friend was very keen to return to the garden and described its wonderful path called the 'Primula Walk' that was full of candelabra primulas - my favourites, and that was all the encouragement I needed. So on a beautiful warm early summer day we drove through to the estate, it's in the Moray countryside which is pleasant but not the kind of dramatic scenery that you find on the West Coast of Scotland instead it is more utilitarian, speaking more of its rich agricultural heritage with large rolling fields, pockets of woodland, you know the kind of landscape.

My friend described Blackhills as a woodland garden with some nice rhododendrons, talk about the understatement of the century! We parked in a field that rapidly filled with cars and walked through a small collection of outbuildings where we got a glimpse of the poor house, just a burned out shell of what had once been a very grand building, now surrounded by fencing. And then I caught the scent of an azalea. When I turned round I was confronted by the plant which stood a good 15 plus foot tall. It was immense and absolutely covered in blooms. We headed down a narrow path between the buildings into woodland and I can still remember, looking up and seeing the most incredible sight, it was like a film set, a perfectly still dew pond with towering rhododendrons the height of trees reflected in the water. (See the pic at the top) It was pure magic. A beautifully warm day, the scent of the azaleas in the air and the sunlight dancing joyously through the new leaves.

The garden is actually in a fairly steep sided ravine, that is not evident from the drive to it. It covers approx 60 acres and is formed by two glacial valleys that form a 'C' shape. It was created by Thomas Christie in the early 1900's. Christie, a retired tea plantation owner filled the garden with notable Tibetan and Chinese rhododendron varieties as well as other plants and there are currently an estimated 360 varieties of rhoddie in the garden today that benefit from the microclimate created by the ravine.

As we continued along the path, I noticed a new 'fragrance', a not so pleasant one and in an area of bog linking the two pond I caught my first glimpse of the culprit. American skunk cabbage! This jurassic-looking plant has become quite the invader over here with its ability to spread rapidly along waterways not unlike the giant hogweed that now runs riot through Moray. En masse though, it looks amazing with its huge leaves and prominent yellow flower spike. Further along the path the landscape flattens out a little as you walk round the larger of the two ponds. It's much more open and the dragonflies are in abundance. Just at the end of this path there is a gateway and a minor road and a sense, just for a moment, that you are back in the real world although I suspect that driving past you wouldn't even know that the garden was there as just beyond the gateway there is a boggy glade of willow screening the road. At the end of the pond there is a small overflow weir reminding us that these very natural ponds were actually a man-made structure before we made our way along the path on the now shaded side of the pond, past a clematis that had climbed to the top of its host tree and back towards the first pond and the magnificent towering rhododendrons.

From here there are two options, to return past the end of the pond to head back to the steading or continue to the left where the path rises steeply up the side of the ravine into what feels like conifer plantation. The mood changes, its darker, cooler almost a little creepy. The path becomes harder to traverse. But, here and there the light makes it through the trees, tantalisingly highlighting the ground beneath.

As the path descends you become aware again of the odd rhododendron shrubs in small clearings and the path takes you once again back into the sunny side of the ravine and along a stretch hit by dappled light and the candelabra primulas.

Once again there was the familiar scent of the azaleas and the path was strewn with speckled wood butterflies taking advantage of the warmth and heath-like environment. Although at this point we were heading back to the steading and a welcome cup of tea, there was one last 'tree-t' in store. In a clearing, up ahead we came across an Ent!

I wish I had taken note of the variety of tree, I have a vague memory that it was Japanese, I don't quite remember but it was the most extraordinary tree you could imagine with various enchanted faces looking out of the trunk.

Round another corner we were suddenly back at the steading, cuppa in hand being serenaded by a harpist as we sat under the shade of a beautiful red Acer reflecting on the magic of Blackhills. It's a memory I was able to hold until the following year when I took my mum for a visit and she too was captured under its spell and all winter I consoled myself with the fact that I would make this a regular annual visit so long as the garden was open. Then Covid19 happened and for 2020 we were in lockdown and no garden visits happened at all. Despite Covid scuppering the opening of the garden last year there are plans to open in May this year...dates to be confirmed, this often depends when they expect the rhododendrons to be at their absolute best. So fingers crossed it goes ahead and double fingers crossed for a lovely warm day...with no snow!

I'm also pleased to say that the Christie family who vowed to have the house rebuilt were true to their word and that the house was indeed reconstructed and restored to its finer glory in 2020. Blackhills have a facebook page with loads more pictures here and a website