Successful Open Gardens weekends

24 June 2017

All gardeners love looking at other people's gardens – even if it somwtimes makes them a bit jealous – and there were ample opportunities for this during the Open Garden days held at at Cromarty and Fortrose and Rosemarkie over the last two weekends.  Cromarty gardens, presumably building on last year's success, were on view on both Saturday and Sunday 17/18 June, in aid of local charities, and the Fortrose and Rosemarkie gardens on Saturday 24, together with an 'all day coffee morning' and plant sale, in support of Groam House museum.
 

Cromarty has the advantage of being compact, so that all the 20 plus gardens can be easily reached on foot, ranging from large gardens at the back of the High Street with woodland paths leading up to the fields behind, through sheltered and secluded cottage gardens to tiny but immaculate front gardens viewed 'over the wall'.

It was more difficult to see all the more widely scattered gardens in Fortrose and Rosemarkie, but a circuit from the 'hub' at the Gordon Memorial Hall up Rosemarkie High Street and back along Marine Terrace took in a good number.  There was a looser cluster round the Academy and the shore road in Fortrose, and visitors who took the trouble to take the steep road behind the village were rewarded with two very different but equally impressive gardens at Hillside and Lower Wards, the latter with an interesting series of pictures showing the development of the garden from the original building site.

Thanks are due to the organisers of both these events, and to all those who generously opened their gardens to the public view.