Benmore 2008

[TC]

David

I hadn't thought of swithering as an unusual word.  I thought of it as in common parlance or maybe that is because of my advanced years.  Anyway, I unswithered and went to Dawyck in time to catch the azaleas, meconopsis and the fag-end of the Rhododendrons.  For a botanic garden it is rather short of labels on the mature specimens of Rhod.  I seem to spend more of my time deep under the branches looking for the names only to find that labels are non-existant or coded with letters and numbers that mean nothing to me.
 
It's about time I paid a visit to my sister in Plymouth and visited some of the Devon and Cornwall gardens.  The Garden House is one of my favourites and should be looking good just now.  The 530 mile drive down the M6/M5 is not a pleasant experience and the cost of fuel is an added thought to take into consideration.

I think todays jaunt will be to Greenbank Garden on the outskirts of Glasgow and possibly to Pollok Park for a look at the Burrel Collection.

[TC]

This weekend, Cindy was attending a botanical art illustration course at Benmore, so we stayed locally rather than travel daily.  I was free to roam the gardens for two days photographing what was in flower.  That was the idea but two days of rain and rampant midges curtailed my plans.  However, in between downpours and getting eaten alive, I managed a few pictures.  My favourite Rhododendron was Sirius.  This is a cross between Crassum and Cinnabarinum Roylei.  The flower is a cinnabarinum at the top opening to a Crassum.  The scent was wonderful.  I noticed that the label dated it as at 1956.  There is a similar cross at Logan called Roylmadd, which looks fairly similar.  I wish they would propagate these two and make them available to the general public.

The one advantage of the recent rains is how lush the plants were looking.  It was green everywhere.

[TC]

There has been a special regatta on the Clyde to celebrate the "Fife" series yachts which were designed and built at Fairlie, on the Clyde.  These craft, some more than 100 years old are regarded by the Yachting fraternity as the "Stradivarius" of yachts.  They do look beautiful under full sail.  No modern materials here, but quality timber crafted by the best shipwrights in the trade.  We caught up with one earlier in the week accompanied by a "sailing barge".

I had hoped to see the end of the final days racing on our way to Benmore, but thanks to a force 7 wind, they went round the course about an hour quicker than expected so I arrived at Largs marina in time to see them mooring.  Even without sails they are pretty impressive.

[Lvandelft]

Beautiful pictures Tom!
Can you imagine that with ships like the Volharding in the old days
the cow manure was brought from Friesland in N. E. Netherlands, sailing
over the IJsselmeer via Amsterdam to the bulbfields in our area.
Every year there is still such a "race" in autumn with these ships to keep these
facts in memory.
Nice to see they show their yachts so far away from here!

[TC]

Luit,

Is the Volhardinga a scow -( schoewe) ?  It was not the fastest or most elegant vessel in the races but she got there just the same.  I am glad to say that there was no smell of cow manure from her !!

[Lvandelft]

Tom the Volharding is a so called Frysk Skūtsje, which will be about the same as a scow.
It's a typical ship for low waters, so they could load freight on many places in Holland.
Skūtsje = a Frisian word. Friesland is a province in Holland where is spoken an own
language which sounds a bit between English and Nordisk.
The name Volharding means Perseverance.

I found for you a website where you see more details after I wrote the above.
Here it is:
www.embercombe.co.uk/place/volharding.html

[TC]

We have had a couple of visits to Benmore on 3 and 22 October trying to see the Autumn colour.  Our Indian summer finally arrived in the form of a monsoon !  We have had about 7 inches (17 cms.) of rain in 3 days.  Yesterday we were lucky and managed to get round the garden before the rain started.  The seasons are a bit haywire with Spring Rhododendrons flowering as the Autumn colour is finishing with the wind  shredding the foliage off the trees.  Our plan was to visit Crarae gardens after Benmore but the rain and mist was so bad that we gave up and went home.  What surprised me was the amount of snow on the hills with the temperature at sea level a chilly 5c in a near gale.  Much to our surprise, when we got to Glasgow, it was sunny and dry.  What a difference 30 miles can make in this country.

Benmore seems to be undergoing a makeover with the renovation of an old Victorian Fernery and clearance of old commercial trees to be replanted with Rhododendrons and Sorbus varieties.  Here are a few colorful pictures of what it looked like yesterday.
Caption should read Rh. Thomsonii not Thonsonii