Elgin Gardens weekend

Everything blooms in the fruitful vale of Elgin as we discovered this last weekend when we went to the Elgin Open Gardens weekend.

The roses growing everywhere are quite, quite amazing. From huge hedges to pergolas to individual beds and standards, we could not stop gasping at the glorious show of both old and new style roses. Don’t forget to smell the roses as some of the older varieties have sensational perfumes.

We started at Fresh Woods, a garden we have delighted in before, where the show of different plants, both rare and local, and planted landscapes is amazing.

Out came our cameras and we snapped away like crazy. Lynne’s favourite was seeing the very rare tulip tree from the USA in full bloom and because there were low flowering branches, she was able to see the ‘tulip’ flowers in detail. She has only ever seen this tree in Kew and the flowers there were high in the canopy.

They have a lovely Japanese Acer garden being established and this has rather inspired us.

 Next we were off to Eikenhof

for a bite of lunch – gammon and salad or quiche and salad and the most divine apple tart swimming in honey.

Their formal gardens have a very English flavour – we just missed the bluebells - and is at its peak at the moment. There was an exhibition of stunning, detailed botanical art and it is selling very well. Don’t miss the birds everywhere and the bees building their nest in an oak tree.

Then we went down to the opposite end of the valley to see the lovely water gardens at Lorraine

where we bought some real (organic) farm butter and some of the best fresh apple juice either of us have tasted. On to the nursery at Keurbos for a look at the plants and their very wild garden

and then it was time to join our hosts for the weekend, the very hospitable Paul and Nicky Wallace of Elgin Vintners, at their house

for a delicious dinner and probably far too much good wine,

including Paul’s extremely dark and delicious licorice and mulberry Black Dog Malbec.

Next morning, we were shown their farm from the bank of their hill top dam and John took lots of photos of their local blue cranes, our national bird.

We then visited their friends at Duncan’s roses and picked up two pale cream climbing roses to put around our front door.


Then on to our friends the Gowers on their farm,


and the Wallace’s friend Andrea Semple of Topiary Creations, who makes super décor items out of leaves and branches

and, finally, on to the Elgin Vintners tasting room for a tasting of the wines.