Greens garden

Greens garden This is a story of an island garden in the north of Scotland. Now it is full of life and colours all year round.

Created from nothing by a couple of amateurs, using mostly found and reclaimed materials including driftwood.

We have some rare sunshine today! To celebrate it, here are a few photos of a couple of our summer pots. ☀️Post yours in...
07/09/2026

We have some rare sunshine today! To celebrate it, here are a few photos of a couple of our summer pots. ☀️

Post yours in comments if you can. 🙂

Visitors sometimes ask us what magic we do that we manage to grow so many different plants and the garden is looking so ...
07/09/2026

Visitors sometimes ask us what magic we do that we manage to grow so many different plants and the garden is looking so full.

The truth is - there is no magic. It's a result of endless trying and endless errors and failures, which are all followed by more trying. In the garden you only see what is working. You don't see what hasn't worked over the years and you don't see the graveyard of all plants that didn't make it, either due to our own mistakes or due to the horrendous windy and wet winters.

One of the fine examples of a recent failure and near addition to the plant graveyard is this Lobelia tupa. After 3 years in the garden it finally made a decent clump of flowering stems last summer. So this spring, just as it began to show new growth, we decided to split it up and have a rather special addition to our summer plant sale. Wrong. Not only did both separated crowns died, but the mother plant got damaged in the process and almost died too. We pretty much got right back to the beginning with it and there are no flowers for us this year.

Lesson learned, we won't touch our Lobelia tupa. We almost ended up with a gap in the border and another plant in the plant graveyard.


There is just too much grass in the garden so we are getting rid of this annoying lawn corner at the top of the garden a...
06/09/2026

There is just too much grass in the garden so we are getting rid of this annoying lawn corner at the top of the garden and we are extending the kidney shaped rose bed to become a large perennial bed in days to come. Most of the plants are already here, we just need to get hold of a special climber, but we are already working on that too. 🙂

New beginnings! 🤩

This dwarf Astilbe chinensis v. pumila is in bloom right now, long after most of the other astilbes have finished flower...
05/09/2026

This dwarf Astilbe chinensis v. pumila is in bloom right now, long after most of the other astilbes have finished flowering. It adds a ping of freshness to the bog bed, which is in its prime from mid-June until mid-July.

We created the bog bed 5 years ago when we got fed up of harvesting rotten tatties from this part of the garden due to the water retention of the heavy clay soil there. Growing plants there instead gives us much more enjoyment all year round. 🙂

This astilbe has now begun to colonise empty spaces around it. It's doing wonders! 👌



First flowers on Eucryphia hillieri Winton which we brought from our travels in May. Exciting times! 🤩 Just like with mo...
03/09/2026

First flowers on Eucryphia hillieri Winton which we brought from our travels in May. Exciting times! 🤩

Just like with most newly introduced plants in our garden, the winter ahead holds all the cards and we have no option but to wait and see what happens in the spring. Will the plants live or die? The chances are fifty-fifty. And it's our constant trying that gives the garden the plants diversity it has today.

Fingers crossed for this Eucryphia, it would be a lovely tree to establish here. 🤞



Work in progress on the new hedging at the top of the garden. The full story will follow soon. In the meantime, we are o...
01/09/2026

Work in progress on the new hedging at the top of the garden. The full story will follow soon. In the meantime, we are on a hunt for more woodchip so we can finish the job. 🪏💪

We planted a baby fern on the shoulder of this stunning driftwood chunk. The wood is already soft and there was a wee ga...
01/09/2026

We planted a baby fern on the shoulder of this stunning driftwood chunk. The wood is already soft and there was a wee gap there, just asking for something to be growing out of it! In the shade of all the shrubs behind it, we thought a fern would be the best fitting plant. 🙂

Happy Monday to you all! This post will hopefully add to your gardening knowledge. And if it makes you smile, even bette...
31/08/2026

Happy Monday to you all!

This post will hopefully add to your gardening knowledge. And if it makes you smile, even better. 🙂

🤫 We have kept a small secret all summer. Come for a wee tour through the garden and a talk about mulching and other th...
29/08/2026

🤫

We have kept a small secret all summer.

Come for a wee tour through the garden and a talk about mulching and other things. The link is in comments.

Thank you, Hannah and Will, for putting it all together. It was a great day in your company! 😉




Earlier this summer we presented here our Moraea alticola, a rather special African plant. We introduced it into Greens ...
25/08/2026

Earlier this summer we presented here our Moraea alticola, a rather special African plant. We introduced it into Greens garden last spring, it overwintered in a well drained bed without problems. Its flower resembles an iris and it is beautiful.

When we bought it though, we had no idea how it would flower, the attraction was somewhere else - in the foliage! Seemingly just dark green long leaves, nothing much different from many other plants. Except, have you ever seen a plant with leaves dressed in lace 'stockings'?

We couldn't believe it either when we saw it at the nursery. And we knew from that moment it would make a great addition to all the weird and wonderful plants we tend to gather in our garden. 🙂

Stay tuned for more exciting plants.



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Appin Argyll
Port Appin
PA38 4BD

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