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Rare opportunity to see crofthouse garden

A green-fingered businesswoman is hoping flower power can help a North-east charity.

Financial director Helen Rushton will be opening her garden to the public next weekend, showcasing rare horticultural attractions including gigantic Himalayan lilies and the Scottish primrose, a plant seldom seen in the region.

Helen, whose day job involves number-crunching for oil and gas engineering consultancy Magma Products Ltd, spent 10 years creating the informal country cottage garden at her family’s renovated crofthouse at Rothiemorman.

Originally just a bare field it now extends to approximately 1.5 acres and encompasses a series of garden ‘rooms’ including a gravel plot with alpines, an orchard, herbaceous borders, fruit and vegetable garden and wildflower meadow and pond.

The garden will be open, as part of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, from 12noon to 5pm on Sunday, July 10, when jams and preserves, including spiced tomato jelly and rhubarb chutney, made from some of the garden produce will be on sale.

Helen, who particularly loves primulas, has about 20 different varieties on display, including the mauve Primula scotica which is normally only found on Scotland’s north coast heaths and is expected to be in flower this month.

She grows five impressive lily species including the spectacular Cardiocrinum giganteum, which grows to 3m and is currently blooming, plus C. cathayanum and C.cordatum.

“The scent in the garden at the moment is just spectacular,” said Helen, “and I hope people will come out to experience the beauty that we enjoy here and help us to raise money for Advocacy Service Aberdeen which provides such a great service locally for people, mainly those with disabilities, and their families.”

Admission to Bruckhills Croft near Rothienorman is £4, concessions £3 and free for children. For more information go to http://www.gardensofscotland.org.

Bruckhills Croft Directions: from Inverurie take the B9001 to Rothienorman. Continue on for approx 2.5 miles till you come to Badenscoth Nursing Home on the right, go round the 1st sharp bend and take the road on the left which is on the 2nd sharp bend. Take the 2nd track on the left (tarmac with a Bruckhills sign). As you go through the fir trees into the farm yard, take a sharp right, follow the line of fir trees and we are at the end of the lane.