In April, the garden is illuminated by many different kinds of narcissi, which, being poisonous, are left alone by wildlife. They also have the advantage of bulking up so that, after a few years, you will have hundreds. Varieties including old pheasant’s eye narcissus and earlier-flowering, sweetly scented ‘Actaea’, run through the wild garden on the periphery. There, they mix freely with delicate purple-chequered Fritillaria meleagris: a native of damp meadows, this naturalises well in rough grass and, though it can take a few years to become established, will reward patience with a sea of seemingly fragile flowers that can nevertheless stand up to the worst the weather can throw at them. Its dusky, bell-shaped blooms are complemented by nodding cowslips and a low blue carpet of muscari, scillas, puschkinias and chionodoxas on either side of meandering mown paths. ‘These lead you on a journey through the garden – starting in the wild areas, they take you past a spiral viewing mound to the formal series of rooms at the heart of the space,’ Janey says.
Irish yews frame box and holly topiary by the front door.
Sabina Rüber
On walking round Blackdykes, following an uncharacteristically dry winter, it is clear how good the planting is. Clipped beech hedges – still bronze in April with last year’s leaves – enfold beds of freshly emerging perennials such as euphorbia, pulmonaria, peony and dicentra. Small trees and shrubs left in their natural form, including ornamental cherries, magnolias, philadelphus and syringa grow in the wild garden, along with species roses. You want to pause, linger, look and go back to check that it was as good as you thought it was. Happily, Janey has thought of that, too, with many seats and benches to tempt you to stay, although whether she herself ever sits on any of them throughout the busy spring is another matter.
Blackdykes is open June 19-20 this year. Visit scotlandsgardens.org
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