Arduaine Garden hails back to 1897 when James Arthur Campbell, a tea merchant, reportedly sailed up and down the west coast of Scotland with his wife Ethel, looking for somewhere to build a garden and a house. They settled on Arduaine, a Gaelic word meaning ‘green headland’ or ‘green point’.
As with Osgood Mackenzie 30 years earlier at Inverewe, he’d set himself quite a task, planting a garden on such an exposed hillside. Shelter planting for the woodland garden was begun in 1898, although rabbits made short work of the Douglas firs initially planted. Rhododendrons were first introduced in 1908, and this collection boomed in the late 1920s with over 200 species growing at Arduaine by that time.
Arduaine is a special place with regard to its climate. Although a west coast garden like Crarae (just 15 miles away as the crow flies), it is on average 5C warmer than Crarae and enjoys far milder winters – -1C is considered cold here. Plants (like Zantedeschia) that normally grow in glasshouses in Scotland can be found thriving by the pond. The tree ferns do not need wrapped up in winter here either.
James Arthur Campbell died in 1929 and the garden passed into the care of his son and then his grandson. Many historic gardens fell into disrepair during wartime, but in the 1970s, the Wright brothers bought the garden and significantly increased the rhododendron collection as well as digging ponds and replanting beds.
In 1992, the National Trust for Scotland took on the care of this beautiful garden, in view of the national importance of its plant collection and design. We’ve had three Head Gardeners in that time: Maurice Wilkins, Gregor Anderson and most recently Mark Brent – all of whom have worked hard to share the beauty of this unique west coast garden.
