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"View Slideshow\n\nThe road through the Scottish Highlands from Inverness to the Western Isles is one of the most scenic in all the British Isles. It twists and climbs through mountains covered in pine forest, then strikes straight as an arrow across desolate moorland cloaked in purple heather and green bracken fern to the shores of Loch Carron. The play of light can be dramatic, with rain squalls sweeping in from the Kyle of Lochalsh followed by long, bright, sunny spells\u2014a landscape of sunlight and shadow filled with swirling mist and rainbows.\n\nLying along Loch Carron's southern shore is the 32,000-acre estate of Attadale. Historically part of the Clan Matheson's lands, Attadale today is owned by Ewen Macpherson, who took over the property from his father in 1977, and his wife, Nicky.\n\nIn about 1890 Captain William Schroder began laying out a handsome garden around the turreted 1755 manor house (featured in recent years in the BBC television drama Hamish Macbeth) to accommodate his collection of woody plants. He focused on spring-blooming rhododendrons and conifers, among them California coastal redwoods.\n\nThese mature trees suffered devastating damage from a series of savage gales in 1984 and 1989, inspiring Nicky Macpherson to embark on an ambitious restoration plan. She also decided to add new garden spaces: a water garden along the driveway, a fern garden in the shelter of a cliff and a Japanese garden in a woodland glen. \"After 100-year-old trees blew down during the storms, the craters left by their massive roots filled with black, peaty water,\" she explains. \"And I realized that by enlarging them to form pools fed by an old millstream, I could create a perfect habitat for bog plants such as water lilies and primulas.\" With the help of garden designer Michael Innes, who trained at Kew Gardens and was an adviser to The National Trust for Scotland, she developed 20 acres of cultivated gardens.\n\nThe water garden is her favorite. Running parallel to the main driveway, with a series of pond levels and bog areas connected by cascades, it has the appearance of a natural mountain burn.\n\n\"Winter chill is important for many of the plants in the water garden, but our climate is influenced by the Gulf Stream, which tempers the frost and makes it possible for us to grow outdoors subtropical plants like Brazilian gunnera and even New Zealand tree ferns,\" she says. Snow is increasingly rare, and it tends to lie in the garden for only a day or two. \"Our biggest problem at Attadale is the terrain: It is either too steep or too boggy. Fortunately, Himalayan rhododendrons can gain footholds on some of the steep parts, while Asian primulas relish the flat, moist areas.\"\n\nShe plants mainly for color harmonies and leaf contrasts. An especially beautiful combination is the ghostly white bark of a Kashmir birch ringed with rosy-pink candelabra primroses and native yellow flag irises. Also a favorite are the blue Himalayan poppies partnered with the soft apricot of another primrose hybrid.\n\nThe blues of Himalayan poppies can be variable, but those at Attadale are the deepest sky blue, the result of a cross between two species, Meconopsis betonicifolia and Meconopsis grandis. A cliff overhang nearby provides the cool environment they demand, even in the height of summer.\n\nBehind the house, in a woodland dell, is an abandoned quarry where a mature colony of red-flowering rhododendrons grows close to vertical cliffs, their sinuous, shiny trunks contrasting with the dripping, moss-covered quarry walls. \"The dim light creates an almost magical atmosphere,\" Nicky Macpherson observes. \"And in winter the drips freeze into huge icicles, turning the dell into an ice cavern.\"\n\nMore rhododendrons furnish shade for the fern garden, which head gardener Geoff Stephenson has landscaped with rocks, a small waterfall and a pond. He built a glass geodesic dome to house delicate tropical ferns, but many others are grown outdoors.\n\nThe restoration process revealed the old algae-covered stone walls and fieldstone paths of a neglected formal quadrant garden in front of the house. It is now planted with hardy perennials, shielded from the winds off the loch with hedges of rugosa roses. Masses of magenta-flowering Geranium macorrhizum and airy pale pink London pride form low, spreading ground covers.\n\nAn enclosed vegetable garden, located a few steps from the kitchen door, has also been restored. Though vegetables were once considered difficult to grow in the damp climate and sodden peat, drainage has improved the saturated soil. Now peas, lettuces and green beans are grown to perfection.\n\nMost of the estate is uncultivated hillside, with two peaks rising more than 3,000 feet. Nicky Macpherson recognizes the importance of maintaining the property's Scottish wilderness aura, and she has succeeded in creating gardens that merge with the wild Highland landscape.\n\nAttadale Gardens, in Strathcarron, Wester Ross, Scotland, are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., from April through October. For more information, visit www.attadale.com or telephone 44-1520-722-603."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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