Greenbank Garden

Greenbank Garden, Clarkston, near Glasgow, Scotland is an 18th-century house owned and operated by the National Trust for Scotland and open to the public. The house is situated about about six miles from the centre of Glasgow. The house has sixteen rooms, and also barns, stables and a 2.5 acre walled garden.

History

The Georgian house was built in 1763 by a Glasgow merchant by the name of Robert Allason. Allason was a local man who had begun life as a baker, before setting up with his brothers in Port Glasgow as a trader. He made his fortune trading with Britain's American colonies, eventually becoming a land-holder in the Caribbean. The profits from trade in both tobacco and slaves, allowed him to purchase Flenders Farm (land his family had worked for centuries) and establish the house.cite web|url=http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/glasgow/greenbankgarden/index.html|title=Greenbank Garden|work=UndiscoveredScotland|accessdate=2008-09-23] However, Allason's trading interests later suffered during the American War of Independence.cite web|url=http://www.rampantscotland.com/visit/blvisitgreenbank.htm|title=Places to Visit in Scotland - Greenbank Gardens, Clarkston|work=Rampantscotland.com|accessdate=2008-09-23]

Over the next two centuries, the house was owned by a number of families. In 1962 it was bought by W P Blyth who, with his wife, transformed the grounds from fruit and vegetable growing to the ornamental gardens that are seen today. Then, in 1976, Blyth gifted the house, walled garden, and the 16-acre estate to the National Trust for Scotland. Today, the Gardens are open all year round, and the house from March until October.

Description

Described as an "educational garden to inspire and educate visitors on what and how to grow a very wide range of more unusual plants which are available in the trade", Greenbank Garden's distinctive feature is its use of hedging and tall plants to divide the gardens into about a twelve distinctly characteristic areas. The gardens contain over 3,700 plantscite web|url=http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/28/|title=Property Details for Greenbank Gardens|publisher=National Trust for Scotland|accessdate=2008-09-23] depending on the season. These include spring bulbs, apple and cherry blossom, astilbe, aubretia, deutzia, dicentra, saxifrages, hydrangeas, primulas, dahlias, roses, philadelphus, azalea, rhododendron, lythrum, crocosmia, phlox, cosmos, echinops, sedum, lavatera, monarda, helenium and sweet william, as well as rodgersia pinnata superba, echevaria gibbiflora metallica and agrostemma. The National Trust operates a tea-room next to the garden, where there is a substantial encyclopædia of plants, allowing visitors to identify specimens they do not recognise.

As well as the walled garden and the house, there are also 16 acres of woodland marked particularly by rhododendrons. The woodland also contains a herd of Highland cattle.

References

External links

* [http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/28/ National Trust for Scotland website]
* [http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/glasgow/greenbankgarden/index.html Feature on Undiscovered Scotland]