Agnes Stevenson: Roll up, roll up for great garden tours… from your own home

Left to its own devices, a wildflower garden can fill itself with beautiful blooms

Covid-19 may have caused chaos but, says our expert Agnes Stevenson, gardeners are offering virtual visits so horticulture fans can view their plots.

There’s never a good time to tackle weeds, so this week, in between downpours and sometimes during them, I’ve been pulling up the masses of creeping buttercup that have infiltrated the borders.

If ever a weed was misnamed it is this one. In my garden it doesn’t move stealthily, but sprints with the speed of Usain Bolt, sending out long runners that anchor themselves into fresh soil and putting down strong roots before starting the process all over again.

This coloniser has no place in the compost heap. It goes into the brown bin where its roots will eventually be reduced to harmless mulch in some industrial composting plant.

Everyone who has ever opened their garden for Scotland’s Garden Scheme will know how quickly weeds of all kinds can creep up on you. But if you thought this valiant band of gardeners was having the summer off and letting dandelions cover the lawn, then you’d be wrong. They are working hard and today you can see the results online as part of a two-day Virtual Weekend when many garden owners will be taking viewers on tours around their plots.

A wildflower garden can be filled with dandelions

It’s a great chance to catch up with favourite gardens and visit some new ones from the comfort of your home.

And there’s even more on offer. The first ever Scottish Summer Garden Festival, organised by Discover Scottish Gardens, is still under way and lots of new events have been added online, including on August 13 a virtual tour of the trees of Armadale on Skye, a delve into the beautiful prairie gardens of Cambo Estate on August 15 and, on the same day, a virtual tour of the Abbotsford Gardens, laid out by Sir Walter Scott.

So, while many gardens across Scotland can now be visited, with social-distancing measures in place, don’t forget to make use of all the wonderful online gardening resources.

I know from my own social media feeds that more people seem to be posting pictures of their gardens than ever before. Sharing our green spaces like this is a great way to cheer up friends and family.

Sometimes, though, I think the pictures I post give a false impression of my garden. I like to snap whatever is in bloom, either on the stem or arranged in a vase, but this way no one gets to see the weeds or the disasters. And they don’t see the lettuce leaves where they’ve been nibbled by slugs or get a glimpse of the grass when it badly needs cutting.

So, instead of sharing just the single rose that didn’t get greenfly, perhaps I should start posting a few pictures of creeping buttercup to remind them that, for every perfect flower that blooms in my garden, there are just as many thugs.